Suraj Mal and the 2,000 fountains

15th January 2009, Bharatpur:

One evening, hungry and tired, eating hot rotis and dal, there was talk among some MNS members to visit Dig palace.  (Its pronounced Dheeg, and not dig as in an activity of Snow white's dwarfs).  Intrigued, my friend Raji and I decided to pile on to the trio who were planning to go, and so we became a car load.  

So, we decided, that 15th, post lunch we would set off for a half-day recce of this place.  Of course, like a  typical tourist from south India, I clicked away everytime I passed a camel cart, always amused at their superior stares.

The way was dotted with mustard fields in bloom, and it was a pretty sight.  Some of the others remarked that there has been a definite greening of this part of Rajasthan - it was more barren and dusty on their previous visits.

The roads were good and our driver was safe, and (thankfully) there are no hair-raising road stories in this account.  More camels, several unlicensed, made-up people carriers on a tractor chassis, and brick factories later, we arrive at Dig, a dusty little town, like any other, go past a fort wall, and around the bunds of a large tank with an impressive looking large building in the background (Gopal Bhavan, I realise later), and arrive at the parking lot for the Dig Palace.

We enter via this impressive Singh Pol gate, armed with little guide books picked up at the ticket counter.  The book says that this gate is incomplete - look at the bare arches inside, but still there's lovely carving all over the place, welcoming us to this sandstone marvel.
Singh-Pol. Spot the 2 lions atop the arch

The map below is from the Archealogical Survey of India ASI guide book.  The red arrows are the route we took around to the entrance.  As with most palace complexes, there are various buildings and complexes  added at various points in time, leading to much confusion to the first-time visitor.

Click on the ASI map, and keep it open as a separate tab - it will help you to follow my trail!So it was that we wandered into the main complex, the Gopal Bhawan, first.  I was struck by the elegance and elevation of this building.    And it was in good shape and well-preserved!  What little treasures we have tucked away in every part of the country.  It never ceases to amaze me, how we chance upon history even when we are not looking for it!  How old and tired our lands must be.

My mind wanders as I gaze on that building and think of Suraj Mal, the Jat ruler, who built this Bhawan in the eighteenth century.  My visit here, exposed me to a sliver of Jat history, (oh, so not everyone in Rajasthan was a Rajput?), and how the Jat peasants revolted against the Mughals, consolidated various kinships and established the Jat seat at Bharatpur under Badan Singh, Suraj Mal's father.  

Badan Singh, Suraj Mal and son Jawahar Singh, it appears were the significant rulers of Bharatpur, and it was a prosperous and growing prinicipality during the century when these rulers ruled.  
Gopal Bhawan - front facade
Gopal Bhawan

We entered the Bhawan by an inconspicuous small door, in the side. and were told to remove our footwear.  A caretaker/guide seems to be compulsory to go around the inside, I guess this is to prevent any destruction of the lovely interiors of the palace.

There is also no photography allowed inside, but I took a picture of this "bed" before I was informed of this.

Now, according to that caretaker Raja Suraj Mal on one of his military sorties into Delhi, looted this stone bed, thinking it was the Mughal queen's, and returned to be told that it was the stone slab on which the deceased Mughal kings and queens were embalmed!!  Do you think that story is true?!

A door took us into a gasp-causing room.  gasp-causing because the stone-bed room was bare, and somehow I assumed we would be led through a spartan place, with some relics here and there.  But no, we had walked into a lovely, well-appointed drawing room, with large hand-drawn embroidered punkahs adorning the roofs, carved wooden furniture and intricate trellis work on the side panels.  The room was two-storeys high, and carved panels at the first-floor height partitioned the royal quarters.  The trellis work was clever in that we could not see into those areas from down below, but when we went into those rooms, we could look down into the living room!  

In the middle, was a lovely marbled pool with fountains - Suraj Mal, according to me, should be christened the King of the Water Fountains.  There are 2,000 fountains in the palace complex! 

The caretaker spun us another story - which I have not been able to substantiate - pointing to the marble figure of a woman dancer.  He declared that she was the court dancer, a foreigner, who was so "taken in with the king", that when he died, she jumped onto his funeral pyre and committed sati.  He mentioned a name, and now I have forgotten it.  Any of my fellow travellers remember??

We were taken up a narrow staircase to the king's room, with its king-sized bed, large ornate mirrors and paintings of Krishna on the wall.  There was also a mysterious looking "hole" in the wall, which turned out to be a hotline to the maharani's room!

Then there was a large marble Indian style dining table - when I first saw it, I thought it was a giant potty - with lovely semi-precious inlay work, a bit like the Dungarpur table where we had enjoyed a magical dinner.

I musn't forget the old-style air conditioning.  There was a room with a contraption, which blew scented water vapour through a system of pipes into the royal chambers!  So, the caretaker told us, a team of workers would work ceaselessly to turn the wheel that dragged water through a fine mesh, mixed it with fragrance and sent it to the rooms!  (It still works, by the way!)

As we spoke, we arrived at the royal verandah, from where we were allowed to take a few pictures, looking out, and this is what we saw.  In the picture above, you'll see that the lower-most floor is under water.  This was the method used to keep the palace cool in the summer.
As we looked to our left, we could see the "Bhadon" pavillion - we wandered into that open courtyard with arches that you see, and I'll describe it to you in detail further on.

