Jaipur is a fascinating city but to make the city fascinating, it has great palaces and other structures that are architectural wonders. Look you may from whichever way - houses, shops and havelis - they are all pink. The long crenellated walls protecting the city and the huge gateways guarding the entrance to the city are all in pink. Even the women who come to the city market from their neighboring villages are dressed in pink, gorgeous yellow, red and blue. Men dressed in white dhoti and shirts carry huge magnificent turbans - mostly pink, red and yellow.
Jaipur, like the entire
Rajasthan, loves color and pink more often than not. Amidst this riot of colors, the
Jaipur City Palace Museum stands at the center.This royal residence is the tallest structure in the whole complex and received additions from various maharajas till all further additions were ruled out. But even before this, within sixty years of its construction, the City Palace had to accommodate a new extension of the zenana quarters. This was the
Hawa Mahal.
To the north of the city's main road intersection, the Badi Chaupad, stands
Hawa Mahal - the world famous landmark of Jaipur, the best known specimen of fanciful architecture. Built in 1799 by
Sawai Pratap Singh, the aesthete among maharajas, it is an integral part of the City Palace though standing away from the main complex. At first glance it looks rather whimsical in design. From the roadside, where most visitors view
Hawa Mahal for the first time, it looks a mere facade. But there is much more than meets the eye.
The upper floors are reached through a ramp rather than the regular stairs, a device to facilitate movement of palanquins carried by servants. This is a less tiresome way as the ramp ascends lazily to the top of the freestanding square tower. Imagine queens and princesses loaded with the heaviest jewelry and covered with the endless yardage of Clothes - skirts and sarees, climbing to the uppermost pavilion heaving and painting for respite from the sweltering summer heat. Here even the May-June winds feel so mild and cool. Jaipur itself appears in all its grandeur, with straight, wide roads, intersections and teeming crowds in the market.
Jantar Mantar looks a collection of mystifying masonry instruments. The
City Palace stands apart, surrounded by a maze of courtyards. The
Nahargarh Fort, perched upon the hill, which slopes down sharply towards the palace, keeps its vigil over the city looks spectacular, a truly fairy-late setting.
The facade of the
Hawa Mahal has sometimes aroused unfair judgments as 'a baroque folly' and a 'bizarre piece of architecture'. The five storeyed facade encrusted with elegant trellis work on windows and small balconies have 953 niches.
Lal Chand Usta who designed the
Hawa Mahal had dedicated it to Lord Krishna and Radha but its fanciful structure appealed to the Maharaja who found it ideal for the seraglio.
The pyramidal outline of the structure has one characteristic feature of architecture - symmetry, and, as in
Jain Temple, uses repetition of motifs to great enhancement of beauty and looks: "The forms employed are familiar enough, but the bays are crammed together, piled and multiplied so that they combine to form a larger version of themselves, in a manner strikingly reminiscent of a temple shikhara". It has been remarked that the
Hawa Mahal marks a certain decline in the
architectural standards of Jaipur. This may have been the result of the increasing influence of Mughal architecture. Hawa Mahal shows a noticeable similarity with the Panch Mahal - the palace of winds at
Fatehpur Sikri.
The beauty of the
Hawa Mahal lies in its fragile appearance, which, like a vision, threatens of vanish into thin air. It is, of all
buildings in Jaipur, the most romantic and delicate - which cannot be said of some better-known examples of solid architecture.
