The other Taj Mahal - in pictures

A portrait of retired postman Faizul Hasan Qadri and his late wife Tajammuli inside Mr Qadri’s house. The couple were married for 58 years.

His wife Tajammuli asked one day who would remember them once they were gone, since the couple have no children. ‘I will build a tomb that everybody will remember,’ he told her. It is for her, he says, though one day he will also be laid inside it.

Mr Qadri will keep working on it until he dies. When that happens, his younger brother Mehzul Hasan, 70, pictured in the background, will bury him next to his wife and finish the job.

Mr Qadri reviews a note book with love poems he wrote for his wife Tajammuli. ‘We were just a normal couple,’ said Mr Qadri.

People have offered to help, but he has declined. ‘It is a proof of love. I have to do it on my own.’

Mr Qadri designed the building himself, clearly inspired by India’s ancient monuments. But he laughed when villagers started calling it the Taj Mahal, after the mausoleum famously built by a Mughal king for his favourite wife.

Mr Qadri and his wife only visited the Taj Mahal once. It is 140 kilometres away from here, and they had little money for travelling.

Rob Gurdebeke

Faizul Hasan Qadri and his wife, Tajammuli, were married for 58 years when she died three years ago. The 79-year-old retired postman built her a Taj Mahal-inspired mausoleum to express his love. All photos by Bernat Armangue

Updated: December 08, 2014, 12:00 AM