INDIA MAN BUILDS TAJ MAHAL REPLICA HOUSE AS GIFT FOR HIS WIFE

Sun 05 December 2021:

For his wife, an Indian man created a one-third-sized replica of the renowned Taj Mahal, but unlike the original, it is their home, not a tomb.

The replica contains the original Taj Mahal’s huge dome, complex minarets, and even some of its artwork, and was built with white marble from the same city in Rajasthan state that donated the Taj Mahal’s stone.

The Taj Mahal, often known as the “Monument to Love,” was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in the northern Indian city of Agra in remembrance of his favorite wife, Mumtaz, in the 17th century.

She died while giving birth to their fourteenth child in Burhanpur, the location of the newly constructed replica.

Her body was temporarily buried in the city and later exhumed and taken to Agra, according to Anand Prakash Chouksey, 52, who built the replica.

“I jokingly told my wife, if you pass over, then I will build a Taj Mahal,” said Chouksey, 52, a hospital owner who lives in Burhanpur. “She obviously refused and said she doesn’t want to die. Then I said, not a problem, I will make a Taj Mahal you can live in.”

The replica took three years to construct, with Agra artisans re-creating the artwork on the marble.

After Mumtaz’s death, Emperor Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal completed between 1632 and 1654. Both of their graves, as well as a mosque and other burials of minor Mogul nobility, are located within the complex.

The monument, acclaimed for its delicate lattice work, is India’s biggest tourist draw, attracting millions of visitors every year. The tourists keep hundreds of thousands employed and Agra’s economy moving.

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