Itchy Feet

It is fascinating. It is colorful. It is even slightly bizarre. A freshly painted wall at Saraf haveli, with two images vying for our attention – one of the Wright brothers making their first trip up into the air, looking very tiny and unsure in their brown European coats. And right next to it, a prince on horseback, long pink flowing silk robes and all, attacking a tiger with a spear. The caption under the first says, udne wala jahaj [the flying machine] while the second is well, self explanatory.

Elsewhere, there is a car of unknown shape and make, a woman near a gramophone, and scattered across havelis are various men in bowler hats, some twirling their bushy mustaches, some content to just be clean-shaven Englishmen. On the outer wall of the Modi Haveli, in a puzzling juxtaposition, is an image of a rather thin Lord Shiva in a typical dance pose, next to it a herd of cows looking up longingly at Krishna high up on a tree (why?), and right below that a longish train, with exactly two people peering expectantly out of each window. Amidst all this, Ram and Sita are depicted with their retinue, the picture of piety. And Krishna the lover-thief-cowboy-god is shown everywhere, frolicking with the gopis inebriated by the sound of his music, and dancing the eternal dance of life with him.

If you happened to read my earlier post when art is irrelevant and thought that all of Shekhawati was in decay and disrepair, well, that is not true... Parts of Shekhawati are well maintained, colorful, even spectacular, boasting [albeit very quietly] of some of the most remarkable wall murals and frescoes you can see anywhere in India. And as guide books never seem to tire of saying, the world’s largest open air art gallery…

Built mostly in the nineteenth century, these havelis are the property of the local business-trading community, the Marwaris. In a way, it was part of their commitment to give back to the community they had left in search of money and fame. All at once, the larger the haveli, the higher the prestige of the owner – according to our guide, Ishwardas Modi haveli in Jhunjhunu where we started our haveli-hopping from had 365 windows, and I have read of one with over a thousand... And the more elaborate the frescoes and murals, ditto. Additionally, the women who were left behind in these havelis had more colour around them to make up for the absence of colour in their surroundings and perhaps, lives too...

As for the somewhat weird cacophony of images, they were representative of the changing times. My guess is that the owners and the artists themselves must have started safe with those images that were familiar and even essential, gods and goddesses and other mythological themes. At the same time, somewhere out there in the wide world, someone had found a way to fly… The nouveau-riche traveled to England and other parts of Europe and brought back with them images of snow covered mountains and gondolas and motor cars, all of which were faithfully translated on to the walls and ceilings of their homes by craftsmen rich in artistry and richer in imagination. Cars and airplanes painted by men who had never seen one in their lives; nor for that matter had they seen the any of the gods they painted on these walls. Closer home, for these men with a sharp business sense, it was imperative to please the Englishmen whose approving nod held the key to their success. So on came the images of bolwer-hatted and brown-suited Englishmen, and ladies in their stiff evening gowns and delicate parasols.

We could cover only the towns of Jhunjhunu and Mandawa since we had only one day with us devoted to the frescoes. And in any case, by the time we had finished wandering around Jhunjhunu, my husband had developed a severe case of frescophobia. Jhunjhunu is the largest town in that area, and bursts with the naïve self importance of the typical regional headquarters. Be sure to take in some of the more accessible havelis and the Khetri Mahal. This palace of winds is strikingly similar to the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, although locals will tell you proudly and somewhat indignantly, that this was built ay before its more famous cousin. Walk up the narrow winding ramp, through the various levels to the top, startling hawks and kites that have made it their base, for a lovely view of the town and the distant hills. If you have the time, make a trip to some of the cenotaphs and stepwells that the region is famous for.

Of the temples, give the Rani Sati mandir a cheerful and firm miss but try to include a visit to the Bihariji temple – when we went there, we found it locked since the pujari had gone away for the Sunday, locking the temple behind him. The board just before you enter assures you that this temple contains some of the finest examples of the art work that this region is famous for. After that build-up, we felt disappointed to have missed it, but evidently the gods need to rest too.

