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| The second snap is of Amer Fort. It has wrongly been mentioned as Kanaka Vrindavan by the newspaper. |
All the images that I’d seen on the
internet, faded from my memory, as vibrant, breath-taking, real ones captured
my fancy. Truly, love at first sight! Rajasthan, literally translated into the
land of the ‘rajas’, royalty; undiluted, pure and ethereal, embraced us warmly,
right since we stepped off the train, in the afternoon, at Jaipur Junction. On the first platform itself, we espied the RTDC
office and walked in, tired and exhausted. We were attended to immediately, by
the official on duty, who asked us to book the next day’s local sight- seeing
tour of Jaipur, conducted by RTDC. He even gently dissuaded us from opting for
that evening’s half-day’s sight-seeing tour, by saying that we’d be covering
many more places in our day trip. We gladly accepted his advice and were
relieved to note that he had been right, after the sight-seeing the next day.
At about 9.30 am, all of us (tourists) were
escorted to a very comfortable deluxe bus by our young and enthusiastic tourist
guide, Mr. Bhawani Singh. He was slender, agile, attentive and informative. He
gave us all the information about Jaipur as we saw one spot after the other. He
even paid special attention to two Japanese tourists who weren’t very
proficient at English, by individually repeating the information slowly to
them.
We were disappointed that the
bus couldn’t halt at the famed Hawa
Mahal, as it is situated bang on the side of a narrow and bustling street,
where buses aren’t allowed to halt! As the guide rattled off details about the
monument, the intrepid tourists, including me, started clicking snaps
feverishly, as the bus passed by the palace slowly, “for the tourists’
benefit,” as the guide cheekily proclaimed.
Then we went to the Birla Mandir, a beautiful temple,
intricately carved in white marble. Peaceful and beautiful, it has life-sized,
statues of the divine consorts, Lord Vishnu and Goddess Laxmi; stained glass
paintings of various other gods and goddesses and a high-vaulted and carved ceiling.
The temple is surrounded by a lush-green garden and has a majestic fort, high
on a hill, as an imposing and interesting back-drop.
City Palace was the next halt in our itinerary. Its imposing
structure and meticulous symmetry literally took our breath away. Once home to
Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, it now stands as a proud
reminder of its royal heritage. It houses a museum and a small book-shop.
When we went to Jantar Mantar, the world-famous open-air
observatory, founded in the early
eighteenth century by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh, we couldn’t help being awed by
his devotion to science and technology and the perfection with which all the astronomical
instruments, till date, show the latitudes, longitudes, time, eclipses and the
sun signs of people. Of course, the guide was at his lucid best, when he
painstakingly demonstrated how time can be exactly ascertained on the sundial
there. When he asked us to check our watches, we were speechless. The exact
time was reflected on the sundial. The shadow created by the sun helps in
reading the time on the sundial. It was 10.15 a.m. then. Another large sundial
stands proudly nearby. It is the world’s largest one. Eerily, I felt as if I
had been transported back, to that venerable ruler’s era, in a time machine. I
had goose-bumps!
The copyright of this travelogue is with Mrs. Priya Ramesh Swaminathan.
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