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Taj Mahal
built 217 days ago
The Taj Mahal Intercontinental hotel in Mumbai is one of the premier hotels in India since its opening in 1903.This hotel in mumbai combines gracious architecture, luxurious accommodation and fine dining experience. It is Located only a few kilometres away from the city center and has been a favorite place of many prominent personalities for many years. The Taj Mahal intercontinental hotel is situated on the waterfront adjacent to the Gateway of India. Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport is located 32 kilometres away from the hotel.Shopping, commercial and banking districts are just minutes away.
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Taj Mahal was born Henry St. Clair Fredericks in New York on May 17, 1942. His parents -- his father a jazz pianist/composer/arranger of Jamaican descent, his mother a schoolteacher from South Carolina who sang gospel -- moved to Springfield, MA, when he was quite young and while growing up there, he often listened to music from around the world on his father's short-wave radio. He particularly loved the blues -- both acoustic and electric -- and early rock & rollers like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. While studying agriculture and animal husbandry at the University of Massachusetts, he adopted the musical alias Taj Mahal (an idea that came to him in a dream) and formed Taj Mahal & the Elektras, which played around the area during the early '60s. After graduating, Mahal moved to Los Angeles in 1964 and, after making his name on the local folk-blues scene, formed the Rising Sons with guitarist Ry Cooder. The group signed to Columbia and released one single, but the label didn't quite know what to make of their forward-looking blend of Americana, which anticipated a number of roots rock fusions that would take shape in the next few years; as such, the album they recorded sat on the shelves, unreleased until 1992.
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The Taj Mahal Intercontinental Hotel in Mumbai has a total of 582 centrally air-conditioned rooms, including 49 suites. Each room in the wing is equipped with data ports, 2 line speaker phones with IDD facilities, in-room fax is available on request, minibar, personal safe, colour television with satellite programs, 24 hour room service and laundry service. A choice of Sea/City Facing rooms is ... available. Located on the top floors of the Old Wing are the Taj Club rooms that were exclusively designed for the business travelers. The Club features private check-in, in-room fax, personal safe, free bottle of wine, valet service, and deluxe Continental breakfast. This hotel in mumbai provides the most luxurious and majestic accommodation.
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The Taj Mahal has seven stories. Five of them lie sealed and barred concealing rich evidence. The marble building in the centre is flanked by two symmetrical ones. The one in the foreground is the eastern one. The one in the background is being represented as a mosque because it is to the west. They should not have been identical if only one was to be a mosque.
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The origin of the name the "Taj Mahal" is not clear. Court histories from Shah Jehan's reign only call it the rauza (tomb) of Mumtaz Mahal. It is generally believed that "Taj Mahal" (usually translated as either "Crown Palace" or "Crown of the Palace") is an abbreviated version of her name, Mumtaz Mahal (Exalted One of the Palace). The Taj Mahal is a deserving resting palace for an Emperor's Empress. It stands on the banks of the river Yamuna, which otherwise serves as a wide moat defending the Great Red Fort of Agra, the center of the Mughal emperors until they moved their capital to Delhi in 1637. It was built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan in 1631 in memory of his second wife, Mumtaz Mahal, a Muslim Persian princess.
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In historic accounts of the Taj Mahal complex, the riverfront terrace supporting the mausoleum has been referred to as the kursi, or throne. This terrace, and the marble plinth upon it, supports the mosque, mausoleum and the mihmankhana. Its north (river-facing) elevation is clad in red sandstone and framed with marble inlay and displays a series of now-infilled arches. The vegetal motifs carved on the wall are enlarged versions of those that appear on the mausoleum, the mihmankhana and the mosque. These arches were originally open to the Yamuna river, allowing light and ventilation to reach the inner tahkhana rooms within. The tahkhana, a gallery of rooms arranged in a row and connected by a narrow corridor, is reached by two staircases that descend from openings in the surface of the plinth to the east and west of the mausoleum.
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