Exactly a year ago, I had walked up a few hundred slippery steps in the rain, to Karla caves near Lonavala and come back to wonder – proud of what heritage? – fascinated by the wood and stone that have bravely withstood the onslaugth of the elements for centuries but recently given up the struggle against human indifference…
Shekhawati was a similar experience for me – remarkable frescoes and murals over a hundred and fity years old, now suddenly under threat from a whitewash, a bollywood poster, a renovation… Havelis that housed the prosperous Marwaris who gave back to the community much more than they took, now housing multiple small families in need of a space over their heads, to hang their clothes, to light the kitchen fire… Towns that point the tourists proudly to the Rani Sati temple built in honour of a woman who died in 1295 upon the funeral pyre of her husband, and attracts over 300,000 visitors every year but are clueless about the significance, even the location of the havelis that are the storehouses of an art form that originated in Italy in the 14th century…
More on when art is irrelevant on Itchy Feet….
And to assure you that all of Shekhawati is not about decay and ruin, and to give a better context to the glorious images I posted here recently, is a more detailed post on haveli hopping in Shekhawati
As always, comments welcome (although I have been lax about responding to them, I know – my bad)…