World Heritage Site

The Walled City of Jaipur will apply for WH status this year. The city in Northern India already has 2 WHS within its borders: Jantar Mantar and Amer Fort (the latter as part of the Hill Forts of Rajasthan). The city authorities however still they seem to long for the recognition of its historic center in general. The core zone of the proposed WHS will be limited to the area within the old city walls – this would lead to an exact location inscribed twice connection for Jantar Mantar, but not for Amer Fort which lies in a separate village within the municipality some 11km away.

I visited Jaipur in 1993, arriving by Pink City Express train from Delhi. The city was part of a whirlwind group tour across Northern India and Nepal and I think we stayed for 1 night only. My photo album of the trip shows that we covered the City Palace, Nahargarh Fort, the observatory, Amer Fort and a cinema. It would have been hard to have not seen the Hawa Mahal (the Pink Palace) as well, but I have no photos of this landmark left.

The Nahargarh Fort and cinema lie just outside of the walled city. Which leaves the City Palace (dating from 1732) for me to describe. This was the seat of the Maharaja of Jaipur and thus a core element of the 18th century planned city that is to sustain the Outstanding Universal Value of the nominated site. It is a large complex, with several richly decorated gateways, palaces, pavilions and temples. Gardens and an artificial lake complete the scene.

My memory in general is terrible, so don’t ask me about specific observations about Jaipur from 26 years ago. A short glimpse has remained though: we went to see a Bollywood movie in The Raj Mandir, a “meringue-shaped auditorium … and … a popular symbol of Jaipur”. The movie we saw coincidentally included fragments filmed in the Netherlands: there were shots of scarcely clad women and of violence on the train, with people having their heads jammed between the windows. Maybe this portrayed image explains the weird attitude some Indian men display towards European women….