Delightful sandstone carvings adorned every bit of  the facade, and as we stood in looking out, it was like a time warp - there on the outer edge of the tank, the town roads were filled with vehicles with horns blaring, advertisements for Airtel and Vodafone, and men dressed in trousers and polyester shirts.

At the same time, reminiscent of times gone by, the water's edge saw women washing their colourful sarees in the Govind Sagar, and children playing around their mothers, in and out of the water.

I idly wondered if Raja Suraj Mal allowed the washing of clothes in the tank in the old days.

I was brought out of my reverie by the sound of Mr Shivakumar's voice, as he dryly commented that he would've been quite happy as the Raja's secretary!!

The Queen's quarters were not open to us, and that was more-or-less the end of our tour of the insides of the Gopal Bhawan.  The caretaker was generously tipped for his services, and as we left we saw another bunch of tourists go off on the same tour that we had!

Emerging out into the natural light, the vast expanse of the Mughal gardens and the fountains stretched out ahead of us, with the Keshav Bhawan in the distance.

The caretaker had told us a story about how the fountains would be filled with colour-coordinated water, so that different fountains would spout different colours.  From what I could make out (I'm no Hindi pundit you see),  he said something about divers going into the large water tank that was between Suraj Bhawan and Kishen Bhawan, and stuffing different colour pitchkaris into different pipes that went to different fountains.  Now, that tank was 2m deep and as wide as a building, and took a week to fill, and if all the fountains were turned on, the display would last only a few hours!!

The main line of fountains with Keshav Bhawan in the distance, looking east from Gopal Bhawan

Leading in to the gardens was this gigantic "swing" frame.  The story goes that this frame was brought back as loot by Suraj Mal from one of his raids on Delhi.  there is actually no swinging swing, if you know what I mean, just this highly ornate frame.

Marble hindola stolen from the Mughals
Next, we decided to explore the Bhadon pavillion -  that verandah-like lower level in the flanking pavillions.  
Bhadon pavillion

In the picture below is the view from that level, but more than the view what was mind-blowing was the detailed arrangement and design of water flow.  In the middle of the rear wall was a strangely inclined slab of carved sandstone, which we discovered was a chute over which water flowed.  The carvings would produce ripples and provide a form to the flowing water, which then went underground via a drain and came into a kind of cistern in the middle of the hall, in the floor.  But more interestingly, above in the roof, there were pipes with holes through which water would sprinkle, creating a rain-like effect!

The Chatri rooftop
Suraj Bhawan - the marble complex
Suraj Bhawan

Marked "4" on the map, Suraj Bhawan is a marble, single-storied building.  This was built by Jawahar Singh and the conjecture is that the marble was brought back from one of the side buildings in the Delhi Fort.  It has a very Mughal look to it, with carved arches, inlay work and patterned floors.
Decorated archways

Inlay work

The rooms were a bit poky though, and the ASI book surmises that this bhawan was probably a place of recreation for the ladies of the palace, and not a residence.

As someone in our group remarked, "Where are the toilets?!"

Decorated floors

Behind the Suraj Bhawan is the two-storeyed Hardev Bhawan.  It was rather dilapitated when we visited, and there was a strong stench of bats, actively discouraging us from further explorations of its insides.  

Hardev Bhawan

I did like the roof, though.  That roof pattern seems to be a unifying factor for the various bhawans.  The book says that the Gopal Bhawan - now with a flat roof - also had a crowning "chatri" over it, but it has been ruined.  
Hardev Bhawan roof

Keshav Bhawan - the square pavillion from where you could hear mock thunder
As it looked - Pic from the ASI book
Then....

Once again, the water engineer of Deeg has to be marvelled.  See the fountains surrounding the inner set of pillars?  Along with that, there were pipes with jets circling the roof, and supposedly some of these pillars are hollow and water would be passed through them with such force, that a visitor would hear the thunder of the clouds, and feel the rain as well!!
Now...

Sadly, this was the state of the restoration work.  Ugly brick walls have ruined the aesthetics of the hall and the grace of the pillars.Keshav Bhawan & Purana Mahal. View from Shish Mahal, across the Rup Sagar. Pic from ASI book

The brick walls somehow destroyed our good cheer, and the group  of us sat and pensively stared across at the older parts of the palace complex, across the Rup Sagar.


Rup Sagar

The old fort walls and the dilapidated Shish Mahal suddenly took me back to the old crumbling yalis on the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.  I was hit  by a moment of huzun, the melancholy of the Turks so well described by Pamuk.

The old fort walls
Shish Mahal

We lost our appetite for further explorations somehow, and headed back to our car.  Maybe it was the fever I felt coming, as well.  

Bats hung in plenty from a tree, and I stared in fascination as some of them, scratched their ears, all the while hanging upside down!  We stopped for tea and vegetable chaat, both of which were unsatisfactory.  the chaat was too expensive and the tea-in-a-matka, smelled of, well, mud!  It was probably our low mood.

As we returned, we spied more havelis in the towns in between.  The men stopped off in Bharatpur town, sampled gajar halwa (and brought some back for us - it was delicious!), went to a purana mandir in some back lanes, and then walked back.  We women were tired, headed back to our rooms, a warm bath and a reunion with the rest of the bunch who had stayed on at the bird sanctuary.