A lovestruck and historically minded Indian husband has emulated the world’s most famous display of marital devotion by building for his wife a replica of the Taj Mahal.
The original “Monument to Love” was constructed on the orders of heartbroken Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz, in the 17th century.
Anand Prakash Chouksey’s beloved remains very much alive, and even helped consult on the project and his version of the marble wonder of the world, around one-third the size of the original.
Photo: AFP
“My wife’s only demand was for a meditation room. She’s a spiritual woman,” the 52-year-old businessman said.
“She says the dome creates a different environment and there is a lot of positive energy,” he added.
The original Taj Mahal — dubbed a “teardrop on the cheek of time” by writer Rabindranath Tagore — is in Agra south of Delhi, while the new replica is 800km away in Burhanpur.
The central Indian city is none other than the place where Mumtaz died while giving birth to her 14th child in June 1632, having accompanied Shah Jahan to quell a local revolt.
Mumtaz’s body was even initially buried there too, and according to locals Shah Jahan had at first wanted to build the Taj Mahal for her on the banks of the river Tapti.
“The soil structure back then was not suitable to build the Taj here that’s how it was decided to be built in Agra,” Chouksey said.
The city is still home to the dilapidated remains of the palace where the royals lived, including a once-beautiful hammam or bathhouse built by Shah Jahan for his wife to relax in before she died.
Chouksey’s story has none of the tragedy and building his new home has taken him three years — a dozen less than the mausoleum that inspired it.
It cost 15 million rupees (US$199,859) to build.
“We used marble from Makrana to build the house, which is the same that was used to build the Taj Mahal,” he said.
Chouksey plans to mount an Indian flag on top of the main dome and add symbols from India’s most popular religions to the four minarets surrounding his new manor.
“We want to send a message of peace and religious harmony. There is a lot of hate around. Love solves all problems in life and Taj Mahal is a symbol of that,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing