Visitors see Taj Mahal by moonlight

AGRA, India - They had to walk through metal detectors and succumb to body searches to get there, but the first visitors in two decades to see the Taj Mahal by moonlight said the security hassles were worth it.

• Photos

"It was really beautiful," said Rita Sinha, one of hundreds of people who thronged to the iconic monument at the end of November after officials lifted a long-standing ban on night visits to India's most famous building. "There was a sense of peace and rest."

Night-viewing was banned in 1984 due to fears of an attack on the 17th century white marble structure by militant Sikhs, who were then fighting the government for the independence of northern Punjab state. The Indian government crushed the insurgency in the early 1990s.

India's Supreme Court ruled last week that the grounds should finally be reopened - though only on five nights each month around the time of the full moon and with visitor numbers restricted to about 400 each night to prevent overcrowding.

Visitors are allowed inside the building's perimeter wall but must view it from a special platform set up about 300 yards away from the structure itself.

Security was tight on Nov. 27, the first open night since the ban was lifted. About 225 police officers guarded the site and visitors had to pass through two separate checkpoints with metal detectors and officers conducting body searches.

Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal to memorialize his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died from complications arising from the birth of their 14th child. The monument, which took more than 20,000 laborers and 22 years to complete, from 1632 to 1654, marked its 350th anniversary earlier this year.

The building is one of the most famous in the world and hundreds of thousands of people flock to it each year.

Tourism dropped sharply in India after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and as war tensions built in 2002 between India and Pakistan, said D. K. Barman, a tourism official.

But the icon has remained one of India's main drawing cards. More than 300,000 foreigners - and many times more Indians - visited the Taj Mahal in 2003, he said.

The monument has had its share of problems. Air pollution has discolored its famous white marble domes over the past decade, and a former state politician last year nearly managed to get a shopping complex built just a couple hundred yards away - before a public outcry ended those plans.

It remains a startlingly beautiful place, even to tourists jaded by a lifetime of postcards and photographs. At night, many said, it was even better.

Sulabh Saran, a policeman standing guard at a roadblock leading to the monument, regretted that his work kept him from getting a moonlit view.

"If I get chance, though, I would definitely see it," he said.

While newspaper reports said many of the tickets to the first night viewing went unsold, there were few regrets among those who went.

After taking photographs, many visitors paused at the south end of the reflecting pool and stared at the building, which was shrouded in a light mist and loomed ghostlike in the distance.

"We were a little too far away and security was tight," said Lorraine Igoe of Dublin, Ireland, "but it was worth it."

If You Go...

TAJ MAHAL BY MOONLIGHT: The Taj Mahal may be viewed in the evenings five nights a month - when the moon is full and on the two nights before and after full moons. Four hundred people will be allowed in each night, 40 at a time for 30 minutes each. Tickets cost about $23 and must be purchased 24 hours before the viewing from the Archaeological Survey of India, at the ticket counter located in the entrance of Taj Mahal. The dates for full moons during 2005 are Jan. 25, Feb. 24, March 25, April 24, May 23, June 22, July 21, Aug. 19, Sept. 18, Oct. 17, Nov. 16, and Dec. 15.