Taj: A Story of Mughal India by Timeri
Murari
A Mughal History Lover
When his queen Arjumand Banu-Mumtaz-i-Mahal-the Chosen One of the
Palace-died, Shah Jahan wanted to build a monument that was the image
of his perfect love for her. For twenty-two years, twenty thousand men
laboured day and night to fulfill the emperors obsession. The result was
the Taj Mahal, a marble mausoleum lined with gold, silver and precious
jewels.
This powerful novel narrates the story of the Taj on two parallel levels.
The first one tells the passionate love story of Shah Jahan and Arjumand.
The second recounts the later years of Shah Jahans reign, the building of
the Taj Mahal and the bloody pursuit of the fabulous Peacock throne by his
sons. Intertwined in the building is the story of Murthi, the Hindu master

craftsman sent as a gift to the emperor to carve the famous marble jail
around Arjumands sarcophagus.
Murari has skilfully recreated the period against which the story is set, the
sensual opulence of the palace, the grinding poverty of seventeenth
century India, the vicissitudes of Shah Jahans reign and the historical
background of the conflict between men of different faiths.
Personal Review: Taj: A Story of Mughal India by Timeri Murari
A story of unimaginable power and suffering and how the two interrelate,
Taj is a novel that is both serious and compelling. Unknown to many in the
West, the Mughal Emperors of India ruled a vast kingdom and enjoyed
unlimited power within their lands. To make their reign the setting for a
book is a challenge; the reader must be transported into a very different
time and place, and yet made to identify with the characters. The book
succeeds on both counts. The characters are well developed and unique,
while the details of their lives unfold in all of their exotic difference.
Throughout, the question is asked what is the limit of power? The answer
resounds darkly: death. The terse Mughal proverb Taktya Takhta Throne
or Coffin is repeated along the bloody journey of Shah Jahan, the Mughal
emperor who commissioned the Taj Mahal, to the throne and beyond.
Along with the historically accurate account of the political struggles of the
time, a fictionalized yet plausible love story unfolds between Shah Jahan
and his wife Arjumand Banu, a love that culminates in one of the most
iconic monuments in the world, the Taj Mahal. The story is fictional
because so little is known of the woman for whom the Taj Mahal was built.
A few passages from old manuscripts and a giant mausoleum are all that
remain of her, yet Timeri Murari does a beautiful job reading the
architecture itself and the few written clues available in order to construct a
moving tale of love and power.
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