“The fort is impregnable, sahib. It is laced with the best techniques of its time”, my local guide Vikram Singh, a resident of Mewar, added, “though it has never witnessed a hostile situation.”
It was barely past 8 in the morning. Despite the early hour, the April heat , beating down on us like an enormous hammer, was pressing down on us like a sheet of steel. Earlier in the day, I had started from Jaipur following NH8 until the clear water of the Moatha Lake reflected the craggy outlines of the majestic Amber Fort. I discarded my car in the parking lot that was already full. A steady stream of tourists were headed to a particular spot yonder.
“That’s where you hitch an elephant ride”, Vikram filled in. “Tourists start lining up daily at 7 o’clock”
A series of steps cut across the face of the hill, climbing relentlessly, all the way to the top. Vikram read my mind, and we attacked the stairs. The sandstone had started to bake, the heat murderously seeping through the soles of my shoes. I climbed silently behind Vikram for a few minutes, conscious of my increasingly warm breath. This was no time to speak, though my mind was clouded.
Clouded with the images of a Rajput warrior, indelibly etched on my mind by Amar Chitra Katha, the comic book series depicting epics from the history of India that I had devoured all through my childhood. Prithviraj Chauhan, Rana Sanga, Rana Pratap; lion hearted men, built like the mountains they came from, in full battle regalia – armor of steel, shields of iron, wielding long swords, astride handsome steeds - fighting, fighting, fighting.
Rajputs were the most immaculate Hindu fighting machine ever, driven by love for their motherland and fuelled by loyalty, passion and honor. They were known to quibble amongst themselves but when it came to a foreign invasion, the Rajputs tied themselves into a tight knot and resisted hard using everything they had. For centuries they were the pointiest thorn in the heel of the insurgents who came through the Khyber pass - Arabs, Mughals, Mongols and the Turks.
A waft of breeze carried with it the sound of jingling bells and we stopped. I smuggled into a tiny strip of shade and shrugged out of my backpack. I let the breeze hit my sweat drenched back and took a gulp of ice cold water from my canteen.
The steep steps intersected with a cobbled stone ramp. Swaying majestically, almost unaware of the heat, a serpentine line of elephants was marching purposefully, tourists perched precariously on their back. They seemed nervous and awkward – the tourists, not the elephants: the men, their long white legs thrust through khaki shorts clutching expensive cameras with long hooded lenses; women, looking pretty in their recently acquired colorful jodhpuris, holding their floppy hats to their sweat drenched scalps.
We cut our way through the line and continued our ascent.
The Rajputs built awe-inspiring forts high up in the Araavali mountain range to thwart the Mughal juggernaut. They cobbled together loosely coupled, circumstance-dependent brotherhoods of inspired men who knew a thing or two more than most about fighting. They devised rituals such as jauhar , in which, when the mission was deemed a lost cause, the women of the clan, dressed in their wedding fineries, publicly embraced self-immolation to take away from their men the last reason to want to turn back. All of this for pride, freedom, honor, valor, and such other emotions that have no place in a book on economics.
So what happened in Jaipur in the sixteenth century? I asked Vikram.
“Kya kahaein sahib,” he said, “The scion of the Kachawa dynasty decided to seek employment with the enemy. When one seeks ease and comfort, pride and patriotism is for sale.”
The scion, as it turned out in this case, was Raja Man Singh, the first; the enemy being the reigning Mogul emperor Akbar. Man Singh was inducted into Akbar’s innermost circle of counselors. Man Singh was elevated to the post of Commander in Chief of the imperial army, after he played a prominent role in breaking down the resistance of the staunch Rajput prince Rana Pratap of Sisodia in the iconic battle of Haldi Ghati.
By no stretch of imagination did Man Singh live an easy life. As Akbar’s C-in-C, he launched successful military campaigns that took him as far as Kandahar (present day Afghanistan), Puri in Orissa and Rohtas in Bihar. He led his soldiers fearlessly and often won in seemingly impossible conditions.
It is unfortunate that Man Singh chose to fight the battle from the Mughal ranks.
To the Rajputs of those times, Amber fort represented the house of treason, the very place that seed of the rut was sown. Nothing would cause more resentment to those who thought nothing of killing their womenfolk themselves lest they fall into the hands of their enemy, than the kingdom of Amber supplying their women to the Mughal emperors, princess Jodhabai being the most prominent example.
It is with this context that I entered the mammoth Surya Pol – the sun gate. This was a place I would have loved to hate, but alas.
The Amber fort has been built lavishly and preserved immaculately. The fort has four designated areas that successively become private for the king and his consorts; The Jaleb Chowk for the guards, the Diwaan-E-Aam for the common man, the Diwaan-E-Khaas for the rich and elite followed by the cozy zenana for the royal women. Separating the courtyard for the common from the one for the rich, lies the breathtakingly frescoed Ganesh Pol – the Ganesha gate – that has a latticed gallery, a stone purdah, that allowed the princesses and queens to participate in the day to day administration without letting men outside their family marvel at their beauty.
In the Diwaan_E-Khaas sits the iconic Sheesh Mahal – palace of mirrors – with inlaid glass and mirrors imported from Belgium, that was famed to light up corner to corner, floor to ceiling with one strategically placed candle. Today, the innards of this palace remains out of bound for the tourists, another Indian case of bolting the stable after the horse has bolted, as many of the mirrors are missing, undoubtedly scavenged by tourists for keepsake.
The oldest part of the fort is Man Singh’s zenana – the house of libido, a complex of 12 apartments, each made up of indoor and outdoor rooms, a private patio and an open-air bathtub. Each apartment has a private staircase, none which intersects with another, that conveniently leads to Man Singh’s private quarter’s on the first floor. All the apartments open into a courtyard that has a covered platform in the center. Man Singh’s royal wives lived in these apartments, co-exiting happily and time spliced the royal attention without gumption. The rooms that surround the courtyard were allocated to other concubines and personal servants. This oldest part of the palace gives a fleeting yet a tantalizingly glance at the functioning of a 16th century Rajput harem.
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The fort is probably the most tourist friendly monument I have seen, so far, in India. The grounds are kept spanking clean with a dustbin visible around every corner. The paid toilet ( 
5 or 10 cents) is five star quality with auto flushing toilets and glass sinks. It is not surprising to see tourists from all over the world flocking to Amber Fort.
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How would it have panned out if Raja Man Singh had not defected to the Mughals?
Would he have succeeded in uniting the Rajputs of Jodhpur, Chittor, Mewar, Bikaner? Could he have built a strong alliance with the waning Vijaynagar and the emerging Marathas in the south? Would Aurangzeb have come to power at all? Could the Maratha kingdom, the Kingdom of Mysore, the state of Hyderabad, the Sikh empire accepted a central ruler in a Shivaji Bhosale or a Tipu Sultan, a Ranjit Singh or a Rani Laxmibai? Would the East India company have been relegated to being “an excellent trading partner”? Would the subcontinent of India exist as princely states cum countries – each with its own language, religion, rituals and idiosyncrasies – but forming a force to recon with, a la the European Union?
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Related Links
Battle of Haldi Ghati
The first jauhar of Chittor
Akbar, the Great?
Did Jodhabai exist? Probably, but not as Jodhabai.
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Amber Fort: Photo Gallery
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