Taj Mahal

"Have you seen the Taj?" Raju the waiter asked conspiratorially in New Delhi as he set the tea on the table. The linen was crisp and white. His cuff was frayed and stained. I was having my tea on the veranda of the old Imperial Hotel where memories of the British Raj still echoed faintly along the quiet corridors. It was my first visit to India and it had been a powerful culture shock. The maimed beggars crying in the streets. The grisly poverty displayed like some buskined dumb show.

The Boeing 707, with Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger aboard, was somewhere over the Persian Gulf. That was certain. In the rear cabin reserved for support staff and reporters, Weinberger was poring over a map of aviation routes to pinpoint the location of his Air Force jet and trace its course over the Strait of Hormuz toward landfall over the Arabian Peninsula just north of Bahrain.

The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission has approved monument protection for the 61-year-old Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch bakery building at San Fernando Road and Fletcher Drive. Facing no opposition to the nomination by the Los Angeles Conservancy, the five-member panel added the vacant building at 3020 San Fernando Road to the city's list of historic-cultural monuments.

Taj Mahal is one of the leading conservators of the old folk-blues, while Peter Case is a good exponent of the new folk-rock. Sharing a bill Tuesday night at the Coach House, Mahal, an assured solo performer of more than 20 years' standing, managed to make his familiar act, styles and repertoire sound refreshing. Case, still experimenting with finding the proper live vehicle, was not as consistently effective, although he drew upon strong, roots-oriented, original material. Mahal opened and closed his set with rolling blues piano but his expertise as a finger-picking guitarist is what gave him the inventiveness and flexibility to maintain a sense of liveliness and variety.

Donald Trump reached a deal today with investors in his Taj Mahal casino that will briefly put it under bankruptcy-court protection and give them a 50% stake but will also permit the developer to remain as chairman. The arrangement was reached more than 12 hours after Trump missed a $47.3-million interest payment on $675 million worth of high-yield junk bonds used to finance the gambling parlor, the biggest and ritziest in Atlantic City.

In a narrow lane choked with dust and fumes not far from the most remarkable marble tomb ever built, Hari Om Gupta's desk is piled high with the mounting evidence of an impending cultural disaster. They are like daily damage assessments from the war front in India's painful movement from its rich, ancient past toward a more modern, prosperous future.

Taj Mahal thinks the blues-loving public's idea of him has become a little distorted lately, which is ironic considering that few stage performers project as vivid an image. Large and muscular under his trademark broad-brimmed hats, Mahal has long been one of the most accomplished and versatile performers on the acoustic-blues circuit, switching between guitar and piano to deliver pumped-up solo concerts that reinvigorate venerable forms.

In the tradition of trying harder, the Avis Rent-a-Car employees sat cross-legged on the floor of John Wayne Airport's new terminal Saturday, happily sorting through a pile of dusty computers and tangled wires. The crew was in the process of moving the guts of the computer system from the company's cramped trailer and into its new home in the lobby of the $63-million Thomas F. Riley Terminal in time for its opening this morning.

As mega-developer Donald J. Trump rubbed an over-sized Aladdin's lamp Thursday night, a green laser beam cut through a ceremonial ribbon and his $1-billion Taj Mahal gambling complex swung open its doors. The 17-acre gambling Mecca by the sea may be a risky roll of the dice for Trump, who already owns two casinos along the boardwalk.

The Taj Mahal, an enduring icon of India's past majesty, is now a monument to the country's endemic corruption. India's Supreme Court last Thursday ordered police to prosecute Uttar Pradesh state's former chief minister, Mayawati, and seven other officials for trying to build shopping malls, amusement parks and restaurants next to the 17th century Taj Mahal.