New Seven Wonders and the Taj Mahal

In the last few weeks, there have been campaigns all over India that have focussed mainly on pushing people to vote in favour of selecting the Taj Mahal as one of the 'New Seven Wonders'. Ok, for poeple who do not know what the old seven wonders are; but infact i'm myself confused as to what the Seven wonders of the world really refer to...There are

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Modern Wonders of the world
Underwater wonders
Natural wonders
Tourist travel wonders

I'm not going to list out each of the 'Wonder lists' .. u can check them out here.
Well, anyways, i guess the New seven wonders refers to the tourist wonder list; and the only candidate most of the people in India would know about, and some people would've actually seen, is, of course, our very own supposed 'monument of love', that which Shahjahan built in the memory of, and as a tomb for, his dead wife Mumtaz. Supposing i ask some average guy in Tamil Nadu what Shahjahan and Mumtaz were, they would probably tell me about the Vijay movie and the glam actress. Anyways. Mumtaz Begum was not the only wife of Shahjahan either. There was no shortage of wives amongst the 17th century emperors, i guess.

Ok, so what comes to ur mind first when thinking of the Taj Mahal? Many would say they feel love, but that is just bull-shit. I, for one, think of another Taj Mahal, the stupid movie with the pig-like hero and lizard-like heroine, and the father-pig for director, but absolutely mind-blowing and evergreen music by the GOD of music ARR.

Incidentally, A.R.Rahman played a part in getting the Taj into the new seven wonders list. He created a song for motivating Indians to understand that 'Teri aur meri Mohabbat Ek hai', or 'Un kadhalum endhan kadhalum ondrallava', and hence vote for the Taj. I personally feel that the theme shouldn't have been the universal nature of love across many barriers, but rather the spirit that the Taj Mahal belongs to us Indians, and we should not let down something that our country is so closely associated with on the world stage. I voted for this reason, and also cos it was a cause promoted by ARR. EMI and Virgin music have brought out an album titled 'One Love', containing versions of the Ek mohabbat song in six languages.

I'm personally very glad that the Taj has made it to the final list, but am sure terribly discombobulated by the fact that Bipasha Basu has represented India in this supposedly grand function unveiling the new list, for reasons i'm quite sure most of you know and will agree whole-heartedly with.

The New Seven Wonders are : Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Pyramids Of Giza, Petra in Jordan, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, Machu Pichchu in Peru, Chichen Itza in Mexico, and The Colloseum in Rome. Check out more details over here and here.