Jim's Thoughts on the Taj Mahal

                  Pictures really don’t do the Taj Mahal justice.  You have to be there to appreciate it.  In some ways my visit to the Taj earlier today confirms something I first learned about such iconic sites decades ago when I visited Machu Picchu. The place is more overwhelming than the illustrations you’ve seen and its very splendor inspires taking lots of pictures In a futile attempt to somehow break that rule.  I think the issue is really scale.  I’ve seen pictures of the Taj that are quite beautiful, but I’ve never seen it placed in a larger geographic environment, possibly because any such effort would inevitably make the buildings so small that their exquisite detailed beauty would become invisible.

                  My view is that such projects reflect a yearning to be remembered, an appetite to build something so vast and impressive that history won’t be able to erase it – at least for a long, long time.  The result is that great leaders who’d ultimately be forgotten are remembered for a longer period of time than they otherwise would be, even if they are simply recalled by subsequent generations solely as master builders.  And some such efforts are clearly successful.  We don’t know much about the unsuccessful ones.

                  Which leads to the question of whether an edifice complex is the best way to impact subsequent generations.    The Taj Mahal is revered throughout India.  Has it had a bigger impact than the gifts from John Harvard or railroad magnate Johns Hopkins who created major American research institutions that have cast a national shadow for so long?  Or the library building spree in America funded by Andrew Carnegie that has also colored our history and helped the U.S. integrate otherwise illiterate immigrants?  What do we think of the work the Gates Foundation is doing in health and education?

                  I like the Taj a lot and will recommend that others visit it.  I don’t have enough money or influence to worry about my lasting impact on American society.  That’s a job I’ll leave my kids.  But given the choice, I think I’d opt for institutions that shape future generations rather than monuments.