"Twenty-two children discover cures for an ailing city"

HITESH SAINI, DIVITA MATHUR, SURBHI SAINI

Jaipur! Hmmm. Jaipur is quite beautiful but....' We might have heard this sort of 'compliment' from many tourists! Is it a compliment or a comment?

The PINK CITY Jaipur was founded by Maharaja Swai Jai Singhji in the year 1727. He wanted to design a city of his dreams with every craft and art of the world flourishing in it. Artists were invited from all over the country and provided with every necessity of life. He established 36 different art institutes and made the city of Jaipur rich in art, culture and heritage. He planned the city inside the four walls with an estimated population of about a lakh. And the Jaipur city flourished into a flower with petals of different arts. This great city of Jaipur gained popularity as the pink city all over the world and is known today for its rich heritage.

Today this is history. Out of 36 kinds of arts institutes, only 7-8 are left. Since industrialisation took over, the demand for the handmade goods decreased as machines can now mass-produce goods in less time and in much lesser cost. The small industries which still remain are struggling against the big industries. Craftsmen are losing their talent and skill generation by generation. Most craftsmen or artists are unemployed or pulling rickshaws in order to earn their livelihood. The other problem for these artists is the growth of their families in number of members and decrease of their monetary resources. An artist can make only one or two articles a day and make just a small profit. Leave this aside, he is not even provided with safe water supply unlike people in rich areas. "I have to fetch water 20 times from the handpump to satisfy the need of the 70 people in our family", says 55-year-old Parmeshwari Devi, from Thatheron ka rasta. The various water tests performed show a much higher quantity of flouride than essential. Their garbage is not collected and keeps getting pushed into sidelanes for a year until the 'annual cleaning day'. The real heritage and the culture of the PINK CITY is getting lost in the clouds of modernisation and industrialisation. The heritage of this city, its artists, their talent and skill need to be conserved otherwise HERITAGE CITY will prove to be an adjective used for the Jaipur city.

Jaipur used to take pride in its built heritage too. Today, the famous monuments like The Albert Hall and the Hawa Mahal are mismanaged. The walled city buildings are getting covered under the pollution generated. Lots of dirt, stray animals, waste thrown by the people are indeed making Jaipur 'more' attractive. Shocking! So all Jaipurians need to contribute in saving our heritage and make our city and our country a garden where every flower of art flourishes and spreads its fragrance all over the world and make us feel proud of our heritage and culture.

Jaipur is indeed one of the oldest and well-planned cities of India. It was a self-sufficient city but its heritage has been affected by the changes in the rest of the world. The civic, social and economic aspects were influenced. Broadly speaking, changes like industrialisation made a huge difference in our way of doing things. So, our cottage industries were discouraged due to setting up of factories; cars were invented causing pollution burning up huge quantities of fossil fuels and at the same time creating pollution and global warming, rivers and other water sources became polluted by industrial waste, and so on. Those were the days when Jaipur used to be proud of its heritage. You may consider this to be history but we need to preserve our history to have a great and beautiful FUTURE!!!