BBC Online :
A 52-year-old Indian businessman has emulated the world’s most famous display of marital devotion by building a replica of the Taj Mahal as a home for his wife of 27 years.
Anand Prakash Chouksey built his “monument of love” in Burhanpur city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, report BBC.
“It was a gift for my wife but also for the town and its people,” Mr Chouksey told the BBC.
The house cost about 20 million rupees ($260,000) to build, he said.
The Taj Mahal is a 17th Century mausoleum in Agra city. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his queen Mumtaz who died while giving birth to their 14th child.
The stunning marble monument, famed for its intricate lattice work, is one of India’s biggest tourist attractions.
Mr Chouksey’s replica – nestled deep inside his sprawling 50-acre property, which includes a hospital, has also been attracting a steady stream of visitors.
The house consists of two main bedrooms that are located on two separate floors. It also has a library and a meditation room. The drawing room flaunts marble columns, a curving staircase and a gilded ceiling.
Building the replica of the famous monument took three years and a flurry of visits to the city of Agra, where the Taj is located, so Mr Chouksey and his wife could study various aspects of the mausoleum.
“We also used a lot of 3D images of the Taj Mahal on the internet to build our own,” Mr Chouksey added. The idea was to build something similar, so the engineers reduced the size to one third of the actual monument.
