The silent havelis of Shekhawati

The prosperity of Shekhawati’s merchants was once reflected in the painted havelis they built in and around Nawalgarh, Mandawa, Jhunjhunu, Bissau, and Fatehpur in Rajasthan. The vast, frescoed havelis commissioned by Marwari trading families testified to their wealth and access to imported luxury.

Built between the late 18th and early 20th centuries, these mansions turned the dry plains of eastern Rajasthan into an open-air art gallery. 

Exuberant fresco cycles, carved jharokhas, pillared courtyards and dramatic gateways announced a family’s status to clients, rivals and travellers. 

With enormous wealth, the merchants attempted to outdo each other by building more grand havelis with temples, cenotaphs and step wells decorated with mythological paintings.

The construction of these colourful havelis combined locally available materials with imported products. Load-bearing walls were usually made using baked brick or local stone set in lime mortar. Lime plaster (chuna) provided the smooth white ground for fresco painting. 

Also Read: The abandoned mansions of Sidhpur

Timber for doors, beams and carved balconies was brought in using trade networks of Marwari merchants, while decorative pigments were mineral and organic colours mixed on site by specialist painters. 

Craftsmen, including mason-carpenters, stucco workers, and teams of fresco painters, worked from one haveli to another. Most havelis took many months to years, depending on scale and ornamentation. Historical accounts suggest building a richly frescoed haveli required a large investment financed from trading profits.

Why are many havelis empty today? 

Prominent merchant lineages of Shekhawai include the Poddars, Goenkas, Kotharis and other Marwari baniya clans. 

From the late 19th century onwards, the Marwari moneyed classes shifted their commercial epicentres to the port and colonial cities of Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai), Surat, and later Delhi. This was done to be close to shipping, banking, and broader markets. 

These families became brokers, financiers and industrialists, embedding themselves into the commercial life of Calcutta and Bombay in particular.

Also Read: The fading opulence of Chettinad's abandoned mansions

As younger generations pursued education and urban careers, families made permanent homes in the metros. So the Shekhawati haveli became a symbolic ancestral property rather than a lived-in residence. 

Division of property in every generation, the high costs of maintaining large courtyard mansions in an exposed desert climate, and structural damage from weather or neglect compounded the drift. Many houses are now locked or assigned to a caretaker, slowly falling into disrepair. 

Even empty havelis rarely become wholly abandoned. 

Caretakers and their families manage daily security and open a few rooms when families return for festivals, weddings or death rituals. 

These seasonal visits keep certain decorative schemes used and occasionally repaired, but they do not substitute for full-time living that would provide the continuous maintenance required to preserve frescoes and structures. 

Art and architecture 

The architecture of Shekhawati mansions is a mix of Rajasthani courtyard planning and Mughal and European decorative references. Their outstanding feature is the fresco where mythological epics sit beside portraits, hunting scenes, and unexpectedly modern images of steamships, trains and British figures. This reflects the global outlook of the community. 

The havelis have intricate stucco cornices, carved wooden doors, painted ceilings and ornamented gateways. 

Many frescoes are unique visual records of local patronage, taste and cross-cultural encounters in history. 

Most Shekhawati havelis are privately owned and not individually protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). That is changing with state-level heritage programmes. Recent conservation schemes have identified hundreds of havelis for restoration, heritage certification and adaptive reuse as homestays, museums or cultural hubs. This can be a way to preserve fabric while creating tourist income. 

Local travel and tourism has been growing, focused on Mandawa and Nawalgarh, but many smaller towns still see only infrequent visitors and fragile conservation funding. The havelis’ silent rooms still tell the story of mercantile ambition, cross-cultural exchange and the cost of modern migration.

Also Read: Kondaveedu: Andhra’s 14th-century fort with wells and tanks that store water even today

Look up our YouTube Channel