Is the Taj Mahal overrated?

Is the Taj Mahal overrated?

• I have visited it.  It is indeed grand, but I am not convinced whether it can qualify as a "World's Wonder". It is really one of the world's best?  How does it compare with, say, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, or Winter Palace, St Petersburg ?

• Answer:

  Despite being an Indian, I saw the Taj Mahal only when I was 40! I had heard a lot about it. I was fed the mandatory diet of most Indian girls, of the love story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal  in cinemas and poetry and music, and sighed and cried along with them. I had poured over that wonderful issue of LIFE magazine featuring the Taj with its stunning photos again and again. And always at the back of my mind was the knowledge that I would one day visit the Taj. I also was well aware of the fact that there was the high probability that it may prove to be a disappointment, as is the case with most hyped up expectations. Well, at the grand old age of 40, well past the romantic age, accompanied by a reluctant husband, I made my way to the Taj. The drive from Delhi was long and arduous, not promising. The roads were good, but the traffic! Less said about it the better! As we neared Agra, we found that we had to go through the city. One would think that our Government, would take some effort in facilitating the way to the Taj. Make an easier route or a by-pass of the Agra town! But no.That is not the way the Indian Government treats the single most important tourist attraction of our country, and arguably the world's most famous structure. They seem to take a perverse pleasure in making the tourist experience as traumatic as possible. After all we are Indian and 'we are like that only.' Finally we reached the Taj, and to our dismay we found that it was Friday, and it was free entry that day. The queue around it snaked twice around the Taj, two miles long! My husband promptly said that he would be damned if he was to spend most of the day in the queue, and said that we would have to come back another time. There was no way of persuading him otherwise. We lingered awhile, with the teeming crowds around us, the hawkers and the touts, the camel and horse carts. They were letting in the people by a side door and letting them out by the front door. Every time a few people came out the front door would open. I went there to see if I could at least get a glimpse of the Taj through it. The tall guard standing there saw me prancing around trying to get a peep, and asked 'Andhar jane ka hai?' (Do you want to go in?) I nodded but pointed miserably at the queue and my husband.He smiled, opened the door and waved me through!! We were elated. Quickly we slipped in, before someone saw this or he changed his mind. We quickly mingled with the crowds inside. It was packed. there seemed to be millions of people there! Then I looked up and saw her, the Taj. My breath stopped.We stood there stunned, wonder struck. It was unbelievable. Slowly the crowds around us seemed to fade away. The noise seemed to die down. You could not see anything else but her. She was riveting. She seemed to be floating there in front of us, not really real. She seemed like a figment of our imagination, a dream. There really are no words to describe it. How could something be so perfect? How  could Man, with all his frailties make something so perfect? There she stood, completely removed from all the crowds and noise and dust and dirt and mediocrity swirling around. Nothing touched her. She was above all, uncaring, unmoved, remote and beautiful, content in her own being, her own inaccessibility. Slowly we walked closer and around. We came back and stood in front again, to gaze again at this ethereal unreal edifice. Here was the perfect metaphor for our country. The beauty of India surrounded by all its ugliness, timeless and untouched by the roiling, broiling humanity and confusion around. We can go back, again and again, braving everything, just for this one experience.