Shekhawati: Hand-painted towns on sand

The RTDC hotel at Jhunjhunu was hardly impressive and the town didn’t look any better either. I do prefer places which are less touristy but Jhunjhunu seemed to have hardly seen any tourist until me. And I had planned to make this place my base for the next two days of my Shekhawati trip.


I had already started to regret my decision when I rather reluctantly boarded an auto-rickshaw to reach the market where according to my guidebook I was supposed to find some amazingly beautiful frescoed havelis. After a teeth-chattering roller-coaster ride through some of the narrowest and most serpentine lanes imaginable, when I finally reached where I thought I was supposed to reach, I realised that I was standing in the middle of a busy vegetable market looking for frescoed havelis! There must have been some terrible mistake — I must have landed myself on a doppelganger of the town mentioned in the guidebook!

Just as I was making my way through the crowd to catch an auto back to the hotel I saw a placard saying ‘Modi Haveli’ So, it exists! And I am on the right track!

The colossal wooden door with intricate carvings and fancy brass iron fittings did not prepare me for what was waiting for me inside — a stuck-in-time huge haveli with amazingly intricate frescos on each wall and roof along with an old caretaker who resembled Om Puri of Mirch Masala! He offered to show me around, in exchange for `100. Although I found the rate a bit too high, I was not ready to miss one inch of the experience that was the Ishwardas Modi Haveli.

As my Om Puri unlocked the doors of the rooms and legends he told me about the four brothers who built exact same rooms in the four corners of the house to avoid property dispute and how the 365 windows of the haveli were constructed in a manner to keep a constant flow of air and yet obstruct the harsh rays of sun from falling directly on the walls. However, the frescos had mesmerised me by then.

Unlike other parts of Rajasthan, Shekhawati, boasting of some obscure specks of village-towns jutting out from the arid desert, is yet to make its presence felt on the tourist map and it was not until I reached Bissau the next day, that I realised why this region was called ‘an open-air art gallery’ and was any art lover’s El Dorado!

The sleepy hamlet welcomed me with a cacophony of images vying for attention — horse, camel and elephant-drawn carriages of various shapes and sizes, mythological characters, solemn looking gods and goddesses, weird animals, curly moustached men, self-obsessed women, erotic couples, European soldiers, motor vehicles, trains, telephones, gramophones, balloons, bicycles and what not! The walls, roofs, parapets of every house were plastered with frescos with themes ranging from gravely religious to utter burlesque.

On our way to Bissau, we had stopped at a Police chowki to ask for directions. And the very mention of Bissau yielded the strangest of statements: “Arey woh Bissau jo Bangaliyon ka gaon hay?” I must have looked visibly shocked for the constable had quickly explained: “Madam wahan ke log Kalkatta mein hi rehtey hein”. Oh simple enough! But why would people from such an obscure village of Rajasthan travel all the way to Calcutta? The scorching sun must be having its effect on the constable, I thought.

And it was not until I reached Bissau that his ‘delirium’ started showing tell-tale signs of turning into reality. The ‘obscure village’ was lined with opulant, desolate havelis. As I stumbled upon a huge elephant standing on two legs, blowing a trumpet to please an European officer and a girl in swimming costume getting ready to take the plunge, I couldn’t resist asking a passerby about the mystery behind the locked doors. “Sab gaon gaye hain”... Gone to ‘native place’? Now where could that be? I wondered. Well, Calcutta of course! Most of the owners of these grand havelis are prosperous merchants who have migrated to Calcutta, he elaborated. I was rather curious to check the interiors of these havelis and asked one of the caretakers if I could manage a sneak peek. He asked me to call the owner for permission which I did and was curtly denied because I was an Indian. Only ‘foreign tourists’ are granted entry to this padlocked painted world I was told!

However, after Bissau, we headed towards arguably one of the most beautifully painted towns of the region — Ramgarh. So would there be frescos of Gabbar Singh and his boots? I could almost hear a spine-chilling voice echoing in my brain “Holi kab hay? Kab hay Holi?” The car screeched to a halt. I opened my eyes to reality and saw a road packed with cars, camel carts, donkeys, porters and general madness and a mass effort to clear the chaos leading to further chaos. Suddenly out of nowhere a man in a suit walked up to our car. “Please follow me,” he said in calm voice. I was hesitant to follow but we needed a way out from this pandemonium. So he guided us through narrow alleys and meandering lanes and landed us in front of a heritage property named Ramgarh Fresco. He then introduced himself as the ‘Manager’ of the heritage hotel and museum and told us that we could have our lunch there. He would then take us for a walk around the town. I suddenly realised I hadn’t eaten anything the whole day and the voice of Gabbar that I was hearing in my brain was actually my stomach grumbling for food! And what can be better that a scrumptious, authentic Rajasthani thali!

Most frescos of the haveli were beautifully restored and the ambience and the food were as good as the paintings on the wall. After chilling out for some time I accompanied Mr Manager for a walk around the town. Each haveli that he took me to had breathtakingly beautiful paintings and many were getting a facelift. The manager was a knowledgeable man and told me about the history of the region in great detail. Ramgarh, also known as Sethan Ramgarh (Ramgarh of the Seths) was established by the wealthy Poddars who rebelled against the hefty tax hike in Churu and relocated here. And the baroque havelis of the area were built in an attempt to outshine the flamboyance of their former home.

These small towns of Shekhawati were once part of the Southern Silk Route and were home to the rich and flourishing merchant community. As time passed, many members of this community migrated to Bombay and Calcutta in search of better prospects and with their inherent business acumen most of them made a fortune trading with the East India Company. Even today most of the lineage of the country’s most powerful industrialists and businessmen like the Neotias, the Ruias, the Birlas, the Goenkas and the Poddars can be traced back to the Shekhawati merchants.

It was a custom in this region for any trader who amasses a considerable amount of wealth to build four things in their native village — a haveli, a baoli (well), a mandir and a dharamshala. The more wealthy the businessman, the more lavish the construction and more intricate the frescos.

However, the frescos not only reflect the opulence of the owners of these havelis, they also document the changing socio-economic scenario. What started with painting gods and goddesses on the walls to protect the house from evil gradually started accommodating common men and their daily lives. The frescoes painted in the early 20th century reflected distinct European influences and gave birth to a new style of painting known as the ‘Company Style’ where airplanes, ships, sofa sets, sewing machines, gramophones, trains, trumpets, and telephones were painted using Rajasthani miniatures and so on.

Most of these painters had no direct contact with the western world and would depend on the elaborate, often absurd description of the traders back from a business trip abroad and the result would often be a bizarre interpretation of the actual objects. Most frescos that adorn these houses are over 100 to 200 years old and are done in a style similar to fresco buono method developed in Italy around the 14th century.

Today the profusely painted, often dilapidated, havelis that line the dust-laden lanes and by-lanes of these village towns are just mementos from that prosperous past.

However, my time was up. The sun was waning and my neck had already started to pain staring at the roofs, walls, windows; my eyes watery from the assault of colours, and I could feel crystals of ‘information’ stiffening my brain.

As I left for my next destination, I saw children playing marbles on the street, women making lacquer bangles and roasting them on hot plates, an old man explaining the meaning of some Sanskrit sloka to a young kid sitting on a chair at a corner of a narrow lane, and the brightly-coloured frescos shimmering on the backdrop of the pale ochre town.

And I knew I had to return to these hauntingly beautiful towns of Rajasthan.