FACADES of JAIPUR ARCHITECTURE Cities Planned
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perhaps more private more reclusive than ours but also F as ordinary and as special as our own. There is a woman. She does not talk of her city, her FACADES OF JAIPUR ARCHITECTURE street or even her home but she knows them and lives Cities planned and executed by single individuals with them in a way that comes naturally to her. To her often become expressions of their power. Akbar ’s they are only expressions of her private reality. Her design for Fatehpur Sikri , for instance, reflects a life, the courtyard within her house, is her own. She splendor far in excess of any ordinary functional need. does not wish to display it on the street. But Jaipur is different. To Sawai Jai Singh , its And her city is a pink fortress, but its walls are not founding father, the city lived to reflect the skills, solid. Their colour suggests perhaps their porous and ideals and aspirations of its people. In its structure, its nature. Along her street, facade of terracotta lines the architecture and planning the city became an edge in an irregular but unbroken line. Under expression of local culture. In its own making was a protective overhangs the dazzling brightness of the suggestion of its own creative forces. And it is to jai sun is broken into deep pools of shadow. Balconies Singh’s credit and to the credit of his imaginative above, push out beyond the wall, their screens opaque architect. from the outside but delicate and lacelike from within. Vidyadhar , that Jaipur still today remains a living Through them just above the level of the floor, a tiny entity. In an age when architecture has little to do with aperture makes a small window, big though for her the street it is indeed gratifying to find a city face. She, quite, and unhurried, seated on the floor conceived in history , and still surviving today as an behind watches, her face hidden in the shadow. architectural unity: one in which all elements – the She knows little of her city, but its patterns and house, the street and the square –have been carefully rhythms. She knows little of written history, little of incorporated into a total harmony. And to walk the Hawa Mahal and city palaces and perceives through his town is to realize the enormous nothing of astronomy. She knows not why her city is practicality of the man’s vision. special who thinks it so. She knows no tourists, no The streets in Jaipur are not merely roads for fast boutiques, no hotels. To her all this is only an illusion, moving traffic but they are scaled to the level of a and she only a player running through a familiar maze. pedestrian. As in oriental bazaars, continuous Yet her dreams, her passions are nurtured by the shopping arcades on wide sidewalks allow people to places in which she lives, she decorates them, the way move freely among the wares-seeing, touching, she decorates herself- with an intricacy and richness feeling, smelling and eventually buying. Wide that is denied to her by the arid landscape around. She staircases alongside, bring up the faithful to temple moves in the shadow of niches finding her own with podiums for prayer. All along the length of the street every changing mood. The small alcoves we see as buildings recede as they rise, space opens and closes projections on the street are perhaps the only in a continuously changing play of light and shade, a extensions of her private self to our world outside rhythm that suggests in architectural tones movement You ask, what are her thoughts, the secret desires and pause, meeting and repose, seclusion as well as that lurk in her mind. Does she only watch the desert celebration . sun playing patterns on her pink walls or does she A tourists know, Jaipur only as the ‘ Pink City ’ that think of coloured flowers and dark forests. Does she gateway into Rajasthan. A city with a gigantic. hear the sounds of the city outside, can she distinguish Astronomical observatory - the Jantar Manter , an the sweet scent of incense from armful smell of ancient palace-Amber ,a delicate screen-the Hawa outside. Her walls are closed and by their closure they Mahal or on expansive city museum but rarely do we filter her sensations admitting those aspects of the look at the buildings that make the city, at its world that allow her dreams of being sheltered and enormous framework of facades, at the delicacy of protected. their craftsmanship the variety in their proportion and At night, when the desert has washed the sky into a assembly, and in their subtle relationships to each monumental stillness-crisp and clear-her world other and the city as a whole. And most of all at the reduces to its elements: