Arjumand Bano Begum died on 17 June,1631 during a childbirth. She was delivering her 14th child. She was only 38 then.
But she was no ordinary mother, nor any common woman. She was the most beloved queen of Emperor of Hindustan, Shahab-uddin Muhammad Khurram, popularly known as Shah Jehan. He called her favourite queen Mumtaj Mahal.
Born Arjumand Bano Begum, Mumtaj Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess and a niece of Noor Jehan was just 15 years when 14-year-old Khurram spotted her in a royal Meena Bazar of Agra selling silk and glass beads. It was love at first sight and the young Prince lost no time in declaring her love for this young callow beauty of exceptional tenderness and exquisite attraction. Five years later they were married on a date chosen by the Court Astrologer. And what a time and date chosen for the marriage- it made their marriage a celebration, a memory that will ever be envied and aspired for every loving and caring husbands and wife, etching it immutably on the sandstone of time transcending generations and defying the limits of ephemeral temporal association and making it as an age defining event.
Shah Jahan himself was born in Lahore in 1592 to Emperor Jehangir in Lahore, then the capital of Mughal Empire as Prince Shahab-uddin Muhammad Khurram. He was named Khurram – ‘The Joyful’ by his grandfather the great Akbar. Khurram, like most of Mughal emperors had to fight a battle for succession, the most formidable challenge coming from Khusru- son of Noor Jahan from an earlier marriage. Khurram did succeed to become the king but only after a bloody war of succession in which Khusru had to be done to death.
Mumtaj Mahal, in fact, breathed her last in a place known as Burhanpur (now in Madhya Pradesh) and in those times the capital of Deccan province where once Shah Jahan was posted as Governor. Her physical remains after her death were interred in a grave on the banks of river Tapti in Burhanpur and were ceremoniously brought from Burhanpur to Agra in January 1632 till it found its permanent abode in Taj Mahal. In 1666 when Shah Jahan died at the age of 74, his body was laid by the side of his wife, one concession that his son Aurangzeb was gracious enough to make.
When Shah Jahan heard of his wife’s death, he was shattered. So grief stricken was he, that he declared the court to observe two year’s mourning, suspending every occasion of joy and celebration in the entire kingdom. And this sense of loss, never abandoned him nor diminish in intensity even 35 years after Mumtaj Mahal died. As in his last years, confined and incarcerated in a chamber of Agra Fort, the windows of which overlooked the mesmerizing Taj Mahal, his only solace was her abiding memory.
This incredibly beautiful, exquisite and magnificent monument commemorating and immortalizing love was erected after the toil and labor of 22 years. For over a score of years, more than 20,000 artisans, craftsmen, masons and artists drawn from all over the Mughal Empire toiled day and night to erect this magnificence in stone. Edwin Arnold, the English poet described it as “not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.” Many of these artisans and craftsmen were never allowed to be engaged by anyone else or for creating anything close to the perfection of this monument, such was Shah Jahan’s determination to make Taj Mahal only one of its kind.
Taj Mahal’s splendor and resplendence is in a large measure due to the use of marble in its construction. A large variety of marble was used brought from different parts of the country and abroad including Rajasthan, Punjab, China, Tibet, Afghanistan Sri Lanka and Arabia. More than 1000 elephants were procured and pressed into the difficult and time consuming task of transporting the marble blocks and pieces that went into the making of the monument.
Over 28 varieties of semi-precious and precious stones along with gold, silver and copper were used to embellish and adorn Taj for the exquisite and intricate in-lay work, for which there are few parallels. Such was the design and choice of marble and stones that the color of the monument appeared to change at different times of the day. Calligraphy and painting by the best of those times, adorned every aspect of this poetry frozen in stone.
Taj Mahal has been the subject of poems, stories, novels, literary work, paintings, sculpture-in short- anything by way of creative urge that a human mind and imagination can conceive of. It has been praised, adored, eulogized but also occasionally portrayed as a symbol that could be created only by the emperors and kings only to slight the equally intense and immortal love of common men.
Sahir Ludhianvi wrote a touching, poignant poem on Taj lamenting the poor’s helplessness in immortalizing their love, in no way less intense or insincere or deep as that of emperors and royals.
Taj tere liye ek majhare ulfat he sahi
Tujhko is wad-i-ye rangin se akidat he sahi
Mere mehboob kahi aur mila kar mujh se!
Ye chamanjar ye Jamna ka kinara, ye mahal
Ye munaqqash daro–diwar, ye mehrab, ye taq
Ek shahanshah ne daulat ka sahara lekar
Ham garibo ki mohabbat ka udaya hai majak
Mere mehboob kahi aur mila kar mujh se!
Majrooh Sultanpuri, however, had a different take when he said,
Ek shahanshah ne banwa ke hasin Tajmahal;
Sari duniya ko muhabbat ki nishani dee hai.”
Kings and queens, monarchs, princes and princesses, Heads of State, powerful politicians, celebrities, high and mighty- few who could resist the temptation of visiting Taj and get photographed with this beautiful monument of eternal love in the backdrop. But one of the most poignant and talked about photographs is one in which Princess Diana is sitting on a bench later to become famous as Lady Di’s Chair, alone, sad, forlorn and lost.
In 1992 she and her husband Prince Charles were on an official visit to India and it was expected that Prince Charles will be accompanying Diana to Taj. He chose, however, a business engagement at the same time.
Later the same year they divorced.
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