Jaipur

Jaipur was built to a plan, which makes it unusual among Indian cities. The Kachwaha Rajputs had ruled from Amer, in a gorge in the hills to the north, since the 12th century, and grew powerful as generals and allies of the Mughal emperors. By the early 18th century Amer was crowded and short of water, and in 1727 Sawai Jai Singh II laid out a new capital on the plain below. His scheme, worked out with the architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya, divided the walled city into nine rectangular blocks on the principles of Hindu treatises on architecture, with streets of set widths, gates, and trades assigned to particular quarters.

Jai Singh was an astronomer as well as a ruler; the Jantar Mantar he completed in 1734 was the chief of five observatories he built. His successors added the Hawa Mahal in 1799 and hill forts above the town. In 1876 the city was painted the terracotta pink it still wears, in honour of a visit by the Prince of Wales. Under British paramountcy the state modernised early: Sawai Ram Singh II opened a Sanskrit college in 1865 and a girls' school in 1867, and public works followed.

The state acceded to India in 1949 and Jaipur became the capital of the new state of Rajasthan. The city grew far beyond its walls in the second half of the 20th century, taking in industry, the gem trade and tourism. In 2019 UNESCO inscribed the walled city as a World Heritage Site for its 18th-century town planning, adding to earlier listings for the Jantar Mantar and Amer Fort.

Jaipur is a city of craftsmen. The court drew in jewellers, enamellers, stone carvers, miniature painters, potters and block printers, and their descendants still work in the same quarters of the old city. The gem trade is the largest of these: emeralds and other stones are cut and set here for buyers worldwide. Jaipur blue pottery, glazed in cobalt and worked without clay, and the meenakari enamelling of gold jewellery are the city's signature crafts, with block printing at Sanganer and Bagru just outside.

Royal ritual survives in public form. The former ruling family still lives in part of the City Palace, and processions at Gangaur and Teej carry images of the goddess through the streets with camels, elephants and bands, in a formality inherited from the court. Kathputli string puppetry, Manganiyar and Langa musicians from the desert, and the whirling Ghoomar dance appear at festivals and hotel performances alike.

Modern Jaipur has a strong civic and literary culture — the Literature Festival each January is one of the largest events of its kind anywhere — alongside cricket, which fills the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, and polo, a relic of princely days. Manners are courteous and fairly conservative: elders are greeted first, hands joined in namaste, and hospitality is taken seriously. Most residents are Hindu, with a substantial Muslim population and important Jain temples and merchant families.

About three million people live in Jaipur, making it Rajasthan's largest city and the tenth most populous in India. Government, tourism, gems and jewellery, textiles, handicrafts, marble and a growing information technology and education sector carry the economy; the city is also a regional centre for hospitals and universities, drawing students from across the state.

The rhythm differs sharply between old and new. Inside the walls the bazaars open late in the morning, close for a long afternoon rest in the heat and stay busy well into the night, with workshops above the shops and families living in the same buildings. Outside, in Malviya Nagar, Mansarovar and Vaishali Nagar, life runs on office hours, school runs, shopping malls and the metro.

The strains are those of rapid growth. Water is drawn from distant reservoirs and groundwater is falling; traffic has outgrown a street plan designed for carts; and air quality deteriorates in winter. Heat is an increasing public health concern, with summer temperatures regularly above 40°C. Conservation of the walled city, now a World Heritage Site, has to be balanced against the needs of the tens of thousands of people who work and live in it, and unauthorised building and signage remain contested issues.

Jaipur eats Rajasthani food at its most elaborate. Dal baati churma is the defining meal: hard wheat balls baked in coals, broken and doused in ghee, eaten with spiced lentils and a sweet crumble of the same dough. Gatte ki sabzi, gram flour dumplings in a yoghurt curry, and ker sangri, dried desert berries and beans, come from a cooking tradition built for a place with little fresh produce. Laal maas, mutton in a fiery red chilli gravy, is the best-known meat dish, though much of the city is vegetarian and Jain cooking without onion or garlic is easy to find.

Snacks are a civic speciality. Pyaaz kachori, a flaky pastry filled with spiced onion, and mirchi bada, a batter-fried stuffed chilli, are eaten standing at counters; kachori is followed by mawa kachori, the sweet version. Chaat carts sell golgappa and aloo tikki in the evening, and lassi is served thick in unglazed clay cups that are thrown away after use.

Sweets fill Johari Bazaar. Ghevar, a disc of fried batter with a honeycomb texture soaked in syrup, is made for the monsoon festival of Teej; mishri mawa, feeni and gram flour sweets are sold by weight all year. Masala chai is the constant, brewed with ginger and cardamom at stalls on every corner, and in summer the city drinks buttermilk, sugarcane juice and kulfi.