Agra, March 22 :     It was a perfect fusion of the East and the West, a harmonious blend of power and beauty as President Bill Clinton took his fill of the Taj Mahal, keeping his long-awaited date with this monument of love. The man who can make the world swivel around him had waited with bated breath for this magic moment. He gazed in awe at the resplendent tomb glinting in the sunlight - his daughter Chelsea was beside him as the President walked around the premises of the Taj Mahal for an enticing hour-and-a-half. Hours before reaching Agra, the President had told Parliament that the world was split between those have seen the Taj and those who have not. 'In a few hours, I will have a chance to cross over to the happier side of that divide.' The President had wanted it to be a 'private' occasion and it was made as sequestered as possible. Only photographers and camerapersons were allowed to script the event - clicking into memory the President as he sat on the lover's bench first with his daughter and then with his mother-in-law. The US delegation was with him, trailing behind. Clinton, those accompanying him said, 'looked truly relaxed'. In a maroonish brown shirt and black trousers, Clinton wore the casual look of a tourist happy to put behind him the shadow of international terrorism and the spectre of a nuclear holocaust. Here his concerns were different. Barely half-a-kilometre from the Taj Mahal, at the Taj Khema hotel, the President spoke to a gathering of Indian captains, environmentalists and NGOs urging them to make the world a 'cleaner and safer' place. Standing on a lush green carpet, with the shadow of the Taj Mahal behind him, Clinton said: 'When we stand in the shadow of the Taj Mahal, we remember it is a monument built in love. All the most important monuments are built for love. The most important monument today we can give our children and our children's children is the preservation of the Earth that was given to us.' A green and white shamiana and green screens hemmed the elevated grassy patch where the seminar took place, and in its background stood the Taj Mahal. Before Clinton took the dais, external affairs minister Jaswant Singh and US secretary of state Madeleine Albright had signed a joint statement on cooperation in energy and environment. The President announced an aid of $45 million to promote more efficient energy production, another $50 million to promote clean energy throughout South Asia and $200 million for clean energy projects through the Import-Export Bank. He linked his concern for environmental degradation to his visit to the Taj which, he said, is damaged by what some scientists call 'marble cancer'. Since 1982, efforts have been underway to protect the monument. 'But still a constant effort is needed to save the Taj Mahal from human environmental degradation. I cannot help wondering if a stone can get cancer, what kind of damage pollution can do to children,' he said.