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Mandawa.

Mandawa is a city in Rajasthan, located about 200 kilometers north of the capital Jaipur.

When Rajasthan was on one of the popular Silk Roads, the city experienced extraordinary prosperity. Wealthy Jain merchants were the champions of trade and grew rich.

With the money they earned from this flourishing international trade, these traders built for themselves sumptuous palaces. These magnificent residences bear the name of havelis.

Richly decorated, both inside and out, these mansions were true works of art. Mandawa has dozens of them.

The expansion of trade between East and West has gradually led to the replacement of camel caravans by more efficient means of transport. The development of India also required the creation of a large commercial port. It was in Bombay (currently called Mumbai), ideally located in central India and with a large bay, that the decision was made to build this large port. In fact, it was to expand the existing port.

This expansion of the port of Mumbai would gradually dry up trade on camels and soon no more caravans passed through Mandawa. Nor in the rest of Rajasthan either.

The Jain traders having a great capacity for adaptation, they decided to establish themselves on the new trade routes and one by one left the beautiful neighborhoods they had built in Mandawa. By the same token, they abandoned their sumptuous homes.

Not knowing if business could ever resume, they handed over their homes to townspeople, asking them to preserve the works of art. However, it is very difficult for the local populations, very far from having the same fortune as the Jain traders, to maintain such castles.

So, over time, these houses ended up withering away, and we can still guess today the traces of the past splendor.

There are several national and international programs to restore these havelis to their former glory.

about the place, Mandawa:

The small town of Mandawa in Rajasthan which has less than 30,000 inhabitants is famous for its havelis. The havelis are the richly decorated homes of the merchants who prospered before the Silk Road was abandoned by the caravans.

 

Spoken comments in the film: 

Mandawa, once a prosperous city, saw its wealthy Jain merchants gradually leave the city because of the severe decline due to the construction of the port of Bombay  which gradually took precedence over the caravans that once made Mandawa famous. The havélis remained and were entrusted to the inhabitants of the village. The small town of Mandawa in Rajasthan, which has less than 30,000 inhabitants, is famous for its havélis. Havelis are the richly decorated homes of merchants who prospered before the Silk Road was abandoned by caravans.

 

 

About painting techniques

 

The technique used in Rajasthan for wall paintings is called Ala-Gila. It consists of laying the paint on fresh and still damp lime. The pigments are mixed with a binder (organic or not). As the paint mixed with the binder is applied to the still damp wall, we can speak here of a distemper.

The paintings sometimes represent scenes from mythology and are decorated with scrolls. This kind of paintings, originating from Odisha (formerly called Orissa) is more often found on fabrics. It is then called Pattachitra. When it is applied on a wall, it takes the name of Bhitti Chitra.

The painted scene sometimes represents Krishna surrounded by women, who are called Gopis (the beloved ones of Krishna), mounted on an elephant or a horse. This very particular art is called Nava Nari Kunjara or Nava Nari Ashwa depending on whether Krishna rides an elephant or a horse. The peculiarity of this particular art is that the body of the animal is made up of women's bodies. In principle, 9 female bodies constitute the animal, but it seems that there may be exceptions like in these images.