Travelling in Rajasthan in February 2008
Jaipur >> Shekhawati >> Pushkar >> Jaisalmer >> Jodhpur
+ Previous: Old City: City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal
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Close to the City Palace is Iswari Minar Swarg Sal, commonly known as Swarg Suli. Its a tall minaret, almost seven stories high and probably shares the honour for being one of the tallest points in Old City along with Chandra Mahal. I can see it from far off, but finding the entrance to it is an effort. I have to get off the main roads and walk through a narrow, more or less abandoned street. But for a fading handwritten sign on a cardboard sheet that says ‘this way up,’ I would be scrambling up and down the street trying to find my way into the minaret.
I walk up the narrow staircase to the terrace on the first floor where I am greeted by a bored man sitting on a rusting chair, with a folder in his lap and a small bag across his shoulder.
“Is this the way up the minar?” I ask him pointing at a dark ramp that seems to lead nowhere.
“Yes,” he said as he opened his folder, “five rupees, please.” I pay the money and ask him if no one visits the place.
“Not many,” he said as he teared a ticket from the folder, “very few people.”
As I walk up, I am glad there are very few people coming here. Its a dark helical ramp that slowly leads up, with a tiny window in every floor that brings in only a little light. A rush of tourists like in Hawa Mahal or City Palace would result in a stampede, or at least makes few people choke from claustrophobia.
At the top of the minaret is open space with all-round view of the city. Standing up there, I can see the sprawl of Jaipur, the Aravali Hills spreading to the east limiting the growth of Old City, and the plains to the west where the new city is growing quickly. It is easy to spot Hawa Mahal, City Palace and the streets of the Old City I have passed through earlier. And to the North is Nahargarh Fort up on a hill.
Views from the Minaret
In the thirty minutes or so I spent on the top, there were no more than half-a-dozen people walking up to the top. Like most roofs in the Old City, pigeons, not people dominated the minaret.
Although I never made it to Nahargarh looming high to the north and visible from most parts of the old city, I could see its walls spreading all over the hills from the cenotaphs of Rajasthan’s Rulers built at the base of the hill, at Gaitor Village. Located just outside the walls of the Old City under leafy ficus trees, they are one of the finest examples of what can be produced with Rajasthan’s smooth marble stones. Tall Chhatris around the cenotaph, the tombs and roofs are all made with smooth creamy white marbles. There are stories from Mahabharata and Krishna’s playful childhood etched on the walls and around the graves. And in the background on the high hill are walls of Nahargarh meandering along the ridge.
Raju drove me to Amber (pronounced Amer) Fort that afternoon. Going past the old city, the surroundings suddenly change from urban to forested. We climb up a hill on a road surrounded by dense pack of trees that now stand bare in the dry winter. But I can imagine how beautiful and lush green will this winding road going up and down can be, in the rainy days.
Like Naharagarh, Amber too, is up on the top of a hill dominating a ridge. Standing in a valley and surrounded by fortified hills all around me, I am impressed by the majestic effort put by the rulers of Jaipur to protect themselves from possible conflicts. There are fort walls in every angle as I look up, with Amber’s towering structure making everything else look small. A large tank at the base of the hill matches the fort in size adds to the beauty, but there is not much water to see today. After a delicious paratha at a place recommended by Raju, I am ready to take the climb to the fort.
Unfortunately I am in Jaipur in a wrong time, when nearly every monument is going through some stages of restoration. So is Amber Fort. I see bamboo poles stacked up against the wall for painting the outside wall. And inside, I enter into a large open courtyard now partly covered with gravel, cement and other construction material. Fortunately, insides of the fort are untouched and I can explore in peace.
The insides of Amber are evidently royal. Large courtyards, spacious interiors, elaborately decorated walls and marble structure. The king’s prize possession probably was the zanana with dozens of rooms interconnected by a maze of passages. “It is easy to get lost,” said a guidebook and that’s exactly how it turned out with me.
We stop at Jal Mahal on our way back. The Jal Mahal Palace is built in the middle of a lake, and is now left to itself for such a long time that trees have grown over them. The lake’s water is visibly polluted, but nevertheless home to a few wading Black Winged Stilts and a large number of pigeons. We spend the evening near the lake waiting for the sun to go down and the warm day turn into a cold dusk, before heading back to the city.
