streetsnsquares: Jaipur, Amer, Agra, Fatehpur & Delhi

I was looking forward to spending time in Jaipur exploring the city, its architecture and taking in its rich culture. There was plenty to see and also quite a few surprises along the way.

Old entry way to Jaipur

Hawa Mahal, Jaipur

Entrance to City Palace, Jaipur

Typical street frontage, Jaipur

Looking at the Vidhan Sabha, Jaipur

View of the forecourt of Amer Fort

The trip from Jaipur, the old town of Amer next to which stands the Amer Fort, Agra, Akbar's Fatehpur and finally onto Delhi - was like a paroxysm of thoughts for an Urbanist. There is so much to take in every where - lessons and more lessons. And at the end of it all, a epiphany of sorts - a city is so much like a living being, an entity in its own right. How can you not compare it to a living entity when you see places long abandoned, to places still growing beyond any parameters known to man at a growth rate thats possibly unparalleled in human history? There is clearly a start, a middle and clearly an end.

Like a city spiraling out constantly without anything holding it back, taking in everything within its reach and giving rise to a new thing as it moves, devouring everything in its wake - but is this outward acceleration sustainable? We just need to look at older cities, places long abandoned for an answer. May be, just may be, possibly, it is not. It can't go on this way, sooner or later, something will give, surely something has to!

I don't even think you can call these cities anymore when it sprawls to a megapolis and continues to grow. It certainly ceases to feel like a city - at least the experience of it at a human scale, the aesthetics of the experience you take in as you observe and experience it for the first time, it begins to feel more like an industrial beast than a city, a place to live and work. The complexity & scale of urban infrastructure that is required to sustain everyday life of a megapolis itself alone dwarfs the human experience.

Our cities are beginning to feel more and more industrial. Those were my thoughts on Delhi and beyond. There is a never ending urban expansion thats both horizontal and vertical as you go through Noida, Gurgaon, fringes of New Delhi only softening as you reach its absolute core, the Lyutens Delhi. It gets filtered down remarkably as you go beyond and enter old Delhi. May be I am old school but I begin to grasp the human dimension only at this point, when I can walk the streets and experience the city for what it is, a unique footprint on the planet and not the same blueprint thats reproduced everywhere. I can only think of LA as another city that I'd keep parallel to Delhi based on its existing urban growth.

Jaipur was a contrast if ever, the old city still stood proud with all its coats of pink colors, the royal palaces still steeped in its rich cultural traditions, the museums and other wonderful places that you have to explore. The connection to the place was more intimate which is something you cannot say for Delhi. Perhaps thats the price we pay, the price Megacities pay for being what they are.

Then there were places like Amer next to Amer Fort and Fatehpur. Cities once founded, cities now either in decline or abandoned entirely mostly for a lack of natural resources aka water.

In between, there was Agra, a place with one of the most visited monuments known to in modern history, the Taj Mahal but the city - which felt like being at the other end of this spectrum. The experience between the monument and going through the city was like two extremes and so you are forced to question, why? How is this possible? Economy is such a vital clog of a city, take it away and not even the most popular monument in the world can sustain it. Apparently. The same monument that gives the city name prohibits any other industry that might damage its white marble.

I've made a conclusion of sorts, something hopefully that I will be able to evaluate, rationalize and refine further as I visit more cities, old and new. At this stage this is very basic in its framework so no point elaborating further on it. But I do question myself, how has urbanisation and this massive growth changed our cities - it it for better or for worse? There is still so much unanswered. So much we do not know.

When I started with this blog, I had visited a lot of cities in Italy and around Europe, cities going back to the classical period, medieval age and present day carved through the palimpsest of its own past. Then there were the cities in the US and Canada, newer planned cities that serve a definite purpose. And in between, cities like Detroit, Gary and to an extent South Bend, cities on the other side of its glory - thanks to the decline of its industries. Cities that lay scattered around as you travel from the mid-west to New Orleans, long abandoned small towns that exist but only just. Places you can understand through a series of figure ground maps and history. My aim was to assimilate more information about cities on the other side of the world and be able to compare these through a series of set parameters - its not been easy. An ongoing process - and my next stop is Beneras and Bodhgaya, two ancient cities that date back thousands of years - back to the time of the Bouddha and one possibly even beyond that. I'm sure more surprises await.

Few more images from Jaipur.