Jaisalmer havelis

An haveli is a town house, usually of a rich merchant. Sometimes different parts of a family add another house to a already existing Haveli-complex. The Patwa Havelis, for example, are five houses built by different brothers between 1800 and 1860.

The Patwa's were merchants. They traded opium, gold, silver, perfumes, spices and dyes with Afganisthan, China, Calcutta and Madras. They also owned elephants, camels, horses, and soldiers to protect their commodities.

At that time, Jaisalmer was located conveniently on the trading route from east to west. With partition into India and Pakistan, the city lost its western connections and its commercial importance.

This Haveli was built by Salam Singh. Between 1841 and 1881 he enlarged the haveli of his father. Both he and his father were prime ministers of the Maharawal. Salam Singh's intention was to raise the tower to the height of the fort and built a bridge so that he could enter the palace without passing the gate. At that time it had 9 stories, 2 had to be removed after his death because the Maharawal did not want to have a building of a comparable height of his own palace. 

Salam Singh married 7 beautiful women and had 2 more concubines. However, he also had numerous people killed and whole villages vacated, robbed numerous people and accumulated a lot of wealth. Some say out of revenge of the murder of his father by the son of the Maharawal.

There are more town houses which look like haveli's. Not all of them are in such a good shape. This gentleman invited me to a tour of his house. Part of it had already collapsed.

Of course he liked to collect some money for the restoration of this house. For example by selling these old, dust covered bottles

The rest of the house looked similar. The bricks or better stone blocks of the houses are not joined by mortar, but they have tongues and grooves, and are held together by iron clips. To renovate a house, it would be easy to number the stones, take the whole thing apart and built it up again. The ornaments are screwed in and can be removed easily or replaced by others like lanterns. The stone-masons who made this must have been real artists...

 

All the renovation works are done by hand. You can hear the stone carvers chiselling in the streets and their work is well appreciated