One must commend National Geographic and its efforts at making history interesting and illuminating. I recently got to watch a documentary made on the Taj Mahal - which was well put together. I being a student of history, having visited the Taj on more than one occassion, having heard the stories and read a recent novel written on the topic, am more than familiar with both the historical base and the local folklore.
The documentary puts in focus both the building of the Taj and the era in which it was built. Shah Jahan's rise to the throne is shown and so is his love for his wife, Mumtaz. Not much detail is given - dates, names of other great Mughals - they are all left silent - possibly because too much detail would have made the documentary boring (? Wierd ?). So his father and grandfather are referred to as just father and grandfather - instead of Akbar and Humayun, as it should be.
Some things were new though. I didn't know that you could piece together parts of the Taj from already existing monuments. That Humayun's tomb is very similar I knew, but that other monuments were also contributors, I did not.
Everyone knows that Aurangzeb imprisoned his Dad and captured the throne. But what I didn't think about was how much expenditure must've been incurred in building the Taj, which was one of the things that Aurangzeb did not approve of, being austere in his spending.
The contribution of the artisans and the craftsmen is silent over the ages - and lives on in the Taj. I have heard stories that all their hands were chopped off. That is sad. Or that they were blinded. That is also sad.
The craft does live on. The craft of pietra dura - or painting in stone survives even till now, almost 30 generations later.
It was good overall.
No comments:
Post a Comment