Steven Tyler would have been pleased. Near one of the ornate gates of Jaipur’s famed City Palace was parked an ambassador that gleamed a shocking pink in the harsh sunlight.
Tyler, millennial followers of popular music may recall, fronted the successful American rock band Aerosmith. Pink, apparently the colour of passion or so crooned Aerosmith, was one of the band’s most enduring hits.
There is, of course, no escaping Jaipur’s passion for pink. This, after all, is India’s Pink City. Gigantic walls and facades of gates that come into view as one approaches the Old City seem to blush. Local law has deemed that nearly every building, including commercial establishments, within the premises of the Old City be smudged “terracotta pink” that is symbolic of Rajasthan’s famed hospitality; at least that is what my guide had whispered earlier while eyeing pink candy floss outside Hawa Mahal.
Even the energy-sapping afternoon light could not tire him from recounting the root of Jaipur going gulabi. The credit, he said in a parched voice as I stood gobsmacked by the golapi ambassador car, for Jaipur’s tryst with pink goes to Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II. He wanted to create a favourable impression on Prince Albert who was visiting India in 1876. The Maharaja first built an exquisite concert hall that was named after
the visiting royalty. But just to make sure that his prize catch would remain enchanted, he ordered Jaipur to be bathed in pink.
Prince Albert departed in time. But Jaipur’s pink hues remained. It is said that the Maharaja’s favourite queen, who, too, went gaga over gulabi, got the king to pass a royal decree that banned any other colour on buildings.
But after the first day in Jaipur, I was seeing pink no longer. I had spotted blue.
A blue that leaked from the heavens. I could not get enough of Jaipur’s cornflower blue sky — a cloudless, smokeless, endless expanse tinged in azure of seemingly the purest kind. Being a resident of a city that has haze in place of a sky — even the dazzling blue expanse of autumn and winter eludes Calcutta these days — I spent a considerable amount of time trying to etch Jaipur’s cerulean skyline in my memory.
Jaipur’s sky could change colour too.
In the evening, azure changed to indigo and, then, to an inky blackness that was occasionally lit by specks of iridescence that were the distant stars. If one stayed up late at night, hours after the day’s din had died, one could relive the childhood pleasure — the magic — of plotting imaginary lines across a bejewelled night sky, connecting Orion, that great Greek hunter and the doomed lover of Artemis, to his belt and perhaps even to his dog, Sirius, who, too, has a place among the shining constellations. Hours later, the darkness would recede, making way for light blue.
Another kind of blue left me stunned in Jaipur.
My touristy gaze caught flashes of its brilliance as I strolled leisurely across the old markets — Bapu Bazaar, Johari Bazaar and Tripolia Bazaar — teeming with trinkets, incense, gulal, textiles, fabric, sweetmeats. But none of these could leave an imprint on my mind’s eye. That third eye could only see one of Jaipur’s astonishing artistic creations — its famed blue pottery artworks. A particular shop beckoned and I stepped into a tiny space. Its walls were covered with photographs of celebrities — the Clintons, Bollywood stars, sportsmen, politicians — holding exquisitely designed crockery, vases, plates, boxes, ashtrays, ink pots — all bathed in bewitching blues.
Colours serve as birthmarks for some of Rajasthan’s famed habitats. If you were to stand atop the majestic Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur and let your vision take in what lies at the base of the edifice, you would see a Blue City — Jodhpur — unfold before your very eyes. Jaisalmer — thanks to Feluda’s adventure — remains tinged in golden hues in the Bengali imagination. Jaipur, according to popular opinion, lies basking in pink.
But for the passing visitor, the real joy often lies in discovering, quite accidentally, a city’s hidden pigment.
Jaipur hides under its pink sheen an ethereal blue.