Where love rests quietly

There have only been a few times in my life when I've been stopped in my tracks—moments when all awareness of my surroundings simply evaporates.

One that comes to mind was seeing The Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam several years back. I saw it from a distance—it’s rather large. It drew me closer and closer until I was at what felt like the right viewing distance in a non-technical way. I moved forward unconsciously until I was stopped in my tracks. There I stood; hours passed.

Just last week I travelled to Agra. It is a place as rich in history as it is poor in other ways. Centuries of dynastic rulers live in the air—a thick dust to keep my eyes dry. My hotel was a stone’s throw away from that most famous marble structure: the Taj Mahal. Indeed I first spotted it from a distance, a glass of Indian sparkling wine in hand. Looking off the hotel bar balcony, sometime in the evening, it was a brilliant white among a sea of muted brown. Luminescent, almost. It too immediately drew me in.

I awoke well before sunrise the morning of, wanting to avoid the crowd. A short drive took my friend and I within walking distance. The first steps out of the car were ethereal. Our tour guide took us in, meandering into tales of the Mughal Empire: Akbar and Jahangir and, yes, Shah Jahan. That is when I saw it. Through the arches, casting a darkening silhouette effect, the Taj Mahal shone like a white-hot sun. Now, caught in its gravitational pull, we moved closer. I wanted to hear what the tour guide was saying. I knew vaguely the history surrounding the Taj Mahal. The story of the ruler and his wife. But, like that day in Amsterdam, things around me washed away.

This time was different though. The first thing I noticed was an intensely palpable sensation of beauty. It is a warm sensation that is energy-giving, like the beginning of a new romance. Your eyes feel wider and the air feels thinner making everything sharper. We were a hundred or so paces away.

I moved in closer until at some point things changed. It was sometime before I entered. The intense warmth had given way to its opposite—a quiet subduing. If, in the context of romance, my earlier approach constituted the prologue—all the vivacity of a burgeoning love—this now was the epilogue: reflections on what once was but no longer is. I had experienced these feelings of longing and nostalgia before, but usually they map to some specificity in my own life: an ex-lover or old friend perhaps. In this case it was pure longing without an object.

The Taj Mahal was built by Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz, who he loved dearly. It is undeniably beautiful. You look on this brilliant marble palace in pictures and wonder what it must have been like to inhabit. You could imagine asking Mumtaz, but then again she wouldn’t know. You come to learn the Taj Mahal isn't a palace after all—it's a memorial. Shah Jahan built it as a dedication to Mumtaz, whose death in childbirth left him inconsolable. It was created for someone who would never witness its beauty. Beneath the marble floors, hidden from view, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz rest quietly side by side. Perhaps it's fitting that love’s truest resting place remains unseen.

When you encounter the Taj Mahal, you’re made to wonder how something so breathtaking comes into existence. It is a deeply romantic place. Those blocks of marble are imbued with love just as they are with longing. Shah Jahan must have really loved Mumtaz. I’ve heard it said, flippantly, I want someone who loves me enough to build me a palace. While maybe crude and unpoetic, this does capture part of the story: love is grand. It’s grand enough that even from afar, its brilliance transcends space and time. Yet distance misses what intimacy reveals—the meticulous devotion evident in every carved marble block, every engraved detail. So much work in carving and engraving and building went into the creation of this mausoleum. Maybe it’s a shame that something so exquisite was never more than a dedication to someone who would never be able to behold it. Or maybe that’s not the right way to think about it. Love isn’t a beauty demanding witness; it is precisely because it can live without recognition that it persists eternally.