I collected many brochures and books about the city, and as I went through them, I got to know numerous facts about its history. Intrestingly, the sovereign of Amber, built Jaipur in the eighteenth century. It was also around that time that the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had died and the decline of the Mughal Empire had set in. Jai Singh, the sovereign, had started distancing himself from the affair of the Mughal Court and he began concentrating on building of Amber. His search for a safe place for the increasing population of Amber resulted in Jaipur.

" Sir, this was India's first planned city and a brilliant architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya from Bengal was commissioned to plan the city." told me one of the guides on my sightseeing tour. "He designed it in accordance with ancient Hindu treatise on architecture, the Shilpa Shastra." he added.“ What is Shilpa Shastra?”, I asked the guide. He told me that it is an Indian form of architecture.

Jaipur was planned in a gird system with wide straight avenues, roads, streets and lanes and uniform rows of shops on either side of the main roads, all arranged in nine rectangular city sectors.

There was an interesting feature that I noticed, the city is surrounded by a wall having seven gates and interestingly it was built for protection from invading armies and wild animals that lurked just outside in the jungles that surrounded the city. But Jai Singh's planned city has withstood all the pressures and the changes.

"What?, my god! is this also possible" astoundingly I asked. when I came to know that Jaipur was painted in pink to welcome its distinguished guest the Prince of Wales in 1905-6. The contractor inability to supply any other color in the required quantity compelled the choice of pink shade for its walls. A contractor’s compulsion famed Jaipur to Pink city. Since then the pink color is associated with hospitality in Rajput culture. What ever it is............... the history of Jaipur is quite magnificent like the city itself.