Mandawa is a feudal principality in the center of the Shekhawati region of Rajasthan. It was a trading outpost for ancient caravan routes that stopped here from China and the Middle East until the late 18th century. Thakur Nawal Singh (all the Maharajahs seem to have the name “Singh”) was the Rajput ruler of Mandawa and built a fort in 1755 to protect this town. Mandawa soon attracted a large community of traders who settled here until the caravan traffic died out. Over the years, these people did business in other parts of Rajasthan but later returned to Mandawa to build mansions decorated with colored paintings on the walls…View image… called Havelis. Haveli is the term used for a private mansion in India and Pakistan.

Mandawa is often referred to as an open art gallery. Along with Mandawa, the entire Shekhawati region in Rajasthan is dotted with incredible Havelis ornamented with painted walls.

The better known Havelis of Mandawa are: Chowkhani Haveli, Goenka Haveli, Saraf Haveli and Ladia Haveli. There are also murals in the Thakurji temple, located opposite the Goenka Double Haveli and many other Havelis…View image. The photograph below may be of the Saraf Haveli. One looses track after a while…

I would never have thought to visit Mandawa if the travel agent hadn’t included it in the itinerary and were so glad he did. Today they are some of the major attractions for tourists visiting Rajasthan. Among all the elephants, horses, and Maharajahs in turbans, there was one, small handprint of a woman who immolated herself in suttee. Suttee was former Indian funeral practice in which the widow threw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. The woman would dip her right hand in a red dye and place a print of it on the Suttee Gate on her way to her death.

The handprint gave me the heebie-jeebies. Especially when I read ritual accounts. Women would sit or lie down on the funeral pyre beside her dead husband and wait for it to be lit while other women walked or jumped into the flames after the fire had been lit, and some sat on the pyre and lit it herself! Gruesome, terrible and sad.