Mandawa is dominated by the imposing Castle Mandawa (fort converted into a hotel, surprise surprise); stay there or just grab a meal and chat with the friendly staff to have a look around the castle. Walk into the town and you will find little kids walking up to you offering to show you around. In Mandawa, the star attraction is the Jhunjhunwala haveli with the famous gold room said to contain three kilos worth of gold etched in the frescoes. Enter the haveli through the partially opened small gate (which was earlier meant for the sentries and servants while the owner himself entered royally through the large gate) to be greeted(?) by clothes set out for drying flying in the breeze and the grumpy greedy chowkidar. Once a small sum of money changes hands, you get to enter the gold room and spend as much time as you wish, just staring at the murals, made all the more beautiful by the faint sunlight streaming in through the colored cut glass set on all windows and door tops. Gold or no gold, this room has some magic; request for the door to be shut for a minute and stand in the centre of the room, as the art fills up your senses as your eyes get slowly used to the semi darkness.

The technique used in painting these frescoes, I discovered is the Italian method of fresco-buono dating back to the 14^th century. The artists made etched the design on the walls with sharp sticks and painted on the wet plaster using natural vegetable and plant dyes mixed in lime water. The colors set naturally along with the wet plaster, thus sealing the mural from the harsh weather conditions. A pity there was no method discovered then – or even now - of protection from damage caused by human interference and equally, neglect…

We were based in Surajgarh in Northern Rajasthan at the newly restored Surajgarh fort-hotel. We spent the weekend there, Saturday devoted entirely to R&R, listening to the plaintive wails of the peacocks that fly in and out of the courtyard and watching the sun go down in the distant plains, a deep brilliant blue bed-sheet spread across the sky, with layers and layers of warm colors rolling in and out of the canvas.

While the hotel suffers from many teething problems, its advantage lies in its proximity to Delhi. Pilani is just half an hour away while other important towns in the area are three to four hours by road. However, if you are interested in a serious exploration of the Shekhawati region, I would recommend a base at one of the more centrally located towns like Mandawa or Jhunjhunu. At every town, find a local guide to take you around; we did not carry a map with us, and going by the twists and turns the narrow lanes in Jhunjhunu took, I doubt if even a map would have served us very well. For the most part, the locals are indifferent, even amused when you ask them for directions; some of them plainly ignorant – kaun si haveli? As one who has suffered the dry heat of Rajasthan, not expecting it in the monsoon months, I would also recommend travel only during the cooler months, from October till March. Shekhawati deserves a minimum of three days, a week if you are an art lover. There are no easy connections to the region from Bombay, but if you happen to be in Jaipur (or anywhere else in Rajasthan) or even in Delhi, do not miss a trip to Shekhawati.

# posted by Charukesi : 12:13 PM  7 comments

Aap yahan ghoomne ke liye aaye hain? [have you come here for sightseeing?] asks the aged shopkeeper as he hands us the bottle of Bisleri... I nod as I wonder whether his emphasis is on yahan or ghoomne...

Aap Jhunjhunu dekhna chahatey hain? [you wish to see Jhunjhunu?] he continues. The question unsaid but loud and clear in his eyes, par yahan dekhne ke liye hai kya? [what is there to see in this place?] He sees us, eager faces on a Sunday morning, camera and guide book in hand, peers across the road and sees our car parked there under the tree and decides that we mean business. You can see the Rani Sati temple, he concedes...

We explain to him, politely but firmly that we do not wish to see temples but havelis - the painted havelis that the Shekhawati region is so famous for. Accha, haveli... woh toh saare bandh padey hain... [oh, the havelis, they are all mostly shut now]

We drive into town and cross Gandhi chowk as directed (wondering at the absence of the promised statue) and park in one corner of a busy road, hoping to ask the cop standing there for further directions. He points us to the man standing next to him, voila! he is the local guide and can show us round for "whatever we pay out of our hearts"... And with that, Raju Guide (I am not making this up) took over our lives and "sight-seeing" plans for the next few hours.

Raju starts off with turning back towards the road we came from - and minor warning bells go off in my head - just where are we going? Rani Sati Mandir says Raju. Surprise, surprise. And this is what I found out later, much much later, after we had returned to Bombay - out of the one hundred odd sati temples in Rajasthan, the Rani Sati temple in Jhunjhunu is the most "famous", attracting over 300,000 people every year during the three days of ceremonies in honor of Rani Sati Narayani Devi, a woman who died in 1295 upon the funeral pyre of her husband, Tandhan Das...

