Indian beauty talks up the
Taj By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - It was the coming together of
arguably two of the most beautiful creations in the
world - the Taj Mahal and Indian actress Aishwarya Rai -
as part of a campaign to have the famous monument
recognized as one of the new seven wonders of the world.
As things stood, the Taj was lagging behind, until
Aishwarya, whom many - especially Indians - consider the
No 1 beauty in the world, intervened. Now the Taj is
making its way up the list.
The
story goes something like this. Swiss adventurer Bernard
Weber started a campaign in February 2001 to create a
fresh list of world wonders based on Internet polling.
The idea, though it started
small, has caught on in the
web world, with more than 17 million netizens having
voted already. The final results will be announced in
January 2006. The problem (for India, that is) was that the
Taj Mahal was barely holding on to the seventh
position at the beginning of this month, with just 6% of
all votes cast up until then. The main reason for this was
the extremely small number of Indians who voted - a mere
2% of the total. Then Aishwarya stepped in. In a
highly publicized visit to the mausoleum, where Weber flew
in on a hot-air balloon, the blue-eyed actress, who almost
starred in a James Bond movie last year, urged those
interested in supporting the Taj to vote for the
monument of love.
The monument's
rating has since rocketed, with the New Seven
Wonders campaign's release of statistics for the past week showing
that during the course of the past seven days the Taj
received a staggering 91% of all votes cast, pushing its
overall position to No 3. That's not all. In the same
period, Indian voters constituted 98% of all people who
voted. If this trend continues, by the time the results
are announced in January 2006, the marble mausoleum may
become the top wonder of the world.
"Taj is
a beautiful piece of architecture, more beautiful than
me. I've always regarded it with admiration as it
embodies love," said Rai, who has studied architecture.
Rai walked about half a kilometer within the precincts
of the Taj after releasing the hot-air balloon to signal
the nomination of the monument for the list. "People
across the world absolutely treasure the love story of
this monument, absolutely adore this monument and
without a doubt it is one of the wonders of the world.
It has been documented, this is the one opportunity to
this, and what better year than the 350th anniversary of
the Taj Mahal? So God bless, and here's wishing it on
the list," Rai said.
"Taj is
more special because of the symbol for which it stands, and
that is love, and that is why most people worldwide relate
to it," Weber said after his balloon flight past the
tomb, which took care not to infringe upon the strict
no-fly zone directly above the monument that applies even
to the military and was implemented because of security fears
of an aerial terrorist attack to destroy the dome. The
Taj was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the late
17th century in the city of Agra, in memory of his wife
Noor Jahan.
A
list drawn up in the 2nd century
BC, the Seven Wonders of the World - the Temple of
Artemis, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the mausoleum
at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Pharos
Lighthouse, the Statute of Zeus and the only remaining
wonder standing, the Great Pyramid of Giza - are
legendary buildings that once graced the Mediterranean
and the Middle East.
Weber said the time had
come to draw up a new list. "Let there be a vote," he
said, asking people to name their choice on his Internet
site for nominees. Aside from the Taj, those nominees
also include the Great Wall of China; the Coliseum in
Rome; Versailles Palace in France; Potala Palace in
Lhasa, Tibet; the pyramids of Chichen Itza in Mexico's
Yucatan Peninsula; the large stone statues known as the
Moai in Easter Island, Chile; the Eiffel Tower in Paris;
Machu Picchu, a well-preserved Inca village on a
mountain ridge in Peru; and the Red Square and Kremlin
in Moscow. A panel of seven experts would consider the
77 most popular sites for inclusion on a short list of
21 candidates.
Indeed, a list like
this is bound to be controversial. The pyramids of
Giza aren't even among the 31 wonders on the list so far.
Even in ancient times, most agreed on six of the seven
wonders, but the final place was disputed - with some awarding
it to the Walls of Babylon, others to the Palace
of Cyrus, apart from the Lighthouse at Alexandria, which
finally made it on to the list. With changing
times and technologies, new methods are bound to emerge, but
that doesn't mean they are foolproof. In 1999, for
example, when BBC News Online launched its
search for the millennium's greatest star, a majority of
Indian users voted for Bollywood doyen Amitabh Bachchan as
the No 1 actor over such all-time Western favorites
as Laurence Olivier, Robert De Niro and Marylin
Monroe. Indeed, observers here say that given the
predilection of Indians and Chinese to be 'Net-savvy, the fight for
the top place in the new seven wonders of the world list
is likely to be a toss up between the Great Wall of
China and the Taj. This is despite the fact that India
only has some 20 million Internet users (not even in the
top 10 in the numbers list) constituting less than 3% of
all users, whereas China is No 2 after the United
States. But then it must be remembered that Indians do
consider themselves to be at the cutting edge when it
comes to information technology and Internet usage. The
field, though, is still open.
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
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small, has caught on in the
web world, with more than 17 million netizens having
voted already. The final results will be announced in
January 2006. The problem (for India, that is) was that the
Taj Mahal was barely holding on to the seventh
position at the beginning of this month, with just 6% of
all votes cast up until then. The main reason for this was
the extremely small number of Indians who voted - a mere
2% of the total. Then Aishwarya stepped in. In a
highly publicized visit to the mausoleum, where Weber flew
in on a hot-air balloon, the blue-eyed actress, who almost
starred in a James Bond movie last year, urged those
interested in supporting the Taj to vote for the
monument of love. 
