Jaipur: The Hawa Mahal

Jaipur from behind purdah: view through colored glass at the Hawa Mahal

The Rajputs - Rajasthan's historic warrior clans - were fiercely Hindu, but culturally they were affected by centuries of contact with Muslim traders and invaders. One Muslim tradition the Rajputs adopted was purdah, the practice by which women were to be kept out of the sight of men. The women of Jaipur's court observed a strict form of purdah, which had the effect of isolating them from the life of the city.

Both to mitigate and to facilitate this isolation, Maharajah Sawaj Pratap Singh ordered the construction in 1799 of the Hawa Mahal, a palace whose primary purpose was to serve as a sort of pink sandstone veil for the royal women. It's a virtually flat, five-story high building, an elegantly carved screen full of tiny windows, behind which the court women would sit to observe the action on the streets below. Here are a few pictures - the photo above, which is one of my favorites, is by Rachel, as is the last one below.