Alana Hunt visits this famous Indian landmark on Sunday morning and takes a different view…

I visited the Taj Mahal on Sunday morning – leaving Delhi at 2am to get there by sunrise in a car with five other friends.

It is undoubtedly beautiful….but the thing is I’ve had that image in my mind since I was a child – and you know the old, or more recent story, images are better than the real thing.

I couldn’t help but wish I had never seen an image of it. If only I’d ever heard about this place through people or read about it in stories, so that when I finally walked through those archways – I could finally see what I had imagined for so long.

What became interesting were the tourists, including myself, sitting like a production line on those famous marble benches for a photograph. And also the expressions on people’s faces before and after entering the tomb where the body of Mumtaz Mahal wife of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan lay – that was really nice. I dreamed of taking a series of images of this, but I was overcome with hesitation when I realised I might then ruin that experience for someone else, so maybe I will try writing about it one day, instead.

I was wandering around thinking about the beauty of love, loss and grief contained within this mausoleum when a friend of mine informed me that upon its completion the emperor had the hands of the craftsman removed as a kind of copyright against it’s duplication….suddenly, the atmosphere totally changed.

Life is full of contradictions and struggles and choices….to take an image or to write….to listen or to speak…..technology or nature…..bicycle or motorbike….butter or no-butter….cool days or warm nights…. order or abandon….wants or needs….more or less….one world and another…