Continued at Jaipur Information
Travelling in Rajasthan in February 2008
Jaipur >> Shekhawati >> Pushkar >> Jaisalmer >> Jodhpur
+ Previous: Old City: City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawal – I
+ Next: Amber Fort and Jal Mahal
City Palace is a showcase of Rajasthan. A snake charmer welcomes the visitors with his snake-in-the-box, and blowing his pungi and making the snake raise its hood to charm the tourists. It works well. Hoards of tourists from the west who have been oversold with stories of snake charmers, rope-tricksters and elephant riders, tout their camera and smile with a triumph of having seen the India of their conception.
Cultural ambassadors take up corners of the palace to entertain tourists. Sitting in the palace coffee shop, I come out of my thoughts to the tunes of melodious music, from a young chap in traditional clothes playing Ravan Hatha. The piano-like string instrument has a low-pitch sound and its music has added pep to some popular Bollywood movies like Pardesi and Dor(Kesariya Balam). Poppet shows – called Katputlis – are played on request in another corner.
Handicrafts and museums spread around the palace keep the cultural showcasing going. The museum in Mubarak Mahal has a collection of artifacts that belong to the kings and queens – like sarees, overcoats, chairs and anything that could be collected. A gigantic robe belonging to Raja Madho Singh – I appears big enough to take his wife and children along with the king inside it. I understand what ‘king size’ is all about! An arms museum has a collection of pistols, rifles and less sophisticated instruments like knives and swords. A four barrel gun with a broken butt, which probably worked with a gun powder stays in my memory. A large art gallery in the palace is a place to look forward to. There is plenty to see (and buy) – paintings, marble work and metal artifacts that dazzle in the strong lights of the interior, sometime artists working on a few of them.
The interiors of the palace are much peaceful, especially for someone who has walked through the rush of the main roads outside. The spacious courtyards can take plenty of tourists and can still feel empty. I walk past Mubarak Mahal – the welcoming hall, the museums, and spend some time admiring the large silver pots placed in Diwan-i-Khas. The pots hold Guinness record for being the largest silver vessels in the world, and was used by King Sawai Madho Singh to carry the waters of Ganga wherever he went. Apparently he would not drink from a source other than the holy river.
The descendants of the kings still live in the palace, on the seven-story tower of Chandra Mahal. Access to the tower is restricted, and you can only see them up-close from below at the Pitam Niwas Chowk – an open courtyard. The four gates of the courtyard are painted with peacocks with bright blue colors and in different moods, said to represent the four seasons.
I sit on a stone bench near Mubarak Mahal after a few hours of walking the palace from corner to corner many times over. Rain from previous night has formed a small puddle near my bench, which attracts a dozen sparrows. They sit and bathe in the water by vigorously shaking their wings while keeping an eye on me. Once in a while they become a small crowd that tightly packs the puddle, and they fly in and out quickly to let others take over.
Out of the City Palace, I head to neighbouring Jantar Mantar – an astronomical observatory built by Maharaja Jai Singh. It looks like a maze of queer structures at first sight, but everything has a purpose. I want to hire a guide and find out more, but the ongoing restoration work puts me off and makes me move away.
I have spent more than half a day wandering the Old City and City Palace. There is still Hawa-Mahal to explore – another pink structure that epitomizes the architecture of Jaipur. Hawa Mahal was built to provide a platform for the women of the palace to see processions passing by the streets during festivals. The Lonely Planet quotes Hawa Mahal as an “extra-ordinary fairy tale”, but unfortunately my eyes fail to recognize much beyond the ordinary. The photogenic outer wall facing the road has a celebratory feel with their bright pink painting and patterns on the windows, earning it a rightful fame. But inside, it is no more than a maze of insipid rooms with peeling plasters, and small windows meant to isolate the royal women with rest of the world.
The walk to Hawa Mahal from City Palace is more enticing than the monument itself. There are pigeons squatting on every possible perch, wide and peaceful alleys, ancient structures that have a charm even in their dilapidated state, Chhatris and arches on the top of the buildings, old temples with just a handful of people sunning in the veranda, a few chai shops and shops selling bright wears of Rajasthan give a glimpse of what Jaipur used to be in the days of the kings.
