Patiala, often dubbed the Royal City of Punjab and the seat of the Phulkian Dynasty, was founded by Baba Ala Singh in 1763. He laid the foundation of what is today the Qila Mubarak in Patiala’s Old City, the point from which the city expanded outwards. The many labyrinthine bazaars around the Qila came to be associated with communities who gradually settled in the city and the vocations they held. For instance, Sirhandi Bazaar is where the Hindus from Sirhind settled after the ransacking of Sirhind. Bartan Bazaar, as the name suggests, is renowned for the many handmade kitchen utensils it still sells. In this way, the rhythm of the city was very tangibly in its bazaars as much as it was in the opulence of the monuments that the successive Maharajas erected. Where the Sheesh Mahal’s mirrored halls and ornate stucco work speak to the grandeur of the rulers, the Lakshman Jhula in the grounds of the Mahal is an engineering feat accomplished by colonial India’s pre-eminent engineering works from Calcutta ordered by Maharaja Rajinder Singh. In this way, Patiala presents to visitors more than just the reductive binaries that royal cities come to be associated with. Patiala’s architecture, school of painting, musical traditions, indigenous and transferred knowledge of the crafts, and building techniques — both historical and contemporary — lend to the layered landscape of the city.
Through this curation, emphasis has been laid on the polyphony of voices that have made the city what it is.
The Phulkian Narrative of Patiala establishes the historical context for further explorations of socio-cultural aspects of the city. The King of the Arts: Karam Singh hones in Maharaja Karam Singh, drawing out how his patronage of arts, architecture, and music set a precedent for successive Maharajas; and Ballads Beyond Borders brings to the fore how Patiala’s musical lineage and legacy took on a life of its own. Patiala’s equally historic prowess in cricket, polo, wrestling, and hockey, and the Maharajas’ negotiation of politics via sports is detailed in Playing Power: Sporting Culture in Patiala.
Continuing the conversation on architecture is Patiala’s Architectural Legacy: Challenges and Strategies in Heritage Conservation, which highlights the arc of the city’s historic marvels and contemporary challenges around their restoration. To extend this further, Exchanging Looks: The Dawn of Art Deco traces the introduction of Art-Deco to Patiala not only in architecture, but also in jewellery, through the design sensibilities and courtly patronage of the Maharajas. Patiala Outside Patiala continues by considering how geography and architecture became the playing field for Phulkian royals to quietly negotiate their sovereignty within the British Empire.
Crossing Borders with the Tille Wali Jutti centres the art of Punjabi jutti-making, with the author travelling from Fazilka to Patiala to highlight the variations in material, labour, and social structures that sustain this craft. The Bhootwara of Patiala: Ghosts of Literature Past offers a window into the literary traditions that have sustained intellectualism on university and college campuses across Patiala by highlighting the role that the Bhootwara played. Patiala’s influence was not confined to the geographic limits of the city but extended outwards, across colonial India, and even abroad.
The city’s culinary memories are poetically documented in Patiala on the Palate. For a more urban approach to the city, Tales From Tripuri Town recounts our curator’s highly sensorial experience of Tripuri Town, a neighbourhood that could be dubbed the ‘Magic Lamp’ of Patiala. Geographically, Patiala is situated in a region replete with wildlife parks and sanctuaries. To better understand the groups working to sustain these spaces, Reviving Indigenous Plant Species of Punjab is a detailed interview with Rajneesh Kumar, the project lead for Rounglass Foundation’s Billion Tree Project.
In bringing these strands together, the curation seeks to position Patiala as a city best understood through its multiplicity of histories, practices, and lived experiences.
Team
Curator: Aalekh Dhaliwal
Photographer: Meenal Upreti
Editor: Shree Thaarshini Sriraman
Designers: Kaustav Purkayastha and Farishta Anjirbag
Illustrator: Jisha Unnikrishnan
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Project Mentor: Vaibhav Chauhan
Project Head: Meenakshi Vashisth
Project Coordinator: Adit Shankar