An Indian erects a copy of the Taj Mahal, a message of love to his wife

"We want to send a message of peace and religious harmony," Anand Prakash Chouksey told AFP.

“There is a lot of hatred around us,” he continued, “love solves all problems in life and the Taj Mahal is a symbol of that.”

'Positive Energy'

This architectural masterpiece of Indo-Islamic art, the country's main tourist attraction, was built in Agra in the XNUMXth century on the initiative of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to perpetuate the memory of Mumtaz, his wife deceased favourite.

The wife of Anand Prakash Chouksey, on the other hand, is very much alive, and was able to give her opinion on the construction of the palace, a third smaller than the Taj Mahal, located 800 km away.

"My wife only asked for a meditation room. She's a pious woman," he says again.

“According to her, the dome brings a different atmosphere and a lot of positive energy,” he adds.

Its reproduction will have required three years of work, that is to say sixteen years less than the mausoleum which inspired it.

According to the lover, this sentimental fantasy will have cost him more than 15 million rupees (180.000 euros).

Marble love poem

The Taj Mahal shines, in Agra on the bank of the Yamuna, like "a pure and solitary tear (...) on the cheek of time", according to the verses of the Indian Nobel Prize for Literature Rabindranath Tagore, dedicated to the monument, a veritable poem of marble love.

"We used Makrana marble to build the building", the same material in which the Taj Mahal was designed, "said Mr. Chouskey who plans to fix the Indian flag at the top of the main dome.

He will only be completely satisfied when he finally has the symbols of India's most popular religions appear on the minarets that stand at the four corners of his palace in Burhanpur.

It was in this same town that Mumtaz died giving birth to her 14th child in June 1632, after accompanying Shah Jahan who had come to put down a local revolt.

The deceased had been buried there for some time and, according to locals, Shah Jahan had planned to build the Taj Mahal on the banks of the Tapti River flowing through the city.

"The ground structure did not allow the Taj Mahal to be built here at the time, so it was erected in Agra," where Shah Jahan and Mumtaz lie side by side, Chouksey said. .

The old city of Burhanpur is home to the dilapidated remains of the palace where the members of the imperial family resided, and its magnificent hammam intended for Mumtaz, which the Mughal emperor had built for her to relax in beauty.