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There are so many
sites and sights in Jaipur that I don’t ever seem to get tired of
looking at. The Moti Doongri, Rajmata Gayatri Devi’s summer palace
stands surrounded by ugly forms of pretentious architecture, lunatic
frenzied traffic, a Birla temple and a copy of food vendors at
Chowpatty in Bombay. Yet it stands out in quiet majesty, a trifle
forlorn I must say. It’s been locked up and no one has any clue
whether it will ever be opened to interested visitors. As
architectural icons and in my mind somehow intrinsically connected
with Rajmata Sahiba are the MGD School and Rambagh Palace. They form
the central fulcrum of the city along with the Albert Hall Museum
being within a vicinity of five km.
The Jal Mahal, now getting converted into a state-of-the-art, living
heritage museum, surrounded by a lake which is also getting cleaned
up to be ecologically conducive site for flora and fauna to thrive,
is a picture postcard. Just short of Amer is the Mansa Devi temple,
considered to be the original shrine where the Devi appeared and now
is housed in her temple in the precincts of Amer Fort. This temple
is not embellished - it rises in your consciousness and grows into
your mind. For a non-ritualistic person like me, I feel drawn to it
simply because it emanates serenity, a sense of worship.
Further down, not turning into Amer Fort, but into the cobbled
street that leads up to its ramparts is Meera Bai temple, the Shiv
Parvati temple standing resplendent in heavily carved stone
structures, replete with intricate floral motifs, animals, Gods and
Goddesses, royal processions - symbols of beauty and ages gone by.
Turning further into the cobbled streets of old Amer, the Anokhi
Museum of Hand Block Printing housed within a restored 400-year-old
haveli opens a whole new world of stories told through textiles and
a history in hand block printing which is synonymous with Jaipur.
Driving back, my eyes never tire of taking in the entire expanse of
Amer, Jaigarh and Nahargarh forts in a historical continuity. The
royal Gaitor Cenotaphs stand as silent sentinels looking upon the
buzzing roads but very few visitors. For someone who lived in Jaipur
for over six years, working on the Anokhi Museum and later with the
JVF, Pramod Kumar KG of Eka Cultural Resources and Research, feels
that “the need for better tourism infrastructure to go hand in hand
with the built heritage, more so adaptive reuse of historical
structures has possibly been honed best in Jaipur more than anywhere
else in the country currently.”
Another sight that I can never stop marvelling at is the Albert Hall
Museum - a stately piece of architecture right in the heart of the
city, flanked by the Ram Niwas Bagh, the Zoo on its sides. To walk
around Hawa Mahal is an adventure still. A kaleidoscope of colours
explode from the tiny shops that sport mirrorwork lehngas, bags,
jootis, umbrellas, paintings, jewellery, trinkets that catch the
sunlight in themselves and wink back. Crossing the traditional
square markets that take you to Jantar Mantar and the City Palace,
the feeling of being encapsulated in a time bubble and floating
along comes in.
The City Palace remains the symbol of much of Jaipur’s royal
traditions. The silver urns are still there at the Sarvato Bhadra
and the museum is trying hard to become interactive. From the Hawa
Mahal, a walk down badi chaupad through Johri Bazaar is as vital as
breathing in this city. It’s an art to walk through the pavement, as
you skip over and around wares displayed, duck under fluttering
bandhini skirts, skirt the vegetable vendor, get engulfed by a
sudden wave of smells that speak of dry red chillies, dry coriander,
cross gota patti bordered saris, silver baubles, chunky precious
stones, some cows and their dung and traffic which is happily
chaotic.
It’s almost as if the city thrives on chaos and that it knows no
other way of life. Princess Diya Kumari ji says, “Each place in
Jaipur has its own charm and character, it is one of most beautiful
cities of India and I hope we will be able to keep it that way.”
Expressing her “personal opinion” frankly, Princess Diya feels that
socially, culturally, “we are not doing so badly but the younger
generation has to strike a balance in trying to being modern.”
