A Grandstand for the Women

The Palace of the Winds is a fantastic structure built as an extension to the harem or women’s quarters but overlooking the main road so that the ladies of the court, who were meant to observe strict Purdah, are could observe the grand processions taking place down the road while remaining themselves unseen.  It is five stories high and it is said to contain no less than 793 small windows.

it was built by Sawai Pratap Singh, the son of Jai Singh the founder of Jaipur, and it is intended to represent the crown of the Hindu god Krishna,  as the Maharaja was a devotee of Krishna

As this sideways shot shows,  it was extremely thin,  only a single room in thickness at the top. It was built in 1799 by Lal Chad Ustad, one of the foremost architects in India at the time

The Palace wall extends beyond the Palace of the Winds, and here, slightly further on, we see one of the gates through the wall. We did not stop to see the inside of the Palace of the Winds but we drove past it twice in the bus, and took our photos through the windows of the bus

Jaipur was laid out as a formal city on a grid plan and is considered to be the finest of the planned cities in India. Here is a corner of the main city building in the characteristic red sandstone which has given Jaipur the name ‘The Pink city’.

21st April 2013

 On to The Observatory