Epic tales of love weaved in brick and mortar

A list of stories on love and affection that stood the test of time and became inspiration for posterity.

By Shayan Belliappa
Shayan maintains words have the power to inspire and destroy, not necessarily all at once. You might want to choose yours well. An MBA by qualification, a writer at heart, she believes everybody has a story worth telling and insists you tell her yours. Her petite frame belies her love for food. A voracious reader, Shayan can easily get lost on an unending trail of information and trivia while researching for her articles.

If she appears woolly-headed at the editing table, know that she is about to hit the nail on the head. A hopeless romantic, Shayan is dewy-eyed reading tales of undying love. In her own words, working with Soulveda has been a brand new departure for her as a writer. The sky is the limit, she believes.

27 October 2016

The pages of history are adorned with stories of love, loss and despair. While some waged wars for love, others immortalised it in brick and mortar. Today, these monuments stand tall as portraits of endurance of great men and women. Exuding love like wisps of fresh air, they narrate the timeless saga of longing and passion.

Such is love’s endearing quality that it surpasses the harsh realities of stereotypical societies. It wins over the biggest test that life throws–the test of time. Take a trip down this lane and we promise these stories will move you to tears, and perhaps, make you fall in love all over again.

A tale of unreciprocated affection

It is said love can move mountains. Unfortunately, this was not the case in Lord Maurice Egerton’s story, who failed miserably to woo the woman of his dreams. Legend has it he fell in love with an Austrian woman when he was touring England. Enamoured by her beauty, he set out to confess his affection, only to be rejected because he was living in a six-bedroom thatched roof house, which she compared to a dog’s kennel. Though devastated, he did not lose hope and vowed to build something majestic and express his love again. Between the years 1930 and 1940, he built a mammoth 53-room castle, spread across 100 acres, and proposed to her. To his utter dismay, she dismissed the castle as a museum. Dejected, Egerton vowed never to marry. He, in fact, asked his servants to keep other women away from the castle and lived there alone till the end of his life. This saga is said be one of the biggest tragedies of colonial Kenya.

He walked across Africa for her

When you are in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love. Ewart Grogan proved this at the age of 24. He set out on an expedition from The Cape of Good Hope to Cairo to prove his worth to the stepfather of his lady love Gertrude Watt. Finishing the walk along the length and breadth of Africa in two-and-a-half years, he returned home to a hero’s welcome and married Gertrude. Forty years later, following her death, Grogan built Gertrude Children’s Hospital in her memory and dedicated it to the children of East Africa in 1947.

These men and women had no lofty aspirations, just a big heart to keep the memories of their loved ones alive.

A queen’s tribute

There are umpteen stories of kings building monuments for their queens, but the story of Rani-ki-Vav or the queen’s stepwell in Gujarat is unique. In the 11^th century AD, Queen Udaymati had the inverted stepwell built as a memorial to her beloved King Bhimdev I of the Solanki dynasty. The beautifully sculpted walls and pillars of Rani-ki-Vav narrate stories of the various avatars of Lord Vishnu. Situated on the banks of river Saraswati, this masterpiece is a monument built with love and longing.

A gift to mankind

It is said, ‘There is no footprint too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world’. This is true in the case of Leland Stanford Jr. When the only son of Leland Stanford and Jane Lathrop Stanford passed away at 16, the Stanfords decided to dedicate their life to building a university in his memory. In 1885, the Stanford University was thrown open to students. Losing a child is heart breaking, but it takes a lot of courage to turn grief into something so great that it benefits thousands of children.

The grand mausoleum

The Taj Mahal stands as the most poignant monument of love. The 14-year-old prince Shah Jahan fell in love with the Persian princess Mumtaz Mahal and their marriage was solemnised after five years. Though he had other wives, Mumtaz was his favourite. Their happy life came to an abrupt end when Mumtaz died of complications during childbirth. Shah Jahan promised his dying wife that he would build a mausoleum so grand and unique, there would be no other in the days to come. Taking inspiration from the Quran, he built the Taj Mahal on the banks of the river Yamuna in Agra. The white marble complex is a blend of Persian, Islamic and Indian architecture, and till date, there has been no other that matches up to it.

The things we do for love

Famous poet Maya Angelou was right when she said, “Love recognises no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” Across time, some have built monuments in memory of their loved ones, some have dedicated their lives for the welfare of fellow beings, while others have spent their lives living in those memories. These men and women had no lofty aspirations, just a big heart to keep the memories of their loved ones alive. With sheer dedication and devotion, they immortalised love and proved to the world that love transcends all.

PHPSESSID	The PHPSESSID cookie is native to PHP and enables websites to store serialised state data. On the Action website it is used to establish a user session and to pass state data via a temporary cookie, which is commonly referred to as a session cookie. As the PHPSESSID cookie has no timed expiry, it disappears when the client is closed.
ckexitintent	Used to track display of exit popup
ckarticlesubspopup	Used to track display of Subscribe popup in article page
dwqa_anonymous	Is set during the anonymous use of the FAQ pages, in order to facilitate the interaction.
wordpress_test_cookie	This is a test cookie, to see if cookies are enabled.
wordpress_logged_in	is used to indicate when you are logged in, and who you are. This cookie is maintained on the front-end of the website as well when logged in
wp-settings-time	Time at which wp-settings-{user} was set 8. moove_gdpr_popup - This cookie enables us to remember your cookie preferences and prevent repeated requests for confirmation.
wp-saving-post	Auto-saving cookie: wp-saving-post is a WordPress cookie created when auto-saving a post in the editor. Used to track if there is saved post exists for a post currently being edited. If exists then let user restore the data.
uvc	These cookies are for the purpose of sharing pages and content that interests you on our site through third party social networking or other websites.
__cfduid	The "__cfduid" cookie is set by the CloudFlare service to identify trusted web traffic. It does not correspond to any user id in the web application, nor does the cookie store any personally identifiable information.
__cflb	The "__cfduid" cookie is set by the CloudFlare service to optimize performance of the SEMrush website.

Epic tales of love weaved in brick and mortar

Comments

Comments Cancel Reply

You might also like

Epic tales of love weaved in brick and mortar

Comments

Comments Cancel Reply

You might also like

More from Travel Diaries

Curious how they stood the test of time? These 1000-year-old temples of India are special

Time to visit Karaikudi, home to breathtaking palaces, temples and tiles

Why you must visit Bhimtal this summer: Breathtaking views, delicious food and tranquillity

Here’s why this mysterious 3000-year-old temple should be next in your bucket list

Visit Udupi, an amalgamation of culture, cuisine and serenity

Dambuk Orange Festival, a one of a kind celebration of music you don’t want to miss