Jumbo jam in Jaipur
Giles Milton adores the chaos and charm of India’s fabled Pink City – even if he does get stuck in a...
WE WERE not going anywhere fast. A giant elephant – its trunk painted in swirls of green, pink and blue – had stopped right in front of our bus, along with a wedding party so huge that it stretched far into the distance. There were two brass bands, a troupe of brilliantly clad dancers, and a family entourage that could have dropped straight from Bollywood. Perhaps they had.
When driving in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan in northern India, it pays to allow extra time for your journey. The streets are a chaotic mix of fume-belching cars, brightly painted lorries, and motorised rickshaws, all of them hooting and jostling for position.
Incredibly, the traffic almost never comes to a complete halt. It’s as if some invisible hand is gently shunting the whole lot forwards, oblivious to red lights, ragged street urchins and the fact that half the rickshaws are driving on the wrong side of the road.
Our stand-off with the elephant didn’t last long. After 20 minutes or so, the beast trumpeted, the band blew their brass, and the bride and groom exhorted everyone to get under way. They did – even the elephant – allowing us to once again get on the move.
Jaipur is one of India’s most beguiling cities, one in which nothing is quite as it seems. Founded in the late 1700s by the local ruler, Jai Singh, it was deliberately designed to look different from every other place in India. The streets were laid out in a grid and adorned with flamboyant palaces and temples. Every door opens on to a new wonder.
The entire city was painted pink in 1876 as a welcoming gesture to the visiting Prince of Wales (later crowned King Edward VII). History has not recorded who, at the time, owned the concession for pink paint, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the maharaja had a vested interest. Ever since, Jaipur has been known as the Pink City.
The central sights of Jaipur are best reached by tuk-tuk or motorised rickshaw: 100 rupees (£1.25) will get you just about anywhere in the city centre. Hold on tight, look at your feet and not at the maelstrom of vehicles zooming towards you, and don’t inhale the exhaust. It’s like a fairground ride, with a large dollop of added danger.
My first stop was Jaipur’s most photographed facade, the stunning Hawa Mahal or Palace of Winds. I’d seen scores of pictures of the place, all breathtaking, yet nothing prepares you for the real thing: a giant pink beehive of a building that’s decorated with 1,000 latticed windows.
When built in 1799, each window-niche would have been occupied by a lady of the court, every one of whom lived in purdah. Forbidden from wandering about town, or even being seen in public, these imprisoned princesses could catch a glimpse of the bustling street life below if they twisted their necks downwards and pressed their faces tight against the lattice-work.
From the Hawa Mahal, it’s a five-minute walk to the fabled City Palace, principal residence
of the city’s once-mighty maharajas. That five-minute walk along the edge of the bazaar was one to remember. Suddenly, everyone was my friend. Carpet-sellers, gem-dealers, weavers and stone-carvers – with every step, yet another hawker or peddler joined the merry band trying to sell me their wares. One claimed to have family in Bradford in Yorkshire. Another said improbably that he’d spent a weekend in Manchester United.
Spurning their offers of antique caskets and Moghul miniatures, I pressed on towards the City Palace, still inhabited by descendants of the ruling dynasty who lavished their fortune on embellishing the place. Much of it can be visited: sun-splashed courtyards, mosaic-covered gateways and ornamental audience chambers dripping with opulence and decadence.
Pause for a moment on the marble steps, close your eyes, and it’s not hard to imagine yourself back in the city’s heyday, when the ruling Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II, a veritable man-mountain, struggled to ease his vast frame into the voluminous clothes on display. (For the record, he was 4ft wide, weighed 40st and had 108 wives.)
Excess is everywhere on display in the City Palace. Don’t miss the Hall of Public Audience, which houses two of the largest silver vessels in the world, each one made from 14,000 molten silver coins. They were made for Sawai Madho Singh so that he could transport enough holy drinking water from the Ganges to last him the duration of his visit to England in 1901. Each held 8,500 pints – enough to ensure he wouldn’t have to consume unholy water from the London mains.
The oddest monument in Jaipur is the curiously named Jantar Mantar, a collection of gigantic sun-measuring instruments invented by the same maharaja who founded Jaipur. The scale and accuracy of the Jantar Mantar’s sundials and observatories are staggering, especially as they were built almost three centuries ago.
The largest sundial is the height of a three-storey house, yet its intricately calibrated scale, used to compute the sun’s shadow, is correct to half a second.
You could easily fill a week seeing the sights of Jaipur. The Amer Fort is another highlight that’s not to be missed. And then there’s the Jai Mahal (or Water Palace), which is even more impressive.
Jaipur has more to offer than mere monuments. The local cuisine (largely vegetarian, since seven out of ten Rajasthanis don’t eat meat) is infinitely superior to anything you’ll get in your local Indian restaurant. Kadhi is one of the more unusual dishes – a thick and spicy yogurt sauce dotted with succulent, deep-fried pastries.
I’d come here for the Jaipur Literature Festival. This is the Glastonbury of the book world, gathering writers from across the planet, and up to half a million visitors. Jaipur hosts other festivals too, including the ever-popular elephant festival each March.
The highlight of the event is the beauty contest, with stunningly bedecked elephants (along with decorated camels and horses) competing for the title of Miss Indian Elephant.
Jaipur is one of those fabled cities that promise much and offer even more. Just don’t expect to go anywhere in a hurry – especially if you get stuck behind an elephant.