The Taj Mahal,INDIA

The TAJ MAHAL holding first rank in new 7 wonders of the world stated in Lisbon.The Taj Mahal has become the most identifiable symbol of India, Counting 2.2 million tourists a year.

the Taj Mahal, India’s transcendent tourist attraction, is the love story that prompted its construction: the death of queen Mumtaz during the birth of her 14th child; the grief of her emperor-husband, Shah Jahan; and his vow to build the world’s greatest monument to love.

The Taj is set in Agra, an overcrowded city whose population has far surpassed its support system. After three trips to the Taj with different guests, I have come to dread the heat, the hawkers, the haphazardness of its surroundings — always vowing that this visit will be the last. Then I see the ethereal dome framed in the gateway that ensures a dramatic entrance and cannot wait to return.

The Taj is one of those rare creations that work from a distance and up close, as a whole and in parts, and in totally different ways.

The tomb is set against river and sky, the hue of its marble changing in the day’s light. The perfect shape of the dome is reflected in the long rectangular pool in front. The almost womanly nature of the building’s curves offsets the more severe formality of its planes. The white marble contrasts beautifully with the red sandstone of the mosque and its matching jawab, or answer — the two buildings that flank the tomb — and the greenery of the gardens.

Both to appreciate the building and its relationship to the river and also the Indian families, lovers and tourists who come en masse to see their country’s great treasure.

The Taj is a wonder in the best sense, in that much of what makes it work is invisible. The double layer dome. The calligraphers’ artfulness in gradually increasing the height of letters in the Koranic scriptures on the exterior so that they look uniform. The ingenious underground pipes that supplied water to the channels in the charbagh, or foursquare garden.

The Taj Mahal is a testament to the excesses of its time.It was 20,000 laborers (Kipling wrote of the ‘’sorrow of the workmen who died in the building — used up like cattle”) spent 22 years to fulfill Shah Jahan’s fancy, with jewels, materials and craftsmen imported from China, Baghdad, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Taj, the Agra Fort and Fatepur Sikri are all in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s poorest, most populous states. Unemployment is extremely high, and you cannot blame residents for viewing the monuments and the foreign tourists they draw as an economic lifeline. Desperation sometimes manifests as aggression.

Admission to the Taj Mahal is 16USD, at 46 rupees to $1.

Opening time 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day but Friday.