Walking through Jaipur’s busy bazaars is a hot and sweaty business. And the thick lassi (pretty much the only thing available in Johri Bazaar by way of liquid sustenance) that I’d partaken had sunk like a stone in my stomach. The crowded streets that had so beguiled me in the morning, had begun to blur in front of my eyes by afternoon. So, imagine my enthusiasm when I heard that the famous Hawa Mahal has only recently been thrown open to the admiring public. “You can go all the way to the top now!” said a rickshaw-puller outside, and my heart sank as low as the lassi had. I stared at the tall building, trying to muster up the enthusiasm to haul myself up. Then curiosity about this quirky building, so slim that it was practically two-dimensional, triumphed, and I found myself climbing up its first flight of stairs.
Hawa Mahal is also known as the palace of winds, and I realised it is aptly named. This five-storeyed building with only a back entrance — no front door at all — reminds one of a film set, for all it consists of is a façade of gorgeous screens. Behind the screens, hidden from the public eye, are narrow balconies and 953 windows from which the queens of yore could observe everyday life in the street below without being seen.
I stopped to catch my breath on the second floor, taking in the carved screens and tiny windows tilted at clever angles that caught the wind without allowing anyone outside to look in. A series of terraces connected it to the City Palace, and from my vantage point I could see that the Hawa Mahal was actually an extension of the Zenana or chambers of the harem. The view just kept getting better as I trudged up the ramps all the way to the top. There, I sank thankfully into a balcony, feeling the breeze cool the flush on my cheeks.
I’d read that Hawa Mahal had been built so that the royal ladies could enjoy the view of the market in airy comfort. Its architectural design achieved this and more. The little carved holes in the jharoka caught and amplified every little breeze. Some of the carved screens were inset with coloured glass that filtered light of intense hues. The view on the other side of Hawa Mahal was equally spectacular — the buildings of the City Palace and the odd minaret and temple spire were the only distractions from a view of the Nahargarh Fort which housed the king’s treasury. King Pratap Singh, who’d ordered the building of Hawa Mahal, was a staunch Krishna devotee. That is why it was built in the shape of Krishna’s crown, taller in the centre than on the sides.
I sat quietly in the central balcony. It was strangely peaceful up there, a sharp contrast to the chaos below. The wind, harnessed by the screened windows and balconies, was strong enough to fly a kite. I could imagine that this place would be pleasantly cool even in the blazing summer months. After a while, though, the shadows and the draughts in the balcony began to seem suffocating. It seemed supremely ironical that such exquisite aesthetics could be born out of a society’s oppressive desire to cloister its women.
On my way down, I looked down at the market one last time and saw a couple of giggly girls on a moped. Some pedestrians who heard their peals of laughter, glared at them repressively. The more things change, I mused, the more they remain the same…
