Review of Kuchaman fort, offbeat getaway

Kuchaman fort is built atop on a steep hill in Rajasthan, and was built by the Gurjar Prathihara dynasty near to the Sambhar Salt Lake from where they used to do the salt trading, and if I believe the locals here they did it for around 200 years, till they lost their dynasty to the Chauhans, what a history man. A Weekend Getaway from Jaipur, the fort itself is now a luxury hotel and when one is working in a travel industry you get opportunities to visit these types of places.

The Kuchaman ramparts are having 32 bastions and 10 getaways also enclosed is a complex web of underground passages, hideouts and dungeons. So when we got bored in the conference and were free we went to explore the fort.

The Meena Mahal had paintings all over it on the life and times of the Rathore poet saint Meerabai, who married the son of Rajput. Ranjit singh has built this Mahal along with a temple within the Mahal which comprises of lok devtas, and the gurus of the masses. The temples were interesting as I found out that the idol in Maa Kaali Mandir was around 1200 years old and was brought to Kuchaman all the way from Karnataka by the Rathores. The other temple Krishna Mandir is also older around 2000 years I suppose.

The formal chambers of Sabha Prakash had polished walls with semi precious stones inlayed in the wall and then the court room called the Sunheri Burj because of its frescoes of birds and animals framed lavishly in gold.

There are two swimming pools in the fort, one was Jal Mahal which was an underground pool, and when I saw it suddenly those Turkish hammams visualized in my mind which was made for the queens.

The last was the Sheesh Mahal in the fort where the Maharaja used to play the chess in the courtyard outside using the real man as pawns. And then there was the Meena Bazaar where the royal family used to shop.

The Kuchaman fort hotel took us for 4 hours sight seeing which included all these Mahals and temples including the old market area. They had also organized a trip to the Sambhar Salt Lake. We were there only for 2 days otherwise we would have also gone to the Tal Chhapar Sanctuary for blackbuck which was only 100kms from Kuchaman.