just the four walls of her inner lives they make and remake. court and its immense ceiling of stars. She too, is The private lives of its citizens remain a mystery. there, but lying in bed and gazing out of her small Monuments may reveal a studied grandness but the enclosure into a cosmic infinity she is herself reduced real architecture only conceals. It encloses the street in to the edge of consciousness. to large rooms for a variety of public functions, with And yet all the elements of her house: the tiny stairs, balconies at once massive and delicate. Projections the reclusive balcony, the open court and the within them, in the balconies above or in the tiny restrictions they put around her, allow her at the same apertures give us little clues to life behind: we see a time to move with grace, to sit with ease and shadow pass across a balcony, a draped figure determine the dignity or casualness of her house silhouetted behind a screen or pair of hooded eyes prompts are a part of her dreams. darting about furtively in a pigeon hole. But rarely if Today she sits and watches her city. But it is quiet ever, does the architecture allow a glimpse behind the and ordinary. She sees only the blur of humanity likes pink facade behind the thin impregnable stone veil But waves crashing on a turbulent sea. Her gaze is fixed concealed by these fragile screens is a real life, and distant. What she observes ,when and why ,what are her delights and passions, we will never know. If that Indian doctors pioneered plastic surgery: skulls there is sadness in those eyes we know nothing of it; with surgical incision have been discovered in the if there is joy it too is only sojourners. Like the prehistoric period of Harappa and Mohan – Jo daro. architecture, she does not present her real face to us. And then there were these ancient beauty mask and Her mystery remains within, her own and unrevealed. skin-care creams. Whose ingredients were orally But, another time , another place in the pink transmuted from generation to generation and have facade, the same woman watches. This time she stand managed to preserved unto today. These masks had in a high open balcony, her fiery Rajasthani dress made of the most secret and mystic components. revealed, her face exposed. A street procession ‘Magic’ herbs projudly plucked from the most remote passes below her. And she, like us, now observes the places; honey from Rajasthan; rose essences from the life of Jaipur. It is a public celebration or some annual best Mughal gardens; a few drops of sandal oil from festival. At such times, she knows, the city becomes a Kerala’s deepest forests; precious metals such as gold stadium, the street its stage. And as the enthusiastic ,silver or mercury, which the vedic sages prescribed throng passes below her, she too becomes affected by for all kinds of ailments : plants from India’s rich its gaiety, its spontaneity of song and dance. In the fauna- eucalyptus and neem leaves for their wonderful open balcony we see her, participants no longer a anti-fungal properties; ginger from Tamil Nadu; mere observe. And this time, like the architecture, she cucumber from Goa; mud from Mysore; hibiscus opens for a while but when the procession passes she flower extracts from apricots and dates, carrots, and returns once more to her private court. (For sea shells; oil from almonds, sunflowers and amla….. architecture see also Desert Architecture) There were even those secret ‘tips’ which mothers AUTHOR: BHATIA , GAUTAM; Source: Swagat would give to their daughters for instance: henna has New Delhi October 1985. wonderful properties, for not only it is a natural dye, but it also protects the hair and gives it a long and FACE-MASKSOR UNGUENTS OR AŃGARĀGA lustrous life. Body soap can be made of milk and & UBAŢANS (Āyurvedic ) honey whipped together and the yellow of an egg For three thousand years, the pride of India’s mixed with lemon will make a Wonderful shampoo. Mughal princesses, Rajput maharanis , pallavan ladies Beauty masks are an integral part of a women’s and Marathi queens, has been the softness and the splendour and radiating beauty. Today many Indian beauty of their skins. Even today, many Indian women women particularly in the villages where tradition have preserved the delicacy of their ancestor’s remains alive, still rely on ancient Āyurvedic masks to glorious skins. What is the secret of this natural preserve the delicacy of their skins. And this is indeed radiance? a magnificent tribute to the lasting properties of these Āyurvedic beauty masks are the answer. Āyurveda ancient recipes. is the oldest medical science in the world which is still Here are five of the most simple masks, each with its in practice.