Leaving you breathless?????

“Life is not the number of breaths we take…
It’s the number of moments that take our breath away…”

Wondering who said this?
Will Smith !!! This was his first few dialogues from the movie Hitch and one of my favourites too. True to these words everyone of us would have had an incident or experience which made us breathless and taught us something new. I am going to share one such experience here.

It was in the summer of 1996 that our family was on an extended holiday to the capital city, Delhi. I was especially very enthusiastic about this particular one bcoz it meant 25 days of fun, frolic ,traveling ,visiting new places and offcourse shopping!!!!!!!!! And a visit to one of those places is something which I’ll remember for a long long time-It was the visit to the Taj Mahal.
It was the usual sultry summer morning of Agra, the temperatures souring high. Our taxi took us till the entrance gate. There I saw vendors selling artifacts of different sizes of the Taj to the colorfully dressed foreigners. Each one of them deciding on which one to buy and which part of their homes it will adorn. We had to walk a good 10 mins on the lawn to reach in close proximity or even get a sneak peak of the Taj.
It was during this walk that I wondered-
“What is so great in this huge white TOMB that makes millions of people from various parts of the world visit it?”
“What is so great in this MONUMENT that makes it different from any other historical monument in India?”
“What is so great in it that it is one of the 7 WONDERS of the world??”

One turn to my right ,I got a glimpse of this beauty and needless to say i got all my answers. All the discomfort with the weather, with the walk on the lawn went away and all that ran in my mind was “THIS IS DEFINETLY WORTH IT”.
I was awestruck by its sheer beauty.
It was something so magnificient, yet so peaceful
Something so serene yet so full of love.
I still remember the walk through the gardens leading to the monument as being one of the most colorful moments I had as a child. There was a buzz of activity by the visitors around. People trying to take a snap of their loved ones with the Taj but none of it could take away the feeling of immense peace one seeks on being there. The first step I laid on this marble beauty gave me this eerie feeling which I will never forget.
As a kid I had read a lot, seen pictures of the Taj, watched it on television but being there in front of it was definitely something else.

Now that was 11years back, whenever I recollect those moments ,I realize what I ve learned from it…
“Expression of a feeling is as important as the feeling itself”
All of us know Shahjahan loved his queen Mumtaz but what made his love soo unique and stand out from the rest?It was the form of expression he used to potray his love.
Now a lot of people would call this materialistic, waste of money, labor and time-but if it was not for all that then we would nt have the Taj Mahal with us right now.
So all I mean to say is that be it any feeling-love, hatred ,joy ,anxiety ,animosity ,pride-we all should learn to express it in our own way and only then can we enjoy the finer moments of our lives