Firmly entrenched in her roots, “architecturally, the balance is
tilted since we are going overboard with steel and glass - how can
you have a steel and glass structure right next to a heritage
building? How do they manage to conform to architectural rules in
European countries? There are no proper laws and guidelines here.”
In terms of restoration, “I’d prefer preservation to restoration, we
should restore only where necessary and work at preserving the
original structure, unless a building is actually breaking down and
demands restoring. Life within the walled city is a living
nightmare, the traffic is mismanaged and the pavements are
over-cluttered.”
New age construction of shopping malls, corporate offices are all
welcome signs of a city that is growing to make its place in a
modern India but are we headed in the right direction? A senior,
learned, informed citizen feels, “Change is the rule, we can’t deny
it from taking place but we can certainly guide its course, an
effective implementation of building laws and a policy of
conservation of heritage is needed and is not being done. There is
no systematic effort to perpetuate our heritage in all senses except
for the government buildings along Janpath. The new buildings
otherwise are out of place in style and material used.” Having
worked with certain restoration projects, “we did a lot of research
on materials, on recommendations based on John Marshall report, and
tried our best to be true to the past.”
Coming back towards the newer city, the Statue Circle is where we
grew up having picnics with puri aloo. So, the quaint charm of the
old city famous for being pink, its various forts, palaces, gardens,
temples is what gives Jaipur the grain of its character. History
still lives on in the fact that Jaipur, the pink city was founded in
1727 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, a Kachhwaha Rajput, who ruled from
1699-1744. Jaipur is the first planned city of India and the King
took great interest while designing this city of victory. Being a
lover of mathematics and science, Jai Singh sought advice from
Vidyadhar Bhattacharya, a Brahmin scholar of Bengal, to aid him
design the city architecture. Vidyadhar referred the ancient Indian
literature on astronomy, books of Ptolemy and Euclid, and discussed
the plan with the King.
With a strategic plan, the construction of the city started in 1727.
It took around four years to complete the major palaces, roads and
square. The city was built following the principles of Shilpa
Shastra, the Indian architecture. The city was divided into nine
blocks, out of which two consisted the state buildings and palaces,
whereas the remaining seven blocks were allotted to the public.
In the throes of change
In order to ensure the security, huge fortification walls were made
along with seven strong gates - Chandpole, Kishanpole, Ajmeri Gate,
Sanganeri Gate, Ghat Gate, Zoravar Singh Gate, Suraj Pole. These
city gates are watching over a city that is in the throes of
morphing and trying to emerge from its pupal stage, but feels its
wings being shredded. Says Rajeev Lunkad, project director, Jal
Mahal Resorts, “The cultural and architectural heritage of Jaipur is
at par with the best in the country and one of the best in the
world. As a complete package it’s a heady mix of design and culture.
But instead the successive governments are trying, like all other
cities, to make it another IT hub.
“Unfortunately, we are not recognising the fact that each place has
to build on its inherent strengths rather than be a me-too Bangalore
or Hyderabad. There is no other city as rich as Jaipur when it comes
to composite art - culture-living heritage. The legacy of Jaipur is
a national showcase of planning prowess which has successfully fused
culture, religion, business, art, sociology and sciences into one
urban whole.”
Public-private partnerships are being seen as one of major ways
ahead by most informed and engaged citizens, Rajeev feels, “PPP is
the way forward, look at the airport and the highways, telecom. The
future is PPP and what’s required is a well defined framework for
this to happen. I think the private sector has matured to handle
complex social and developmental issues and is doing a better job
than the government.”
Giles Tillotson, author of Jaipurnama: Tales from the Pink City,
says, “I feel that public-private partnerships are the only
realistic way forward because there are too many other pressing
demands on the resources of government (both central and state) and
too many historic buildings that need attention. The private sector
is enjoying unprecedented growth in this country and should be
encouraged to invest some of its earnings in preserving the heritage
(provided only that there are legal safeguards to prevent
exploitation).”
As citizens of the city, we need to question ourselves. It is time
to take stock of where we are headed in terms of town planning. We
are headed towards an architectural disaster which will be the death
knell for the treasures we have been handed over by history. |
