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UDAIPUR - A ROMANCE WITH NATURE

By Manu REWAL

KARMA PRODUCTIONS / DUNIYA VISION (INDIA) PVT. LTD. - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 1997

- Year of production
- 1997
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- INDIA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 30 mn
- Director(s)
- Manu REWAL
- Writer(s)
- Manu REWAL
- Producer(s)
- Manu REWAL (Duniya Vision)
- Synopsis
- 1n 1567, Maharajah Udai Singh, the ruler of the kingdom of Mewar in Rajasthan, shifted his capital from Chittorgarh to a new city, Udaipur for security reasons. The city was built on the slopes of a hill and on the banks of Lake Pichola. Even today, life in the ghats adjoining the lake continues as before. Here the sacred and the mundane co-exist.
  An architectural vocabulary based on gates, narrow streets, interspersed by intimate courtyards – which might contain a small shrine or a well – and overhanging balconies and platforms in front of each house, promotes contacts between neighbors, creating an extraordinary community feeling that is still alive. The traditional houses in the city as well as the palace, with their courtyards and terraces at various levels, are perfectly adapted to the hot, dry climate of the region.
  But the palace’s originality lies in the way its walls encase the hill around which it is built. This explains why the palace has a garden at its topmost level. The palace thus represents a unique way to integrate nature with architecture. The accord with nature is carried further in the pleasure palace of Jog Mandir, on an island in the midst of Lake Pichola, where Shah Jahan was given asylum when he rebelled against his father, the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. It’s and ethereal ambience probably inspired Shah Jahan to conceive the Taj Mahal.
  A voice over narration is laid over images of the city as it is today, inter-cut with occasional miniature paintings that either illustrate historical events or architectural concepts. Local folk music as well as classical North Indian music has been used to accompany the images.