Have you ever visited the beautiful Taj Mahal? It’s situated in Agra, Delhi. This is a monument that is symbolic of a man's love to his wife. This was even quoted as one of the wonders in the whole world. I haven't been there myself but people who have are often quoted as saying that it is breathtakingly beautiful!

Last year, the Commonwealth games (CWG) were held in Delhi. The ministers in charge of the CWG were constantly in the news trying to save their faces. I don't normally write on politics and don't intend to in the near future but no Indian would have missed the fiasco that took place days before the games actually started!

What caught my attention was an article I read on msn. Their news article had a picture of the same Taj Mahal shown above; only they shot it from an angle we don't normally see!




It’s not hard to notice all the garbage and dump just besides the great monument, isn't it? The article on msn was about how the municipal commissioner was planning to clean up the entire city as there would be many visitors from the CWG. This was the opening statement from the article, "With a lot of Commonwealth Games visitors expected to descend on the Taj Mahal, the city's new municipal commissioner has launched an all-out war on garbage and pervading squalor to make it "cleaner, greener and worthy of its great monuments".

The tall standing beauty, Taj Mahal has a side which is actually so dirty to look at, let alone consider! At least they were planning to clean it up! When we take a look at the beauty of the monument from the front and turn it around; there is this sudden dismay that comes when we see the dump right behind! It is definitely not something we may have expected to see!

Reading this article made me think about people. When it comes to people, despite the smile or the great looks that they give us, is there a dark side that no one knows about?


Heard of Anna Hazare? He has become a household name now all over India, hasn't he? His name has become synonymous with the term anti-corruption. His anti-corruption campaign and attempts to bring out the Lokpal bill has been noteworthy. He has stirred up the entire nation behind his cause! Just like the city commissioner in Delhi, he too has launched an all-out war on garbage!

Without doubt, what is lacking today amongst many people is the word character.

I remember one morning, picking up the newspaper and reading the headline, "Satyam Gate!" Do you remember that incident? It happened a few years ago. What unfolded there was perhaps the largest IT industry scandal that India had ever seen and will see in the years to come! No one saw it coming, it wasn't expected!


A man who had won so many awards for his management and who was considered one of the best entrepreneurs that India had ever seen. What happened? Beyond all the smiles and the awards, he was forced to turn around. A dark side which had been hidden had been exposed! He had simply been found out!

What about Raja and the 2G scam? I could go on listing names and more surprisingly (or not!) we don't have to go out of our country to see people without character!

From the words of famous author Mark Twain ~“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”

The sad part about our society today is that too many people have dark sides. And it's interesting to note that most of these names are people at the top level whose dark sides were exposed! And when the Lokpal bill gets signed (which mostly will the way things are turning out), we will probably have more names to add to the list of people without character!

But the question that we need to ask, I think is not as to how many more people in the top level are living lives that have no character but what we should be asking is when it comes to me and you is there a dark side in our lives that no one knows about?

The famous evangelist D.L. Moody has said, "Character is what a man is in the dark."

The true character of a person is not what we see in the open but is marked by what they are when no one is looking. 

In the next few weeks, I want to explore this subject of character. It's time for all of us to look in the closet! Maybe bring to light what we may have been perhaps ignoring for a long while.