By TONY MOCHAMA

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In 1631 in Agra, India, Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Emperor Shah Jahan died at childbirth.

To immortalise her, the emperor built the Taj Mahal. It took 20,000 workers 22 years to complete the memorial to love, which is now one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Many people around the world have been inspired by the Taj Mahal, and just outside Nairobi is one such place. The Maple Inn, on Nairobi’s Northern Bypass, adjacent to the Kenyatta University Referral Hospital, is a small, cosy hotel built by Stephen M in memory of his wife Purity.

Purity, a hotelier, died a few years ago of cancer. At one point she had sought treatment in India, where the couple visited the Taj Mahal. They were impressed by the love story and the monument it has become.

When she died, Stephen decided to keep her memory alive by building a monument to her life.

He built the hotel and called it Maple Inn after the Canadian national tree, which caught his imagination when he was a student in Quebec, studying agriculture.

The inn hosts charity conferences for cancer, in partnership with the nearby hospital. Another reason he chose the name is because "maple trees produce maple syrup, a huge money earner for farmers in Canada. So the name is a good omen.

"The maple tree changes colour according to seasons," Stephen says, "from bright green to fiery red to orange-yellow."

This, his says, represents how we must change and adapt with every season of our life, as circumstances change.

Pink lounge

For relaxing he set up the Pink Lounge that contrasts with the orange of the front area, the brown of conference rooms and the warm green of the bedrooms.

To add to his theme, his decor includes pictures of the Seven Wonders of the World by in several places around the hotel.

Every wonder of the world reflects symbolism of the hotel’s origins.

Life was stable and secure for Stephen and his three boys when Purity was alive — just like the Great Wall of China. After her demise, everything was bleak, like the picture of the Machu Picchu, the Inca ruins of Peru.

But after a year, just like the 365 steps that represent the Chichen Itza Toltec-style pyramid of the Mayans, Stephen was ready to embark on the project they had spoken of with Purity, and came up with the Maple Inn.

From grief came hope, like the water Moses was said to have brought forth from the hard rock of Petra the Khaznah in Jordan, which is the fifth wonder of the world, and its picture also adorns one space.

And from that, a dream redeemed, in the name of the picture of the Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the sixth wonder of the world.

And, like the Colosseum, the seventh wonder of the world in Rome, The Maple Inn stands on the Northern Bypass in Nairobi.