Sounds like you're in the middle of magic land, doesn't it? And me, I have this major weakness for magical stuff, be it hands or engineers!! Seriously, this chap Sawai Jai Singh II - simply extraordinary. That marvellous observatory is just sheer magic and wizardry. Although the guide was very careful to point out to us over and over that 'no, no not magic, science, science..this is science!! Jantar is machine Mantar is calculation not jadoo, not at all jadoo. Jai singhji he was mathematician, astrologer and engineer, not magician!!" And at this point he glared at me quite ferociously becaue I'd just breathed one more ecstatic... "oooooooh magical". I smiled and agreed 'yes,mathematician, not magician' very very humbly. Didn't want crossed wires and the guy thinking I was denigrating his hero by calling him a magician!!
Oh I just loved the place. That sundial!!! Worth the whole trip just to see the world's largest sundial. And accurate to two seconds. Wow!!I didn't have the energy to climb all those steps and anyway, the higher one is closed because the heights are dangerous but my nephews clambered all over it - the next day, of course, everyone was complaining of leg cramps - and leaned dangerously over the side waving to the camera. Those are the pictures we lost. All those instruments are in working order. And it's over 200 years old. And the guy built 5 observatories altogether, though the Jaipur one is the only complete one and the best maintained one!
This was one Jaipur monarch who did things other than play hide&seek with his wives, obviously. He's the one who founded Jaipur. As the guide told us - " Jai you see, king Jaisingh name, Jai, Jai.. and the city is Jai - Pur, so city of jai .. he is founder you know so city named like king name Jai, Jaipur!!" It's a dirty city now, but when he built it, it must have been beautiful, with its yellow walls and pink sandstone trim. I think it must have been much prettier than the dirty red paint they have now which they call pink.
Oh I just loved the place. That sundial!!! Worth the whole trip just to see the world's largest sundial. And accurate to two seconds. Wow!!I didn't have the energy to climb all those steps and anyway, the higher one is closed because the heights are dangerous but my nephews clambered all over it - the next day, of course, everyone was complaining of leg cramps - and leaned dangerously over the side waving to the camera. Those are the pictures we lost. All those instruments are in working order. And it's over 200 years old. And the guy built 5 observatories altogether, though the Jaipur one is the only complete one and the best maintained one!
This was one Jaipur monarch who did things other than play hide&seek with his wives, obviously. He's the one who founded Jaipur. As the guide told us - " Jai you see, king Jaisingh name, Jai, Jai.. and the city is Jai - Pur, so city of jai .. he is founder you know so city named like king name Jai, Jaipur!!" It's a dirty city now, but when he built it, it must have been beautiful, with its yellow walls and pink sandstone trim. I think it must have been much prettier than the dirty red paint they have now which they call pink.
We went up to the older fort also, up in the Aravalli range - theJaigarh Fort. That's over a thousand years old. And there's this cannon there called the Jaivaani - it's the largest cannon in the world. I know this is a strange thing to say about a destructive weapon but it is a piece of art. Just behind it is a rock pool whichis now almost empty but used to be filled with water. The soldiers who lit the cannon's wick had to run and throw themselves into the water to keep themselves from going deaf. But the irony, they never used the cannon except to test fire it once. Apparently people for a radius of 10kms went deaf!! Well, so they said... possible actually, when you see the size of that cannon.
It was pouring when we went up to see the cannon. And it's quite awalk - we didn't realise you could drive up there. So by the time we got there we were drenched and tired and all I wanted was a warm bath and coffee. That's one lesson I learnt - never drink coffee in North India, unless you want to hate the world for a time. They put cardammom in milk and drop a few grains of coffee powder on the top and call it coffee. Not that tea is much better,that's full of cardammom too. Why oh why do people put cardammom in everything!!!!
This as promised in the earlier post is the next of the Jaipur letters.
1 comment:
LOL! They do it down south as well, only they add ginger to everything! I would prefer cardomom to ginger..but typically, a mixture of both would do ...provided im allowed to make it :)
I've never been to jaipur..but I plan to visit the city soon..hope Im not disapointed :)
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