The Bazaars of Jaipur

When Sawai Jai Singh II laid out his city, he took great care to invite artisans and crafts persons to come and settle here, and recognising the need for family life, created proper grids where they could settle here, and recognising the need for family life, created proper girds where they could settle, rather than serve at the royal ateliers. The gamble paid off: almost three centuries later, Jaipur can easily qualify as the world’s capital for quality arts and crafts, each known handicraft trade finding its own resonance here.

The first place where you can easily head for is Mirza Ismail Road, with its quality stores and limited yet big shops are worthwhile. However, the place fails to deliver the pulse of the old city’s bazaars, which constitute the fun of shopping in Jaipur. The walled city is a mosaic of people, colours, shops, more colour, craftsmen at work, and the kaleidoscope continues to move between the present and the past. The Badi and Choti Chaupars, for example, consist of rows of shops that run parallel to the road, and you can continue exploring endlessly, as each tiny store has its specialisation: if one sells only supari, another trades in braids for the hair; for everyone store that sells only juttees, there are others where the interest is only bandhani fabrics, while others deal in hand block printed textile; for every shop that is popular for its light, Jaipuri quilts in bright tie-and-dye patterns, there is another where only buttons will be sold.

Nor does the experience end with the shops on the road. After intermittent intervals, there are narrow lanes that branch off into the innards of the old city. Follow them and you could be lost in moments, but what a world of excitement awaits you: piles of semi-precious stones, vendors of silver, tiny stores trading in lame ribbons, exporters of dhurries.

While a visit to the Rajasthan Handicraft Emporium called Rajasthani offers you a taste of everything Rajasthan does, increasingly visitors want to visit designer stores that use ancient techniques to give tem a contemporary flavour as in the case of Anokhi and Soma. The best part is to walk down Johari Bazar with its jewellery stores, and dealers of precious and semi-precious stones; Khazane walo ka rasta (the path of treasurers) for marble statuary; another road is exclusive for gems and jewellery; Badi Chaupar for handblock printed textiles and quilts.