Before You Die: a Man-Made Wonder by AA Gill

Indai, Agra: The Taj Mahal. This is one of the half dozen bona fide man-made wonders of the world. It hurts to look at it; the symmetry, the whiteness, the scale is almost too big to fit in your head. And the people: I don’t mind the people, they give it scale. Only with them do you realize how pristinely vastly monumental it is. They belong there; you belong there. You think it was built as a secret? It was made to be worshiped, to be loved, the one perfect architectural symbol of love in the world. If you die without seeing the Taj Mahal, you’ve missed out big-time. AA Gill