Beautiful sunrise this morning looking out over the City Palace from our hotel. The Maharana Jagat Singh II had a palace for all seasons, the City Palace, the summer palace, and the monsoon palace.
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| City Palace at sunrise |
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| Monsoon Palace |
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| Pleasure Palace |
We ferried to the dock, and walked from there to the City Palace.
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| City Palace |
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| Anti-elephant spikes on massive doors |
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| Site where Holi starts |
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| View of the elephant jousting yard |
There is also a huge collection of “miniature paintings” in the palace, and after our visit, we stopped at a miniature art studio (not that small). Miniature does not refer to the size of the painting, but to the detail in the picture. Some of the finest detail is done with single hair brushes.
Each creation takes from a couple of days to weeks to produce depending on the detailing and size of artwork. The paintings are made with stone colors. The powder is mixed with water and gum.. It can be used for painting on silk, canvas, or camel skin. The making of a miniature painting involves some critical steps:
1. Sketching: Done in reddish-brown ink, on paper. 2. Tracing: Once the sketch is done, the design is drawn on the main paper or canvas.
3. Coloring:After coloring and shading, the outlines of the object, as delineated in the initial sketch, are reconfirmed by a darker tone and the figures are given a well-finished form.
4. Stippling: Stippling is the process of softly stroking or shading by using small dots with a very fine brush (the miniature part).
We were used to the usual ritual now; demonstrations by the artists, being told that they only want you to appreciate the art and there is no need to purchase anything, followed by the display and arm twisting. We had planned to be strong, but I happened to spy a beautiful 3-headed elephant statue of Erawan.
According to Aryan legends, the god Erawan is huge, white and hs 33 heads. Each head bears seven tusks. The main duty of Erawan the elephant god is to serve as Indra's mount in his travels to different locations in the heavens and on earth. Indra, is the chief of the gods and responsible for the world's weather,.
As the beloved companion of Indra, the god Erawan is considered to be the lord of all elephants in the universe. He is also taken to be a symbol of Indre himself, of virtuous action, and of prosperity. For artistic reasons, he is usually portrayed with only three heads, rather than 33 heads in the myth.
Do to our loss of the 3-headed elephant to Rick and Harriet in Cambodia, and our inability to procure one from any other source, we bought it. Hopefully with all the craziness, it will get here )it is being shipped).
While we were getting our briefing on miniature paintaing, we heard a commotion out on the street. We ran out to find a huge wedding celebration. Had to get in the midst of it and take some photos.
The house is built on an estate of five acres, set amidst lush green fields, perched atop a small hillock.We were entertained by our hostess, Jyoti Jasolwith a cooking demonstration and a roughly 7 course lunch. We were particularly impressed considering she was having 75 family members and 25 guests for Holi Festival that evening.
In addition to the cooking demo, Jeri got to help making chapati, whole wheat flat bread cooked dry over a wood fire. We will have to try this at home.
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| Stacks of chapatis |
Driving back to the hotel, we passed hoardes of people getting ready for Holi. Bonfires figure prominently tonight, though we will be missing all the festivities due to the risks of Covid-19.
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| Hay bales for Holi bonfires |
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| Color powders for Holi |
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| Bonfire preparation for tonight |
In place of going crazy at Holi celebrations, our concillation prize was a baot trip around the lake at sunset. The full moon tonight was magnificent.
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| Boat trip to "Pleasure Island" |
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| "Pleasure Island" |
Tomorrow we are off to Mumbai.
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