From New Delhi we started on a sunny day: Our goal was to drive to the Taj all the way.
Through roads with traffic heavy we reached at last The Grand Trunk Road with vehicles, moving slow and fast.
Cars, trucks, bullock carts, rickshaws motorized, Cycles bearing more than one, and buses oversized:
All seemed to roll as they pleased, which made one suspect There were no traffic rules wielding much respect.
Cars honked and passed at will, both left and right, Emitting thick exhaust fumes, our windows were shut tight.
Past Mathura and Brindavan where Krishna had once played, We saw scores of little towns where people lived and prayed.
Past accidents on the roads and trucks broken down, We reached at long last the famous Agra town.
Is this Agra, this the town of which my fancy cherished! So, like Wordsworth seeing Yarrow , an image that just perished.
We parked the car in a crowded lot and took a van to Taj: That magnificent monument of the extinct Mogul Raj.
We stood and saw the awesome Taj with blue sky behind, To describe it and its charm, words we couldn’t find.
Stupendous and glorious, proud and serene, It was a feast to our eyes, this wondrous great scene.
Its symmetry was striking, its majesty so grand, It was the most beautiful structure on that land.
The marble and the etchings, the ornate profusion, The architect’s devices to cause optical illusion,
The minarets and domes, the mosques on either side,
The peaceful tank that lay on pathways long and wide:
Seeing the tombs within the building, of the king and his queen
We exclaimed once more, “Such beauty we have seldom seen!”
This wonder of a building is now for all to see
But few remember its architect whose name was Ahmad Lahauri.
Man has built grand structures, some scrape the sky.
They’re all so beautiful, none can this deny.
But of those that I have seen, in the East and in the West
The Taj I always recall as among the very best.
It is sad that the Mogul’s wife died when still very young. But if she’d lived to ninety three, would the Taj have ever sprung?
Unhappy things do happen, this of course is true, But sad events sometimes cause happy things too.
Spurts of Thought 