And more... If we go into the history of the practice of sati in Rajasthan there can be no denying that the phenomenon of sati revival in Rajasthan is directly linked to the phenomenal expansion of the commercial returns of the Jhunjhunu Rani Sati temple. This has led to the proliferation of sati temples all over the state, particularly the Shekawati region ( comprised of Churu, Sikar and Jhunjunu districts). And wealthy businessmen hailing from this region have established sati temples in other parts of the country for example in Bombay and Delhi as well in a dozen foreign countries.

At that time, blissfully unaware of all this, we do not wish to hurt Raju's feelings. We put off this mandir trip to the end ignoring his protests that the temple shut at 1. We chat with Raju as we walk through narrower-than-a needle's eye lanes, shops selling everything from tacky plasticware to bright and cheerful glass bangles to dull and withered vegetables...

So do you get many tourists here, I ask, when Guide tells us that he is indeed that, a full-time guide. Yes, we get a lot of tourists but most of them are foreigners... Par baahar se loge jyada nahi aatey, [but we don't get many people from outside] he says non-chalantly, in one sweep cleanly stating that big divide between that town and the rest of India, while including unselfconsciously, the larger world out there which has maintained Shekhawati and even Jhunjhunu on its radius over the years...

I mull over this as we kept walking, awkwardly negotiating cows and camels on these lanes, as Raju walks ahead with a quick confident step... At our first stop at Ishwardas Modi haveli, I find an answer -

Vides se toh bahut loge aatey hain - aap jaise loge toh bahut kam aatey hain aur jo aatey bhi hain, unko kuch accha nahi lagta... [A lot of foreigners come her, but a very few people like you]. And in an instant, I felt conscious of being an outsider, an 'aap jaise loge' in a tiny corner of my own country. Over three hundred thousand people enter this little town every year; their tracks stop at the Rani Sati temple...

And as I walk around looking at the havelis and the state of the walls and the frescoes, I wonder if that is not actually for the best. Art that has survived the extreme temperatures of the whimsical desert country, the furious heat of the days and bitter cold of the nights is now in utter decay. Havelis that were once the pride of the owners, and the community itself, have now been let out to families who need a cheap room to stay in, and treat that space as just that.

At the Jhunjhunu haveli in Mandawa, close to Jhunjhunu, the caretaker charges us fifty rupees to enter the "gold room" - over three kilos of gold foil has gone into the murals adorning the walls and ceilings of this room alone - although how much of it survives is anyone's guess... We spend half an hour in that room admiring each of these masterpieces, repeatedly declining the caretaker's offer to sell us that torn "picture postcard books" of the area at a discount.

I feel quite overwhelmed as we walk out of that room - and in that mood, cross the main doors of the haveli to enter what must have been the mardana, or the main courtyard once upon a time... and wham! Four different families live there now, the cooking smells and smoke of each fight for space to settle on the same walls where the frescoes have bravely fought their own colorful battles for over a century. Clothes hang out of the once ornate windows which served the women, literally, as windows to the outside world... And where the original paint has peeled off beyond repair, there is a coat of fresh whitewash over the walls...

Turning, in one stroke of the brush, a century of art into wall paint...

The families inside carry on with whatever they are doing; the awkwardness about intruding only on our part and not theirs... We step out of the havelis feeling a deep sense of loss and life there goes on as usual too... What has caused this, I wonder aloud... callous owners? ignorant occupants? greedy caretakers? an utterly indifferent government? Or more likely, a combination of all these...?

Raju Guide says that the owners of these havelis are rich businessen in Bombay and Calcutta; they can afford to maintain these homes if they so wish (as indeed some of them do). But the problem is just that - these havelis are no longer home to them, and the art that was once a source of pride and pleasure to them, no longer relevant...

I wonder about a society where art has been allowed to decay and be destroyed because it is no longer relevant? I wonder about all the travel guides and articles I had read before setting off, which wax lyrical about the "open air gallery" nature of Shekhawati, but maintain a puzzling silence over the state of a majority of these "galleries"...?

# posted by Charukesi : 6:22 PM  1 comments