Kishangarh Town
Kishangarh Town, 1908
Capital of the State of the same name in Rajputana, situated in 2 6° 34' N. and 74degree 53' E., on the Rajputana- Malwa Railway, about 18 miles north-east of Ajmer city, and 257 miles southwest of Delhi. It takes its name from Kishan Singh, the first chief, who founded it in 161 1. Population (1901), 12,663, The town and fort occupy a picturesque position on the banks of an old lake, over a square mile in extent, called Gundolao, in the centre of which is a small garden known as the Mohkam Bilas. The Maharaja's palace is in the fort and commands a fine view of the surrounding country. The principal industrial occupations of the people are cloth-weaving, dyeing, the cutting of precious stones, and the manufacture of drinking vessels and betel-nut boxes from khas- khas grass. A municipal committee, established in 1886, attends to the lighting, conservancy, and slaughter-house arrangements. The town possesses a combined post and telegraph office ; a couple of jails, with accommodation for 123 prisoners; a hospital, with beds for 1 2 in-patients ; and 1 1 schools, attended by about 400 boys and 50 girls. Of these schools, three are maintained by the State and two by the United Free Church of Scotland Mission. The Maha- raja's high school is affiliated to the Allahabad University, and teaches up to the middle standard in both English and vernacular ; the number on its rolls is 294, and the daily average attendance 270. About a mile and a half north of the town and close to the railway station, a flourishing suburb, called Madanganj after the present chief, has sprung up. It contains a steam hydraulic cotton- press, and a spinning- and weaving-mill. The latter, which was opened in 1897, has 10,348 spindles and employs about 500 hands. In 1904 the total out-turn exceeded 685 tons of yarn, and the receipts were about 4-6 lakhs.
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
As in 2022
Shoebkhan, August 16, 2022: The Times of India
From: Shoebkhan, August 16, 2022: The Times of India
Ajmer: A model stands beside a clear blue pool on a snowbed. It could be a scene from somewhere in the Alps, or Ladakh, but for the scraggy vegetation and the dry hills around. Over the past eight years, this ‘phenomenon’ has become Kishangarh’s biggest draw.
Kishangarh, if you haven’t heard of it, is an old town in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district, about 90km from Jaipur on the Delhi-Mumbai highway. It used to be the capital of a 400-year-old kingdom — an offshoot of Jodhpur — and was mainly known for the school of miniature painting its kings nurtured.
And marble, of course, because Kishangarh is the largest supplier of marble in Asia. The famous quarries of Makrana that sent “translucent marble” for the Taj Mahal are just 50km away in neighbouring Nagaur district. For all the finished marble it ships out year after year, Kishangarh has to deal with mountains of marble slurry. In 2008, the state government allotted a large ground to the Kishangarh Marble Association (KMA) to dump the slurry, and for the next few years it was just that – a wasteland. In the rainy season, pits and craters on the white bed filled up with rainwater and became a hazard. For years, nobody saw any value in it.
So when a photographer did a pre-wedding shoot on the ground in 2014, the KMA was surprised. But as the site’s popularity grew — along with the height of the dump, which now rises 15-20m — the association sensed a business opportunity, and in 2016 it imposed a user fee. The current rates are Rs 50,000 for commercial video shoots, and Rs 5,000 for wedding photography.
‘Ladakh, Kutch’ of Rajasthan now hot location for shoots
We realised these ventures are commercial in nature. The money we collect is spent on developing facilities like toilets, changing rooms, parking, for security guards and maintenance,” Kishangarh Marble Association president Sudhir Jain told TOI.
The slurry dump, which is hardly 10km from Kishangarh airport and 100km from Jaipur airport, is now a hot location for films, TV series and music videos, besides weddings. Vanity vans, jimmy jibs, reflectors, tungsten lights and directors’ calls for “lights, camera and action” are part of the landscape. Actors Anil Kapoor and Tiger Shroff, and comedian Kapil Sharma are some of the big names that have shot here.
Padam Bachani, an Ajmer-based wedding photographer, who hopes to finish his 150th shoot at the ground this week, says couples fr om even distant places like Delhi, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Bhopal and Indore come here. “It is a vast, white ground as far as you can see, and the white backlight gives a perfect sh ade to the shoot. Yo u would need to visit the Rann of Kutch, Sambhar Lake or Ladakh for this effect, but they are far costlier and have several restrictions,” said Bachani, who started solo but now has a team of six. Competition has increased, and photographers have to keep abreast of cli- ents’ demands. Local photojournalist Shankar Puri has invested in a drone camera for aerial shots. Yet, the m ost popular poses for brides and grooms are decades old. Men spread their arms in Shah Rukh Khan’s signature style while women re-enact the dance moves of ‘Suraj Hua Madham’ from the movie “Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham”, says Bachani.
The increasing number of shoots has created work for other locals, who are hired as spot boys, cameramen, light men, transporters and technicians.
Jaipur-based movie location scout Piyush Sharma says he takes 7-10 production teams to the ground every month, and half of them choose to shoot there. But environmentalists are aghast. LK Sharma, associate professor of the department of environment science at the Central University of Rajasthan, told TOI: “The site should be b anned immediately for unscientific dumping of the marble slurry on a wetland. It is posing severe health hazards and is polluting the groundwater.” Deepak Tanwar, regional officer of Rajasthan St ate Pollution Control Board, however, says, “The dumping yard is causing zero damage to the environment. The slurry doesn’t contain elements that can cause diseases like silicosis, or a sbestos. The site was given to the Kishangarh Marble Association after a scientificstudy.”
