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| The Taj Mahal, Agra |
-Brian Mendonca
There it was. This grimy truck in front of me on the belaboured Atal Setu bridge. I had to squeeze past this hulk so as to get on my way to work.
Today was a morning with a lot of fog. I had to be extra careful to avoid the potholes too. As I was abreast of the truck I glanced at the rear registration plate - as is my wont - and saw the letters 1647 in bold. The number seemed to be proclaiming itself for my meditation.
And then I went through history - a diachronic review, I tell my students - and tried to challenge myself to place as many events before and after that year.
The first thing that came to mind was that '47 is emblazoned in our minds as the year of India's independence - but that was three centuries later.
The seventeenth century is 'the Age of Reason' - and I have to say the truck driver was driving very reasonably, keeping stolidly to his lane. Descartes expounded the view that 'I think, therefore I am.' This was a position that Foucault would castigate later.*
In Indian history the Mughals were consolidating their empire in India. This was the peak of the Mughal empire that lasted, by some accounts from 1526 to 1757. In 1648 Shah Jahan completes the Taj Mahal in Agra in memory of his wife Mumtaz. Mumtaz died in childbirth in far away Burhanpur on one of Shah Jahan's military expeditions against the Lodis im 1631. After completing the Taj - one of the seven wonders of the world - he moves his capital the same year to Delhi and builds Shajahanabad. As if to erase the memories which haunt him of his wife.
In western classical music it was the foundation of baroque music which prevailed between 1600 to 1750. Sacred music flourished in Europe. Schutz is regarded as the most important German composer before J.S. Bach.
TIMELINE
1629: Symphonie Sacrae Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672) Symphonies also in 1647 and1650
1637: 'Cogito ergo sum' - Descartes (1596-1650) in Discourse on Method.
1647
1648: Shah Jahan (1592-1666) completes building the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz.
1947: India achieves freedom from British rule. The aftermath of Partition.
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