taj mahal

So, I saw the Taj Mahal this afternoon and evening. I am surprised. It is powerfully beautiful. It is so beautiful that I felt beautiful just being near it. It didn't matter who was there, nor how many. It's just so big and tall, proud and serene that it dwarfs its visitors. You approach it through a dark archway and it sort of unfolds and blooms before your eyes in that archway as you walk closer. There was a chilled breeze as the sunset this evening and it somehow made the scale of the whole place palpable on my skin. It's not just the white building we see in photos all the time -- it's a huge and perfectly symmetrical collection of buildings, all echoing each other in a thousand little details. I couldn't have asked for better company to see it for the first time -- about 20 people who had walked all this way, many or most of whom were also seeing it for the first time. I ended up finding a spot just after sunset and just staring at the main building for minutes on end. It's an unbelievable thing. You should go. If you let it, seeing the Taj Mahal can be an experience of beauty that shatters the relevancy of the fact that it is a tourist attraction. I've never felt like just sitting quietly and staring at a building like that. It fits the story behind it. It is a translation into architecture of what it feels like to love someone in their absence.