The Singhs - Man, Jai & Madho!

The erstwhile royal family of Jaipur must now be Rajasthan's biggest family business firm. What a racket they run!!!! Have it down to a fine art they do, this thing called the tourist trap. With well trained trappers too - felt like a poor chased mink or ermine, I did! Lure you in with stories about how the traditional block prints are done - "just for looking purpose, not for buying purpose, you just look madam, sir. So interesting you know, traditional just like how it was done in Sanganer, village very close to Jaipur..." and the next thing you know you're looking at a piece of cloth so beautiful you know you just haveto own it. My sis and I had this deal that if one of us fell in love with something too expensive the other one would get her away from temptation; otherwise, we'd have been bankrupt by the time we left. I thought the forts were so cooool and not just because it was raining when we visited them :-) But seriously, Amber Fort and the palace - I could have spent hours there. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that Man Singh was Akbar's ally but that it translated into this beautiful fusion of Mughal & Rajput architecture - that I had no idea. The pillars in his hall of audience - they're half Hindu motifs and the rest Mughal motifs and so beautifully blended together. Did you know that Man Singh had twelve wives? And had a network of secret passages that led from his quarters to theirs? The idea was that he could visit one wife without the rest knowing about it! Smart man, this Man Singh! And they had a whole section where all they did was play hide&seek. They wouldn't let us in to see that because the rock bees have built hives inside the rooms and if you get stung, you could die. One of Man Singh's descendants had two wives who had their quarters in the Amber Fort. If you please, their clothes and jewellery weighed so much that they had to be wheeled around the palace - well, you can't expect any fragile Rajputani to carry around more than 10 kilos of silks and gold and silver by herself, can you? And they had separate rooms for the summer, winter and "too much summer". And a private swimming pool. All that luxury but they were effectively prisoners,weren't they? All these rooms are built around a garden where the two queens were supposed to walk in the evenings, while the king sat on his terrace and watched them. I loved the palace but felt so sorry for the poor queens. They existed for the King's pleasure and that's it. I don't think they actually had any relevance as people, which is really sad for anyone. And then there's Man Singh the Second, the one who married Gayatri Devi who's so beautiful - even at 86, she's gorgeous. She must have been something out of this world when she was young. And let's not orget his father, Madho Singh, the giant - 7 ft tall and 4 ft wide!!!!! They have some clothes of his hanging up and it takes up half a wall! Not surprisingly, the guy popped it at 39. Madho Singh was this guy who drank only Gangajal. When hetravelled to England, he took along with him large silver vessels of Gangajal, each with about 900ltrs of water. Apparently Victoria Regina was offended at this but the guy got around her by explaining that in Rajasthan, one does not drink water from one's sister's house!! This, they tell me, is a practice that survives even today. Rajasthan - lovely place and all that, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with any of the customs they described.

There'll be more about Jai Singh later on, the one who founded Jaipur and my personal favourite out of the whole lot.