Ajmer is synonymous to Dargah Sharif, the tomb of Hazrat Khawaja Moinuddin Hasan Chisty, where people from all caste and creed come together to offer homage to the saint. The rules of the dargah are stringent, with a long a list of "Don'ts" that you have to abide by to enter into the dargah. Some of them that particularly applied to us were no shorts and skirts, no glares, hand-bags and camera, and no uncovered heads! So Raghav headed to the dargah's cloak room to deposit all that we had and deciding to do the Romans when in Rome, bought a white 'namaz' cap for himself, which made him look like a true messenger of secularism, while I frisked in my bag for my dandy bandana!
We jostled through the crowd, comprising an equal number of Hindus as Muslims and offered our 'chadar' to the pir, just in time for the dargah to close for cleaning from 3 to 4 pm. In the meantime, the 'Qawwali' singers started their melodious prayers to Allah in the dargah's courtyard; these prayers set the tone for a 'mehfil' at the Lord's darbar. We burnt incense and asked for the fulfillment of our wishes or 'mannats' while tying a thread for each mannat (supposed to be untied when the prayer is answered). I insisted on taking a few pictures, through my useless blackberry cam, and when met with hostile glares, understood that it was the time to leave!
The glory of the dargah can be traced back to the Moguls. Akbar, with his queen, used to come here by foot on pilgrimage from Agra every year in observance of a vow he had made when praying for a son. The large pillars called kose (mile) Minar , erected at intervals of two miles (3 km) the whole way between Agra and Ajmer, marking the daily halting places of the royal pilgrim, are still extant. A mosque, the Akbari Mosque, and the domed tomb of the saint had been donated by Shah Jahan, while a massive gate by the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Quite a contrast from the liberal Pushkar, where firangs flock in spaghettis to savor spaghettis, the dargah attracts only sincere, eager to get the blessings of the pir and fulfill their long standing wishes. The surroundings of the dargah have a very Islamic feel, with 'halal' meat, ‘sohan halwa’ sweet and 'chadar' shops, and make for a very interesting experience.
Savoring this visual delight, we waved to a manual rickshaw guy, who dropped us at Adhai-din-ka-jhopra, the relic of a mosque, for ten bucks. Once a popular mosque in the Moghul period and as the name suggests this was completed within two and a half days, as the name suggests, under the supervision of Mohammad Ghori. A fine example of early Indo-Islamic architecture, it was designed by Abu Bakr in 1198, by defiling an ancient center of Sanskrit learning. Raghav drew my attention to the traces of the Hindu motifs and architectural patterns, particularly the characteristic Hindu arches, lotus-shaped leaves on the ceiling and defaced human figures on the pillars.
Akbar's Palace was a thorough disappointment for us. It started with the rick guy duping us, something I don't want to elaborate upon because they do it to tourists everywhere. Once the residence of Prince Salim (later Jahangir), it presently houses a pitiful collection of the Mughal and Rajput armor and sculpture, and without any labels. However it is considered significant because Jahangir read out the firman for trade to India to the British East India Company from here, thus starting the chain of events that lead to India's colonization by the British.
The Soni Ji Ki Nasiyan, an architecturally rich Digambara Jain temple, was worth stopping by for 15 minutes. It was built more recently in 1864-1895 by Seth Bhag Chand ji Soni, the Nagar Seth of Ajmer. The main chamber, known as the Swarna Nagari (City of Gold), has gold-plated wooden figures, depicting the Jain lineage and mythology, not very comprehensible for a non-Jain but none-the-less very fascinating to look at!
We don't recommend visiting the Taragarh Fort, built by Ajaypal Chauhan, which now lies in ruins, because all that is left of the fort is the remnants of its boundary. Claimed to be the first hill fort of Asia, it was dismantled by Lord William Bentinck and converted into a sanatorium for the troops stationed at the British cantonment town of Nasirabad.
Though we had almost 2 hours in hand, we decided to skip boating at Ana Sagar, the historic man-made lake (mentioned in my post on Pushkar) and headed back to Ajmer railway station to catch our next train for Sawai Madhopur.
Adieu Ajmer!
- Namrta R (from my backpacking trip to Rajasthan)
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