He is 17 years old and for the last couple of months Ghasiram Saini has been “showing off” the havelis of Nawalgarh to an increasing number of tourists. After a slow start, his business is picking up as haveli owners get around restoring frescos of the world’s largest open-air gallery, painted on the walls of the homes they still live in. ‘‘I am slowly learning more about these paintings,” Saini says, as he guides you around the Morarka haveli. “I never noticed them earlier but now I spend hours looking at them. I have even spotted a painting of Jesus Christ on one of the panels, right next to all the Krishna paintings, which seemed to have been a favourite then.’’ Like Saini, almost everyone in Nawalgarh is looking at their walls again, trying to look beyond the peeling plaster and figure out what makes the paintings on their walls so famous. And similarly, many owners of the 25,000-odd havelis in the Shekhawati region (which comprises Churu, Jhunjhunu and Sikar districts) are stopping to think a bit longer before they let their past be plastered by modern paints. In the Indoria family haveli, daughter-in-law Namita dreams of bringing back to life the fading paintings on the wall. The family lives in a compact haveli with 28 rooms that accommodate three brothers and their families. ‘‘We get the lower portion of the house white-washed every year but don’t touch the paintings,’’ she says. Most of them are still in good shape and sometimes we clean them with a wet cloth. But after all the activity in our neighbourhood (restoration work), I am very keen on doing it up.’’ Neena Singh has already done what Namita dreams of doing and is playing hostess to throngs of tourists. In one half of the D.S. Singh haveli, she has opened a hotel, giving visitors a glimpse of life in Shekhawati. ‘‘It works wonderfully," Singh says, attired in her traditional lehenga. "It didn’t take very long for it to catch on and we get busloads of tourists. All we did was open up our home for them and they loved it.’’ A few streets away, Vinita Saini doesn’t think much of the paintings but ever since the restoration work caught on, even she is open to letting tourists wander through the rooms of her "sethji’s" haveli. "Lots of angrez come and take pictures," she says. "Sethji has said I can let people see them. They all come to take pictures.’’ But what is worrying conservationists is that there are hundreds of locked up havelis in the area, with caretakers like Vinita cleaning up the place once in a while. "Most businessmen left their havelis and settled outside years ago," explains Om Prakash Dhaka, in-charge of the Morarka Foundation office in Nawalgarh. "These people have the money and are even willing to do up their havelis again, but don’t have the time.’’ From the Podars to the Goenkas of the RPG group, everyone has a haveli here. A detailed study done by the foundation in collaboration with the central Human Resource development ministry has identified 40 monuments and developed a complete restoration and conservation package for them.
