Of the many architectural wonders that line the corners of Jaipur, the Nahargarh Fort has carved a special place for itself. Located just a few kilometres away from Jaigarh Fort, the Nahargarh Fort has its own story to tell.
This fort is located quite near to the main area of the pink city. All you have to do is take a car or taxi or even an auto from the best hotel in jaipur where you will be staying, tell the driver where you want to go and he will take you there!
There are various reasons that make Nahargarh an interesting place to explore. There are many facts about this place, which hardly any tourist knows about. Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting and intriguing facts about this piece of architectural brilliance:
- The Nahargarh Fort is almost 700 ft tall!
- The main purpose behind building this fort was that it would protect the main area of the city in case of a siege. However, after this, the city had never faced any siege!
- The Nahargarh Fort was built in order to protect the city. So naturally it was filled with arms and ammunitions. However, since they never got a chance to use these fire arms, they were used to mark time! Instead of a bell that announced the time to the city, gunfire worked as the signal.
- Okay so the main part of this fort is the Madhavendra Bhawan. This place is what can be termed as the chambers for all the numerous queens that the king had. There are a total of 12 chambers in this region, where each of which is connected. Beautiful frescos and paintings adorn the walls of these chambers and the passageways. However, the chambers are designed and connected in such a way so that no queen would ever find, in whose chamber the king decided to spend some time! This was done in order not to promote jealousy amongst the 12 queens, each of who vied for the king’s attention.
- Since the walls of this fort are beautiful and have born the test of time quite gracefully, it is a place where a number of popular Bollywood films have been shot.
- Sawai Ram Singh was the King of Jaipur during the 1857 revolt. Since the kings had already signed a pact with the British to ensure their stability, many British officers were sent to Nahargarh Fort to protect them from the danger of the mutineers, which up till then had almost all the facilities that a good hotel in jaipur would have had.
Apart from these really interesting anecdotes about the fort, here’s a little story about how the fort came to be named:
It was Swai Jai Singh, who had commissioned the construction of this massive structure. Supposedly the land on which he was building this fort was of Nahar Singh Bhomia’s whose spirit hampered the work! It was only when Jai Singh promised to name the fort after Nahar Singh that these disturbances stopped.
Legends and anecdotes combined, Nahargarh does make for an excellent place to visit when you travel to Jaipur.