Visit the city of murals at Shekhawati in Rajasthan

Enter the painted world of the Shekhawati region in Rajasthan. Abandoned ruins, crumbling havelis or mansions and palaces stand proudly in the dusty desert sands, their walls covered with exquisite murals. Here designs and patterns dance with figures of kings and queens, gods and celestial creatures, soldiers and generals, elephants and horses on the walls marking it for a traveller’s delight to behold.

Shekhawati or the garden of Shekha is named after the 15th century ruler Rao Shekha. Located in the northeast of Rajasthan the region is renowned for its extraordinary painted havelis (traditional, ornately decorated residences), highlighted with dazzling, often whimsical murals. These works of art are found in tiny towns connected by single-track roads that run through the desolate countryside.

From the 14th century onwards, Shekhawati’s towns were important trading posts on caravan routes from Gujarati ports to the fertile and booming cities of the Ganges plain. The expansion of the British port cities of Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Bombay (Mumbai) in the 19th century could have been the death knell for Shekhawati, but the merchants moved to these cities, prospered, and sent funds home to construct and decorate their extraordinary abodes.

Today it seems curious that such attention and money were lavished on these out-of-the-way houses in Shekhawati, but these were once the homelands of wealthy traders and merchants. For the traveler these wall art are evidence of the lifetimes of a bygone era.

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The history of Kalighat paintings