Day 1
We started the day with a drive through the walled Pink City -
it was painted pink in honour of the visit of the Prince of Wales
in 1876 - to the City Palace complex. It includes the
Sawai Mansingh Museum with its excellent collections of rare
manuscripts and miniature paintings, Mubarak Mahal and the
armoury.
Two things caught my attention in particular. One, the massive
robes of a maharaja who was said to have been 6’-6"
tall, 4’ wide and weighed over 250 kgs (500 pounds).
 And,
the enormous 5’ high solid-silver urns that another maharaja
had got made to carry the sacred Ganges water with him on his trip
to England. Ahem, I wonder whether he got them filled with
Scotch on his way back home :)
Incidentally, these urns are listed in the Guinness Book of
World Records as the largest silver objects in the world.
 Outside
the palace, I set right the time on my modern wrist-watch with the
centuries-old world’s largest sun dial at Jantar Mantar.
Jesus, these guys were more advanced in those days than we are
today!
In the afternoon, we had a sumptuous North Indian lunch at Laxmi
Misthan Bhandar in the chaotic Johri Bazaar. The dahivadas
were mouthwatering! It seems that the locals are extremely fond of
sweets. There are a variety of sweets for different festivals and
seasons. The special ones include Mishri-mawa, Fini, Ghevar,
Rasmalai and of course Laddoos.
 Johri
Bazaar literally means Jeweller’s market. I quickly got my
wife out of the market before she got me bankrupt, buying some of
the exquisite gold and
kundan-meena jewellery, that Jaipur is internationally
famous for.
Later, we climbed up the seven-storey high Isarlat and
had a broad overview of the remarkably well planned
Jai Singh’s city of Jaipur.
 I
was a little fatigued, so we went over to The Polo Bar at the
opulent Rambagh Palace for a couple of cocktails. This bar
is one of the finest that we have come across – it had a
marble fountain in the middle and lots of polo memorabilia on the
walls including the famous Tatler cartoon.
The Maharaja of Jaipur's polo team which visited England in
1933 trounced the English teams so badly that this was how The
Tatler depicted them. |
The royal sport of Polo is synonymous with
Jaipur. A number of international Polo tournaments are hosted here
and are enjoyed equally by the classes and masses. There have been
enchanting moments shared by Prince Charles and the late Princess
Diana during Jaipur Polo.
The last Maharaja of Jaipur, Sawai Man Singh II breathed his
last while playing polo in England during the Ascot week
tournaments in June 1970.
Speaking of Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II... his wife, the present
Rajmata (Queen-Mother) of Jaipur,
Maharani
Gayatri Devi was once considered one of the
most beautiful women in the world by Vogue.
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