Continued at Amber Fort and Jal Mahal
Travelling in Rajasthan in February 2008
Jaipur >> Shekhawati >> Pushkar >> Jaisalmer >> Jodhpur
+ Previous: Jaipur with Raju
+ Next: Old City: City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal – II
Jaipur’s weather is at its best during the arrival or departure of winter. I have chosen one such time to be there, when the sun shines brightly after a long hangover of winter, but is not harsh and unforgiving yet. Even the good weather days of Rajasthan are difficult for me – the spoilsport who has lived in the tropics most of his life, in moderate climes where the mercury is friendly to the human body through the year. Wandering in the city’s roads, wind bites my skin and I find it cold every time I am in shadows. Its a pleasure to get out and feel the warmth of the sun in those moments, but only for some time before the sun starts burning the skin. Altering between sun and shadow was something I had to keep doing for my entire three weeks of stay in Rajasthan.
Like every other city with a history, Jaipur too, has an old walled block that is struggling to survive with the changing days, and a modern city that is fast expanding. Unlike popular belief, its not entire Jaipur but only the old city that gets called ‘Pink City’. Walking on the main streets of Old City, its a surprise even to the best informed traveller to witness every structure painted in pink. The uniformity doesn’t stop there. Every shop on the street, whether they sell groceries or clothes or mutual funds, all have the same shape and size and need numbering to distinguish one from other. Thank god for the numbers, without them one would have no idea how to find the shop he is looking for. But once in a while you see the order broken. Modern corporations, ever conscious of an image and with pressures to build their brands have tried to break out of the monotony and have raised sleek signboards in front of their offices. The pink palettes of Jaipur can’t survive democracy for long – it takes a king to bring an order of such degree and have no one question it.
One of the gates of the old walled city.
And it is indeed a king who decided the color of the buildings. Late nineteenth century, Maharaja Man Singh II decided that the best way to welcome the then Prince of Wales to Jaipur is to have the entire city painted in pink. Once the orders were dispatched, probably no questions were asked and the task would have been completed overnight. No protests from site owners, no bundh calls from opposition or no court hearing to stall the order.
Whether people of Jaipur in those days liked it or not, the pink city gave name and fame to Jaipur. There is a certain charm to see in the evenness of its lanes that is a relief from regular chaos of other parts of the city. Neatly lined up shops in perfect order selling every possible thing – grains by wholesale, clothes, hardware, crockery, plastic, anything you can think of. I even see sewing machines labeled ‘Nokia’ in a shop. But out of the sidewalks and into the streets, things are not much different. Roads are crowded in the peak hour with scooters, rickshaws, cars, bicycles and push-carts. Congestion happens often in roads probably built a few hundred years ago without a foresight of industrial revolution. Yet, it is impressive that the system has supported years of growth. After all, when it was established, Jaipur was the only city in the country built with a plan.
But despite the bustle of the market, an old world feel remains in the pink city’s structures. Once in a while you see ancient buildings that haven’t seen any restoration work in many years. Lanes leading out of the main roads are quiet and cozy without the noise of the traffic. Sandstone colored stucco are peeling off from old buildings with large domes on their top. Standing on the roof of a building, I can see arches on the top of old and worn out pink buildings spreading in all directions of the old city.
As I walk besides the shops on the way to City Palace, a few shopkeepers selling objects of tourists desire call at me, inviting me to take a look at their stockpile of handicrafts, souvenirs and colorful clothing. My eyes meet that of a rickshawalla when I cross a street, and there is a flicker of hope in his eyes as he thinks I might turnout to be a customer. A little ahead, there are two pigeons having a fight in their corner which lasts long enough for me to wait and watch. Just when it is erupting into a violence showdown, one of them accepts defeat and flies away.
I enter the complex of City Palace through a narrow gate that isolates the area from traffic, noise and the rush outside. The complex is a large area with empty, wide alleys and open spaces. Large gates with tall arches divide sections of the complex, with fluttering pigeons occupying every inch of free space on the top of these arches. Once in a while they rush out of their perches with loud flutter of wings, collectively strong enough to create small local currents of wind. The amiable Marwaris feed the pigeons generously, letting them thrive and grow plump in the quarters of Old City.
Continued at Old City: City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal – II