Glorious Taj and Beloved Immortal

5th Moghul emperor

From 1628 to 1658

Glorious Taj in the memory of Shah Jahan's Beloved Immortal is a true but tragic tale of this 5^th Moghul emperor of India. This historical, biographical saga opens at the inception of Shah Jahan's reign and second coronation, commemorating the height of Moghul pomp and glory. Three brief years hence, and Shah Jahan's wealth of joy and glory are tainted with the soot of a Tragedy unforgettable. His beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal dies in the throes of childbirth, giving birth to her fourteenth child named, Princess Gauhara. Grief descends upon the emperor with such volcanic intensity that within a week his hair is all turned gray. From the cauldron of this searing, singeing grief, erupts forth the lava of inspiration and disconsolation. Doom and mourning have taken permanent abode inside the Silence of Shah Jahan's Great Soul. This Silence alone knows the fires of Love and Loss Within, erecting altars shameful, of Peace and Presence. Peace! much like the creative energy to arrest his sorrow as some vision eternal. And Presence! to keep his Beloved close to him inside the tomb of Perfection, where death is rendered powerless to cast the shadows of gloom and ugliness. From such pathos is carved Taj Mahal in memory of his Beloved, known to him alone by the adorable name of Taj. The next twenty years of his reign are devoted to create the monument of Love and Loss in pure marble. The last seven years of his reign are more tragic than the Tragedy which made him the architect of Taj Mahal. His own son Aurangzeb, after murdering his brothers, imprisons the aged Shah Jahan inside the Red Fort palace at Agra. The Throne of God, as envisioned by Shah Jahan stands pure before his sight in the likeness of Taj Mahal, before his soul bids farewell to the world of sorrow and tragedy. This emperor and the architect of Taj Mahal dies gazing at his Marble Dream from his royal balcony named, Shah Burj. Meanwhile, the wings of zeal and bigotry are flapping over the shoulders of Aurangzeb, proclaiming him as the sixth Moghul emperor of India.