Guilt or Love: The story of the Taj Mahal

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More than an year ago, an alternate view on the Taj was doing the rounds in the world of theatre. Based on a 1970s play written by London-based author Dilip Hiro (of Indian heritage?), a production was staged in, hold your breath, Gurgaon - a suburb of Delhi.


If you believe the historians, Super-Rani Mumtaz was not only dazzlingly beautiful but also scarily smart, ambitious and powerful. The play adds some more fuel to this by surmising that she was much better at chess than Shah Jahan. After an intense game one day, this seems to have annoyed him enough to accidentally push her off the chair.

The only shocking aspect here is that a superior Urdu production of the play was premiered in that bastion of culture Gurgaon. Yes, really. And well-received it was.

Rewinding five years ago, this was me : "Welcome to Gurgaon, the soul-less, American wannabe, consumer hub of north India".

More recently my friends cried hoarse: "It's transforming. We have cool pubs and restaurants."

Me: "Err, see above."

But now even I must admit there is genuinely some hope for GGN, dust-filled air and grid-locked roads notwithstanding (!!)

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