The Taj Mahal and the Road to Delhi

Today we went to the Taj Mahal. The beauty of the area is not the masoleum itself --at least in my opinion--but the peace that the surroundings give. It's mathematically designed to look small from far away--but as you walk closer you are stuck by this massive building. The level of care built into each detail is extraordinary. Once inside the cool marble makes a shuts out the bright sun, and an ornately carved candelabra illuminates a dais, where, set behind 6 foot screens of filigreed marble, stands the slender sarcophagus holds the body of the Shah's favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It is pristine, precise and almost perfect. Occupying most left side of the dais is the tomb of the Shah himself. It rises over the top of the marble screen, and does not follow any symetry of the structures surrounding it. Although he had expressedly requested that she be buried alone, he was laid next to her on the orders of his son, Aurangazeb.

Coming to that site and seeing the Shah's grave thrown onto the dais made a thought clear that had been percolating through my brain for the past few days: Governments can be terribly insensitive.

I don't mean to be glib, and the Taj Mahal is an achingly poetic monument to a pair of lovers, such that even in death the power of what they felt can be felt by everyone around them. What I mean to say, is that Aurangazeb deliberately flouted his father's careful planning to do what turn the Shah's legacy into what exactly men in power were expected to do, establish their supremacy, notwithstanding any previously existing structure. To analogize this to Indian politics, recalls the dissonance that the Dalit movement has with post-Independence nationalism. The purpose of the reservation policy is thus obscured a general reluctance to acknowledge their legacy of oppression and discrimination. Without this acknowledgment, reservation policies will continue to inspire criticism.

On the road back to Delhi I saw something that I found as evocative, but for different reasons.
I had started to drift off as the sun was setting over rice fields. I have never seen the sky look this way. The sun was about the size of my fist in the sky and was a strong gold-red. It looked like it was burning through low clouds on its way to the horizon. I can't help but make a comparison here to lasting change for the Dalit movement. True change is hard won, but it nothing ever changed, nothing would ever happen.