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Tuesday 28 August 2018

LOOKING THROUGH STONE IN GUJARAT


Baroda

Before setting out on our recent extended travels through Gujarat, I booked accommodation via a well-known travel website. The hotel I chose for Ahmedabad was the aptly named ‘Hotel Goodnight’. Its address, ‘Opp. Sidi Saiyed’s Jali, near Electricity House…’, intrigued me. What is a ‘Jali’, I wondered, apart from being an anagram of ‘jail’.


Ahmedabad


The word ‘jali’ (or ‘jaali’) means ‘net’ in Hindustani. As an architectural term, it refers to stone grille window screens. These screens are carefully and usually intricately carved in stone (usually). A flat stone is carefully perforated to produce an often elaborate pattern of spaces surrounded by the remaining strands of stone. In India, they are found in temples (Hindu and Jain), mosques, and secular buildings. They are usually very attractive. These carved stone window coverings, that simultaneously provide shade and the passage of light, can be seen outside India. There is at least one church in Palermo (Sicily), which contains jali work. In this case, it was created by Moorish craftsmen who remained in Sicily after it was conquered by the Normans.


Palermo (Sicily)


Jali work can be found not only in buildings constructed many centuries ago, but also in more recently built structures, such as the Arts Faculty Building in Baroda and the Vijay Vilas Palace in Kutch Mandvi.


Baroda Faculty of Arts (19th century)



Vijay Vilas (Kutch Mandvi)


The best places in Gujarat for seeing jali, which we visited, were Ahmedabad and Baroda. If you don’t wish to travel so far afield, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has some very fine examples in its South Asian galleries.


In Victoria and Albert Museum


Returning to Sidi Saiyed’s Jali in Ahmedabad, here is an excerpt from my new book:

Opposite our hotel and across the busy Relief Road, which one should not cross without first saying a prayer, is one of the city’s many architectural treasures. It is the Sidi Saiyed Mosque (aka: ‘Sidi Saiyed’s Jali’), which was built in 1573 during the last year of the Gujarat Sultanate. It was constructed by Sidi Saiyed, an Abyssinian general in the army of Sultan Shams-ud-Din Muzaffar Shah III. A learned man with a great library, he had served with Rumi Khan, a son of Khwajar Safar, who died at Diu. The Sidi’s grave lies in a wire mesh enclosure near the north east corner of the mosque. His much-revered gravestone is usually covered with beautiful coloured silk cloths.

This mosque is a long rectangular open-fronted pavilion. It is entered through any of five wide arches with pointed tops. The mosque’s domed ceiling is supported by four rows of pillars each supporting arches, which together form an arcade. The stonework is decorated in places with floral motifs that are not especially Islamic. The lower part of the rear wall facing the entry arches is plain stonework apart from a centrally placed mihrab.  The upper third of this wall has five almost hemi-circular stone arches. The central one is solid stonework. It is flanked on either side by pairs of exquisite, intricately perforated stone lattice screens, exceptional examples of jali work. They allow light to filter into the mosque from the west.  The screen at the south end of the mosque is carved to represent a Tree of Life with swirling, tangled branches…


Champaner

READ MORE ABOUT GUJARAT IN ADAM YAMEY's
LATEST BOOK

AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK by clicking HERE

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Friday 24 August 2018

OPEN YOUR EYES TO GUJARAT

 

DISCOVER GUJARAT AND  THE FORMER PORTUGUESE COLONIES OF DAMAN AND DIU

"Gujarat, the land of Gandhi and Patel, is also the land of business"
[Narendra Modi, 2017]

Almost wherever you live, you are bound to have met members of the Gujarati diaspora. Yet, Gujarat in western India, where they originated, is hardly known or visited by foreign and Indian tourists.
Adam Yamey’s richly illustrated book describes his travels through Gujarat and two former Portuguese colonies, Daman, and Diu, with his wife. Her knowledge of Gujarati allowed the travellers to speak with locals and gain their insightful views about Gujarat’s past, present, and future.



Join Adam and his wife in their adventures through the land where Mahatma Gandhi grew up and Lord Krishna ascended to heaven. Meet the people and discover places whose beauty rivals the better-known sights of India.

This book will be of great interest to tourists. It is an insightful personal view of the region rather than a guide book.





GET TO KNOW GUJARAT
WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR SEAT:



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Thursday 16 August 2018

THREE HAIKUS




Two forts and a river,

 much Portuguese heritage: 

that is Daman.



Gujarat: land with colour,

 history, 

and warm personality.





Oh! Did you know

 Diu was once a colony

 of the Portuguese ?




Discover more about Gujarat, Daman, and Diu here:

Friday 10 August 2018

GUJARAT - a new link



GUJARAT has been an important trading area since time immemorial and a place where diverse peoples have mingled. It offers the visitor a rich cultural tapestry: history, tradition, architecture, and much more. Its people are welcoming. 

Good accomodation is available, and transportation is not a problem.


Find out more about GUJARAT at this exciting new website:

Sunday 5 August 2018

STYLE FUSION IN GUJARAT




Temple ceiling at Somnath


Turkic forces of the Muslim Delhi Sultanate began conquering parts of Gujarat in the 14th century. Even before that, Muslim forces had invaded the region. In the early 11th century AD, Mahmud Ghazni (971-1030) arrived at Somnath, and ordered the destruction of the great temple he found there. Zafar Khan (Muzaffar Shah I, died 1411), a Hindu who converted to Islam, later destroyed another temple built on this site. At least one Muslim ruler was tolerant of the Hindus and Jains living in Gujarat. According to Satish Chandra, author of History of Mediaeval India, Firuz Shah Tughlaq (reigned: 1351-88) encouraged the Hindu religion and promoted the worship of idols. Generally, the 14th and 15th century rulers of Gujarat were unlike Firuz with regard to tolerating Hinduism and its temples. Yet, the mosques and other important structures they built show many influences of Hindu temple design.

When the Muslim regimes began to be established in Gujarat, they faced a problem, which is well put in Architecture at Ahmedabad, Theodore C Hope (1831-1916): “The problem which the Mahomedan dynasty and its newly-converted adherents set themselves to solve was extremely similar to that presented to the Christians in Italy some ten centuries earlier. In both cases the object was to convert a Pagan style of architecture to the purposes of a religion abominating idolatry.”


Champaner:detail of a  mosque


What resulted is what we found in Gujarat: 15th century mosques and Islamic mausoleums with significant architectural similarities to the local style of Hindu temple architecture of that era and before. What distinguishes Islamic buildings from the Hindu structures that influenced their design is the lack of figurative sculptures and decoration and the presence of minarets and mihrabs. This fusion of styles is nicely put on a placard we saw at Sarkhej Rauza near Ahmedabad: “… the early Islamic architectural culture of the region, which fused Islamic influences from Persia with indigenous Hindu and Jain features … The architectural style of Sarkhej Rauza is a precursor to the Mughal period in a true amalgamation of Hindu, Jain, and Islamic styles. Hindu craftsmanship and construction know-how was overlaid on Islamic sense of geometry and scale”



Champaner: ceiling of a mosque



LEARN MORE ABOUT GUJARAT 
by clicking HERE: