Jaipur

I was never actually planning to go to Jaipur in the first place, but due to being the most dependent on the people with the most on their plate orchestrating a very complicated multi-state, week-long set of events, I happened to have a day in Jaipur.

The first thing I saw in the Pink City was the Jantar Mantar, the 18th century observatory built for Sawai Jai Singh II, the founder of Jaipur. It was next to the palace, but my tuk tuk guy Kalu (shoutout to Kalu!) said it was very expensive and there was mostly just a portrait of I’m assuming Jai Singh II.

Guys, this place is awesome. Basically a garden full of giant geometry-based astrological instruments. The world’s largest sundial. Astrolabes the size of inflatable pools. A giant triangle that points at the North Star. (I’m sure there was more to that one than that, but not a lot more.)

I’ll be honest, I definitely don’t remember how any of these work. It was unbearably hot in the whole courtyard (turns out shade interferes with shadow-based measurements), so I’m not sure how well I understood them the first time. Mom, Dad, and Graham, don’t worry, I actually bought a guidebook (you don’t know how weird it was to be the one asking for one rather than vice versa), so you don’t have to rely on my explanations.

The next place I saw was the Amber Fort. A lot like the Agra Fort, it was built over many years, and the part I saw at least was more of a palace than a military space.

The fort has four levels: a military parade level at the bottom, an administrative section, then two sets of personal rooms built for two generations of Rajput Maharajas.

The fourth and oldest courtyard was completed for Man Singh I and his twelve wives in 1599. This is post-Mughals, but the Rajputs were Hindu kings who accepted (after what coercion my Muslim tour guide did not say) Mughal rule. So the several wives thing (his son, Mirza Raja Bhau Singh, only had two, which seems practically modern thanks to comparison) was either already a thing, or it’s cultural spread from medieval Islam.

Less salaciously, there’s a chapel (worship room?) of Ganesh, but also a Muslim-style formal garden in the fourth floor, and the carved columns on the third floor include both Hindu-style elephants and Muslim-style flower designs. It’s honestly a kind of cool architectural fusion that I took about zero pictures of. Here’s one I stole from the internet (https://www.remotetraveler.com/amber-fort-jaipur/ to be precise).

That fourth level is kind of a trip though. There are three mostly identical apartments (one has a medieval accessibility ramp) on each of the four sides, with a courtyard in the middle for I guess workplace gossip, and above that, this panoptic walkway where the Raja could watch them whatever they were doing (bathing was mentioned specifically, although they did have rooms with closing doors), and secret passages so the other wives couldn’t see who he was with. I didn’t really succeed in explaining what the panopticon is to my tour guide, but I did get across the ways I think having a harem is different from consensual non-monogamy, so small victories.

The third level was also a personal living space for Bhau Singh’s two wives, and includes quite a beautiful hall of mirrors.

It makes me wonder what happened to those personal spaces after their occupants died. I mean, has the fourth courtyard been a museum since 1615 or whenever the the third one was completed? Probably not, but if it wasn’t a living palace, was it just full of furniture or something? Courtiers? What?

After that, I went to a block printed textile factory, where I was taken for all I was worth, pretty much, but sometimes that’s just how it is. Anyway, next update from Jodhpur!