Mystery Of The Brown Taj

A network of commissions, committees and consultants has not been able to figure out exactly why a sickly tint is spreading over the taj mahal. Policymakers ask: was the taj really all that white?

- Damayanti Datta

Just how white should the Taj Mahal be? The right person to ask that question would have been Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who procured purest white marble, sang-e-rukham, from Rajasthan’s Makrana mines to create a mausoleum of dreaming spires that would change colour through the day: milky white at sunrise, jewel-bright at high noon, mellow orange at sunset and iridescent blue at night. So how white is white for the Taj? That question has become particularly pressing now, with the Supreme Court’s recent admonition to the central and UP governments over the way the monument is slowly turning into a sickly shade of brown. Union minister of state for culture Mahesh Sharma has come forward to “assure everyone that there is no danger to the Taj’s structure and no change in its original colour”. With the help of stereoscopic imaging, the government now plans to compare 100-year-old photographs of the Taj with recent pictures and present those as evidence at the apex court.