I have several friends who have tried, with varying degrees of success, to maintain polyamorous relationships.

Their efforts have made me conclude this:

To make the arrangement work, one ought to avoid favouritism (as much as one’s heart and other body parts will allow).

In practice, this appears to be an impossible condition to uphold, to which the Taj Mahal stands as solid evidence.

Built between 1631–1653 by the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his third and deceased wife Mumtaz Mahal, it’s a monument to liking one romantic partner a little bit more than the rest.

Entering the gardens of the Taj Mahal

Passing under an archway through the crenelated garden wall, the framing of the Taj is perfect; a photographer’s dream.

Music or poetry would be much more suitable mediums to express its beauty and how it makes you feel, but all I have is clumsy prose.

Immediately, I am captured by its finite and infinite aspects.

The finite marble work, sumptuously carved along the Islamic principles of order and geometry, is set against an infinite and uninterrupted sky.

And what a sky! Soft, completely unbesmirched, and baby blue.

Having adjusted somewhat to Delhi’s crumbling, broken-tooth low rises, it delivers a shock.

Under the shaded burgundy of the archway, the blues and whites quite literally glow.

The way it hangs from the sky as if it were the only building on the planet awakens uneasy and dissociative feelings in me, until I’m reminded of its dual purpose as a dedication and a mausoleum.

Only when I consider the romantic aspirations of the Taj Mahal does the dualism inherent to the scene begin to make sense, and my vague apprehension dissolves.

Eternity, mortality, and love are its essential expressions. Or, rather, how the human experience of love somehow manages to fall into both domains.

Physical and temporary, yet, if genuine and heartfelt, emotional and somehow eternal.

Marblework

There are layers of beauty to appreciate on an observant stroll around the base of the Taj Mahal.

Like the best looking people, it bears both masculine and feminine features.

The marblework is as delicate as any eyelash, while the entire structure stands as proud as a warrior.

Up close, the slight imperfections in each marble block are visible, and you can fully appreciate the filigree inscriptions.

The craftsmanship and detail are uncompromising.

Inscriptions higher up are larger than those written closer towards the base such that, from a regular viewing angle, they all appear the same size.

Perhaps the feature that contributes most to the beauty of the Taj Mahal is the unpolished marble.

Were it polished, it would glint harshly in the sunshine in a way that would make it hard to look at directly.

Leaving it unpolished achieves the perfect contrast with the sky.

Quranic inscriptions

Surahs from the Quran are inlaid into the marble with jasper.

Because of these inscriptions, and because the Taj was built by the fifth emperor of a great Muslim empire, we tend to think of it as entirely a religious architectural icon.

In my opinion, this view is misplaced.

While it certainly is an icon of Islamic civilization, the emotions that its construction attempts to honour—the experience and loss of romantic love—transcend religion and afford the Taj a perfectly legitimate secular interpretation.

In the crypt beneath the Taj

Two corpses lie in the silent crypt beneath the Taj Mahal

Mumtaz rests next to her husband, Shah Jahan, who was overthrown and imprisoned in nearby Agra fort by his son, Aurangzeb, until his death in 1666.

Shortly afterward, his body was moved to the Taj Mahal, which is his final resting place.

Today is Shah Jahan’s Urs—the annual commemorative public holiday that takes place on the anniversary of his death.

It is one of the few occasions on which the cenotaph of the royal couple is open to the public, visitor access usually being restricted to a mock-up cenotaph located above the original, more lavishly decorated.

Mumtaz Mahal's tomb lies in the dead centre of the crypt, while Shah Jahan’s lies asymmetrically off to the side, in the most un-Islamic fashion. This has led scholars to conclude that the Taj was never meant to be Shah Jahan’s final resting place.

Holy cremations

As if aware of the bodies, birds of prey circle above the onion dome of the Taj, and packs of stray dogs slink along the far bank of the Yamuna River.

Around 1.4 billion people, 20% of the world’s population, live in India.

No one lives forever, so, as a morbid fact of life, there are a lot of bodies to dispose of.

In Hindi culture, Antyesti refers to the ritual cremation of the deceased and literally means “last rite.”

Their cremains are swept into India’s holy rivers, such as the mighty Ganga and the Yamuna.

However, wood shortages and high wood prices mean that, sometimes, the pyres are insufficient for a full cremation, and unburnt body parts are swept into the rivers along with the ashes.

And it is with this macabre anecdote in mind that I stare at the carnivorous birds overhead and wonder what the stray dogs have in their mouths, asking myself whether the Yamuna carries more than just the reflections of marble.

Visiting the Taj as a Westerner

Something else distracts us from the main event, too.

Although the day has been given over to remember the famous Mughal emperor, Cameron and I might as well be a Royal couple, as popular as we are proving.

We’re both stopped for perhaps a hundred selfies by Indians who are as delighted by finding two white sahibs in bad clothes as a child might be at finding a rare fossil on a beach.

As guests in the country, we happily oblige, dwarfing everyone in every photo with our massive 6’3” frames.

We have both elected to wear garish neon rave shades in order to lean into our indiscreet appearances, which makes the pictures even better.

The issue is, stopping for one selfie invites dozens more broskis who all want their own photo with us.

People of all ages gather around, and sometimes we have three generations in a single picture.

Eventually, it becomes hard to maintain our smiles, which are transmuted by fatigue into rictus grins to accompany our tired eyes.

We jokingly start asking for 10 rupees per photo and say that we must be trending on TikTok and Instagram, despite the coincidence of two national holidays (Republic Day is also being celebrated today).

I suggest a toilet break as an excuse to free ourselves and end up queuing nervously behind a guard with an SMG.

Relieved on two accounts, we stealthily find a quiet spot to enjoy the splendid gardens in the sunshine before heading to pick our bags up from the marble seller we left them with.