Jaipur - Part 1

December 2019, New Delhi


Lately, my tours have all been about seeking peace and silence. I knew Jaipur was going to be just that. Or, all that i expected from Jaipur was that. With my grandfather passing away, a peaceful trip was exactly what i needed to get over the prevailing sadness. I thought it might help Amma as well. After all, we never forget things, we only distract ourselves from remembering them.

  When my family decided to move to Delhi, we were more excited about the tours we could go from Delhi to the places in North India (which can be too expensive to plan when in Tamil Nadu) rather than being excited about moving to Delhi. And sticking to her word, Amma took us to places in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, (thanks to Shatabdi Express of Indian railways). This time we wanted to explore a little to the west of India and Jaipur was our first choice.

Planning the trip:

I took the burden of planning the trip this time and I started preparing the itinerary "well ahead" of the trip i.e., only when we were en route to Jaipur.

I booked the train tickets a month ago and as usual, Amma put her perks of being a government employee into use and booked us a guest house. But we did not think further about the tour until we had to start packing for real, the day before the tour commenced. This is one of those things that I like about my family. We are not staunch perfectionists in everything. Sometimes we do want to go with the flow and not stress about things. And a tour, per se, is what we engage on to seek peace.

Shatabdi Express of Indian Railways is the train that I will never forget in my life. Waking up at 3 am to catch the train on time, the cab ride in biting cold of an early morning in Delhi's December, the breakfast that is provided only to test if your taste buds are still asleep, the uncomfortable postures trying to fit into the seat, the unclean train-restrooms with water supply that depends on your luck, the disturbed sleep but waking up to bright sunshine from those extremely wide windows, it all adds up to a tiresome yet wonderful journey. It is wonderful only because it is merely a few hours before we reach our destination.

They say "it is the journey that is more beautiful than the destination" and Indian Railway was invented to challenge that. Anyhow, when the Jaipur sun penetrated through the asbestos roof of the railway platform to reach for our faces as we stepped out of the train, we felt the warmth of the Pink City's welcome!

Day 1- Uncertainty:

It was a cold morning with bright sunshine in Jaipur. The streets were waking up and getting ready for the long day ahead when we took a stroll to find a place for breakfast. A few gentlemen we met on our way directed us to a tiny little dhaba. The Dhaba was a cozy little room with a few benches that resembled the kitchen set that i used to play with as a kid. The food was made live on a counter outside the dhaba which let smoke coupled with aroma infuse with the gentle wind and pull the passerby to take a harmless bite of the hot rotis. The owner of the dhaba was an affable man who spoke mostly through gestures and telepathy. It felt homely. He kept serving us steaming hot rotis, which recharged us for the day ahead. The hospitality tasted better than the food here and we were not going to get that elsewhere in this trip thereafter.

With more days in hand to spend in Jaipur and relatively less places to tour, we decided to take it slow.
Proximity, difficulty level of the activity and food options are three important things to consider while planning a day of your trip. Being uncertain on where to start, we decided to hit the place where people throng so that we could get the spirit of the city. So we narrowed it down to Hawa Mahal-the bustling marketplace filled with shops of all sort- the most famous landmark of Jaipur city.

We slowly glided through the wide main roads of Jaipur in the auto that we hired. Crossing a temple that stood on a hill with an old fort to its background, I was curious to know which temple it was.  "Birla Temple", the auto-man told me. I muted out the trivia that followed.

 Until we got closer to Hawa Mahal, Jaipur city had been giving me the impression of being calm and serene and noiseless for a city. As we entered the noisy, crowded streets of J.D.A market (where the mahal is situated), the impression that the city gave me earlier was in shambles.
It was an orderly chaos. The market looked like a yesteryear shopping mall. It was a motley of small shops within pinkish buildings. The pinkish buildings looked like blushing one-storeyed matchboxes glued together horizontally that made them look like barricades that bordered the road. I could not help but notice that no shops had a flex board that carries the shop name like in Tamil Nadu. Instead the names of the shops were uniformly written in black ink on a strip of white paint on the pink walls of the buildings. I was pretty sure that each shop in the market was at least a few decades old.

