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Hawa Mahal Jaipur
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 City Palace of Jaipur 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.
Views from Hawa Mahal
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.
Hawa Mahal - Architecture
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 temples, 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.
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