Amber Fort

Amber Fort is where the Maharajahs lived before the built Jaipur Palace. It is a 16C and 17C construction. Cars can get up to the fort but coaches cannot and the main attraction for many tourists seems to be taking and elephant ride up. Needless to say with my allergies we went up in the car.
The fort has some very sopphisticated bath ,hamman and jacuzzi (steam bubbled into the water) systems for the Queens. The summer rooms at the top also had advanced cooling systems with pipes able to constantly drip water to form a cooling curtain. Think of european palces of the time and they are way behind. The palace also has the largest mirror room after Versaille although the mirroring is very ornamental and mosaic-like. The crystal came from Belgium in the 17C.
The are some very beautiful gardens one Persian and one Indian which looks not unlike a Tudor knot garden.

Palace of the Winds

The Hawa Mahal is not really a Palace but a one room deep 5 storey viewing platform for the women of the court to view parades and ceremonies in purdah.  The parade ground which they viewed is now just a very busy traffic ridden street, although there are apparently plans to pedestrianise the Pink City around the Albert Hall which housed a surprisingly interesting museum of minitures, handblocked textiles and a ceramic collection featuring along with Indian pottery, Minton, Royal Doulton, and handpainted plques of the High Tor in the Peak District.

Jaipur City Palace and one and a quarter Maharajahs.

The City Palace was built by various Maharajahs of Jaipur fro the 16C on as they moved the court from Amber to the city. It is still inhabited by the royal family  although the current Maharajah is mostly at boarding school having been the son of the previous Maharajah's daughter and adopted by him to ensure the succession; his grandfather died in 2011 and he is only 15.
Jah Singh the first Maharajah to build here was something of a prodigy having mastered 17 languages befroe coming to the throne before he was 20. He was also a talented  mathematician, atronomer and astrologer, and was nicknamed "theone and a quarter maharajah" because of his accomplishments, a title still used to this day. It was he who ordered the building of the five Jantar Mantars of which those here and in Dehli survive.
Each Maharajah appears to have added quarters depending on the number of wives he had. There is a central private courtyard with four doors, the Maharajah using differing doors depending on the season and the season being relfected in their decoration; lotus for summer, roses for winter, green for spring and peacocks for the monsoon. Outside are the public areas and two enormous silver jars of 8182L capacity are displayed. When Edward VII was crowned the current Maharajah drank only Ganges water and he took one of these jars filled with Ganges water to London for the coronation.
There is an extremely interesting display of textiles, the formal robes being retained in good condition back to the 17C including those belonging to the 17C maharajah who was 7' high, 4'across and weighed 256kg.

The Bissau Palace, Jaipur

Not another Haveli but our hotel room. We got a free upgrade to the garden pavilion. Beutifully painted and a wrapround verandah. The breakfasts are particularly good too proper tea and marmalade.

Ajmer

On the way to the Shekawati we visited the Dargah Khwaja Sahib in Ajmer. THeSufi teacher Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti who died in 1236 is buried here and the current complex which was started in the 13C was  completed under Humayan in the 16C. It became the mosy important muslim site in all India and is a massive complex of mosque and mausoleum of beyond cathedral proportions.
We visited the day after the Prophet's birthday but as it is kept as a two-day festival here it was the second day of the festival, and whilst the roads were open and the crowds less than the previous day the Mosque was thronged with people and we could just be pushed through the crowds by a guide who adopted us as we entered and showed Beloved to a stall to buy a handkerchief to cover his head. Cameras were not allowed so I have no pictures.
I am not really sure what happened after that. We were pushed through various gateways full of crowds and had variously to kiss a step, have different people tie red and orange string bands round our wrists, eat a piece of jellabi,  give our names and have our heads touched with a brush/fly whisk thing, have an embroidered islamic green scarf rubbed on our face and be given rose heads.
Meanwhile people were bringing flowerheads by the basket  load (sold near the entrance next to the handkerchiefs) and pouring them over the Sufi's tomb.
It all seemed very unislamic by the standards of some of our moroccan friends (even though southern morocco has a longstanding sufic tradition) and indeed at subsequent visits to Hindu temples we have experienced similar blessings and rituals.
Khwaja Muin-ud-in Chishti like all Sufis preached the personal experience ofGod by withdrawal from the world but more importantly in an Indian context he preached that all religions were one worshipping the one and only true God ,Allah. This Sufic approach is readily understood by Hindus and with elements of their worship absorbed into the existing sufic trance and chanting; it has left this shrine as one which has not suffered the communal difficulties of say Ayhoda.

The Shekawati

You may think it odd to drive over 200km to look at a load of dilapidated buildings but thats exactly what we've done. We stayed in Manawa and visited Dunlod and Narlagarh.  They are all in the Shekawati region notheast of Jaipur. During the 18C the Silk Road passed through here on the way to Bombao and the area controllled the trade in silk, spices and opium into India. A score or more merchant families became very, very wealthy. With the coming of the railways to India in 1902 and the railway to Bombay bypassing the region the trade moved away. The merchant families moved with the trade, mostly to bbbBombay where they own some of India's biggest companies, including Air Indiaor in the case of the Mittel family to Britain. They left behind them their family mansions, built in the 18C and19C altough some only decorated in the 19C and early 20C.

They are called Havelis. They are all built on the same floorplan. An outer courtyard with 2 rooms off, one as a room for entertaining guests (ie business meetings) and one as an office. The reception room would be fanned by a ceiling fan pulled from outside the room. Deaf mutes were preferred for this role as they were unable to pass on trade secrets. Behind would be an inner courtyard where the women were confined in days of purdah with large numbers of rooms for the family and usually 2 kitchens. It would be male servants who would market cook and fetch water.

What makes the Havelis of Shekawati special is that they were decorated all over inside and out with frescoes made with natural pigmnets. As the families have move away usually leaving just a caretaker the frecoes are falling into disreair and are gradually crumbling. Some owners feel a connection to the area and their heritage and are restoring them, although it is difficult to get the natural pigments to restore them (the ultramarine came from Italy) and some can only be cleaned but others see no point in spending money on properties they are never going to visit. As all the Havelis are private property UNESCO money is not available to restore them and much may be lost.

If it were not that the pictures are of Lord Krishna (blue face, flute, usually with lots of women) or Ganesha (orange , elephant face, over doors), you would think you were in quattrocento Florence.

                                                                                                                                             

Some of their most amusing are their pictures of europeans , In the case of Queen Victoria and angels these are clearly from descriptions without having seen a picture.

They were also fascinated with trains which only came to India in Edwardian times but were putting them out of business. Clearly again they paineted from descriptions.