The traffic jam held us in that road for more than half an hour that I was able to window shop every shop from the window of my auto. At last we reached Hawa Mahal.
Hawa means wind and mahal means palace. Yet, an irony prevailed.The Mahal was not able to hold the overwhelming crowd and as the result of growing number of incoming visitors, there was no place within the mahal where the "hawa" can be experienced peacefully. But, the construction was laudable and a special mention to those incredibly tiny windows through which women of the past used to watch the processions of kings and princes and witnessed festivals.
We were ejected out of the mahal by the churning crowd when we were looking for the exit. Coming out,we decided to walk through the famous Johari bazaar adjoining the mahal, where we were able to witness the facade of the mahal. It looked stupendous. I stopped for a few pictures and we continued to stroll through the market and shopped before we wrapped up for the day.

Day 2: The Magnificent Rajput Architecture:

"Inga vandhu romba varusham aachu (It's been many years since i moved here)", said the tamil woman who sold us tender coconuts in that blissful morning on the banks of Man Sagar Lake that housed Jal Mahal.

 While my brother was touting his skill of recognizing Tamilians in North India, I drifted away to capture the beautiful Mahal with my camera.  We spent a few silent minutes to observe the ambiance and then we were off to explore the royal palaces of Jaipur.

The three prominent forts of Jaipur are Amer/Amber Fort, Jaigarh Fort and Nahargarh Fort. The forts are connected to each other which are ensconced on the top of the hill. The forts on the top of the hill looked as though they were a part of the hill that it was difficult for me to imagine how the hill would have looked before these forts were built on them. It was as if God made these hills with the forts, like a complete package and all that the Rajputs had to do was move in.

India is populated.This was proved once again when I had to wait for more than hour to cover a distance of less than a kilometre to reach Amer fort. The road was jam packed with tourists in their cabs and buses and auto rickshaws. I was eyeing on tasty potato chips hanging in the roadside shops as I thought to myself , 'is it worth the wait?'.

Amer Fort was visible from where we stood in the traffic and there it was, the pale yellow and pink colored magnificent building that looked flawless.We inserted ourselves into the flock that was entering the fort. The people were oblivious to the noise and unease of being in the crowd as they were all in awe with the grandiose construction. We were no exception. 

I was not able to help but wonder how it would have been if I was living in the past, within the fort as a princess. I imagined myself owning the palace, the sheesh mahal (palace of mirror), the courtyards, the temples and the gardens. I was particularly impressed with the fenestration in the fort. The nuances and intricacies employed in creating this architectural wonder was immense.

After a long afternoon of strolling through the fort, we decided to go ahead to the Jaigarh Fort. It was a short hike away from Amer Fort. As the dusk was setting in, we reached the fort and we must probably have been the last batch to enter the fort for the day. 

While Amer Fort looked livable and was built as residence of the royals, Jaigarh Fort looked as though it was built to handle activities concerning administration and to cater the guests and royal gatherings. What caught my attention was the beautiful fenestration throughout the fort. It was mesmerizing that I lost my only handkerchief that saved me from incessant sweating under the hot weather of Jaipur. And when I retraced my steps on my mission to get back the handkerchief, I saw that I had dropped it in front of a beautifully carved door at which I was transfixing my eyes a while ago. 

As we were covering all the parts of the fort rather hurriedly, we reached a garden-like part of the fort which must have been the place used for evening hangouts as it was shady and breezy much to our relief from the heat. As I walked through it I saw a giant archway that overlooked the hill. The archway served as the frame to that indescribably beautiful landscape. Any untrained eye would have perceived it to be a grandiose work of art. Going ahead, we reached the viewing gallery that gave us a good panoramic view that contained Amer Fort along with the surrounding hills among others. We climbed down to Amer Fort and then further below to the entrance in the bottom of the hill. It was dusk and the cold desert weather was setting in. I turned back for a quick look at the fort and found it just as breath-taking as it was when I saw it earlier in the afternoon. Only that this time, it felt like it became my acquaintance. I sighed looking at it and then got ready to dump some food for my growling tummy before I called it a day( a great day)
, and crashed.