For ITI employee Muniyappa (51), Gowramma was more than a wife. She was the motivating force and, as he says tearfully, “she was the Goddess who transformed me from a wayward alcoholic to a responsible family man. A person who gave new meaning to our married life. I swore by her love.”
And as if to test his love for her, Gowramma had once jokingly asked him, “How will you show your love for me after I am dead?”
“I’ll build the Taj Mahal in your memory,” he had said fiercely to her then.
Someone up there seemed to like the idea. Because only months later, 27-year-old Gowramma died tragically in a motorbike accident.
Life lost all its meaning for Muniyappa. He stopped going to work and became a man ‘afflicted’ by the loss of his beloved. But when old memories rushed to swamp him, he recalled his promise to build a Taj. It became his only mission in life.
Although, he comes from a poor family background, Muniyappa wasn’t daunted in the least. Like a man possessed, he applied for voluntary retirement from ITI. Armed with gratuity, provident fund and other benefits which came to about Rs. 2 lakhs, he set out to prove his dedication.
Muniyappa decided to build the Taj Mahal on a 40×40 plot in the graveyard near his house in Rammoorthy Nagar on the outskirts of Bangalore.
On the advise of his engineer friend L. Jayakumar, he appointed Karpuswamy of Velur for the job. Work started in due earnest in 1992, only 6 months after his wife’s death.
But the Moghul-esque enterprise was not without hurdles. “At first, the authorities objected to the building of the tomb. Then I asked for their permission. When there was no answer, I began to build the memorial regardless, because I knew that once it was built, no one could demolish it. There is a law that protects these kind of monuments,” he told Bangalore on Friday. Apparently, the authorities did not come in his way and he carried on monument-building.
But very soon, Muniyappa realised that Rs. 2 lakhs was nowhere near enough to complete the task. Unfazed, Muniyappa turned to real estate, where he thought he could make some money. With sheer grit and determination, he succeeded in selling houses and earned enough to complete the job.
His dream became a reality after 6 years of unrelenting pursuit on January 14, 1998.
Not to lose sight of his goal, Muniyappa had not shaved in all those years. “The beard reminded me of the promise I had to keep to my beloved,” he told this paper. Only when the Taj finally took a bow on Vijayanapura grounds, did he shave off his beard.
“My Mahal may not be as big as the real Taj Mahal, but my love is definitely greater than Shahjahan’s,” proclaims Muniyappa, who has plans to invest another 4-5 lakhs to make his Taj Mahal picture perfect: with a milky-white fence, entrance door, a rose garden and a musical fountain. “That is, if I do well in my business,” he adds cautiously.
But there is one thing, Muniyappa is very certain about. His wife’s continuing presence. “To me, she is still alive. Even now, I hear her call out to me when I’m at home.
“One day, I will be re-united with her,” he says, wistfully.
P.S: When this writer called his home six months later, his second wife picks up the phone. She happens to be the sister of his first wife! Not really a Shahjahan, is he?
