Bādal Mahal - Bikāner

BĀDAL MAHAL - BIKĀNER (Rajasthān)

It was built by H. H. Maharaja Dungar Singh who reigned from 1872 to 1887. Since this region of Rajasthan gets very scanty rain even during monsoons, therefore to feel and rejoice the effect of rain during monsoon season, the royal family commisioned the construction of Badal Mahal. The entire room, with all the walls and the roof is beautifully painted with images of dense clouds in sky, using the shades of blue and white. Images of glowing thunderbolt are also painted within the clouds. All the colours that have been used are natural colours extracted from plants (Figure 1 & 3).

Figure-1

Figure-2

The covings bear beautiful designs with coloured bands in red, yellow and green marked with blue droplets. To further increase the effect of monsoon, the room was also installed with water spraying device with very fine capillaries. The device/mechanism has a water tank which used to be filled with water. The front side of the mechanism which surfaced the wall has a horizontally placed thin brass structure with a fine slit along the length. To the left a brass knob is present. On turning the knob, the water used to flow out as slow shower resembling rain. With further turning the knob, the speed of shower increases resembling heavy rain. The mechanism/device is now no more in use as it is not in a working mode (as told by the guide). The room also houses a beautiful 'vigrah' of Radha-Krishna carved on black stone which used to be worshipped (Figure 2 & 4).

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