Y is for Yamuna

The great red sandstone forts at Delhi and Agra both lie on the banks of the River Yamuna. At Agra, the riverside battlements offer a splendid vista across the huge waters winding among the blank sandy banks to the distant Taj Mahal. In the Red Fort at Delhi, you are hardly aware the river is there. From place to place India's attitude to water varies so.

Its availability seems to be taken for granted. Which is strange in a nation which receives little rain outside the monsoon. Perhaps the government has been particularly efficient in digging wells. In the countryside, irrigated fields are ablaze with a rich, dark verdancy. In the towns, public gardens are watered endlessly. Especially in Delhi, where the extensive lawns around India Gate and Parliament building are maintained as lushly as any Home Counties gardener could wish. And in the old part of the town, people who live on the streets take turns to bathe at their local standpipe, holding a cloth around themselves like coy holidaymakers changing on a Cornish beach. As they wash themselves in the running water, they make no effort to be frugal. Perhaps such profligacy with free water is the one luxury they can afford.

Rivers have helped shape much of the sub-continent: the Indus gave the land its name, and the Ganges remains a holy symbol. But it is the lakes that are special in India, partly because of their rarity. One of the main attractions of other-worldly Kashmir is its dreaming lakes, typified by Srinagar's Dal Lake. The contrast between the flat dull land of the Indian plains, and this mobile film of water mirroring the encircling mountains and the soft blue of the sky could hardly be greater.

The tranquillity that water engenders has even moved some to create new lakes. The Pichola Lake at Udaipur is a masterpiece of this kind. In its present form, the lake now reaches out to the surrounding soft-contoured hills, like Lake Dal on a more intimate scale. It provides the perfect setting for the palace which occupies Jagniwas island. And its example spurred others to create Lake Fateh Sagar behind it, whose waters answer the complex of lake and reflected land with a further reflection of the whole design like some huge artifice of mirrors.

But the grand ensemble of Udaipur is an exception; Indian architects have mostly been content to use water as a just another decorative element, like an occasional semi-precious stone set as an inlay among the main expanse of marble. For example, the deserted palace at Fatehpur Sikri has a number of small pools with decorative bridges. But water here is no more central to the overall design than the courtyard-sized chessboard nearby, or the small palace built for games of hide-and-seek. For real architectural sensitivity to the magic of water, you must travel to Agra.

The Itmad-ud-Daulah is a modest tomb for the grandfather of the Lady of the Taj. A narrow pool leads the eye naturally to the exquisite pietra dura of the mausoleum, as delicate as lace. The Taj Mahal takes the same idea but realises it on the grandest scale. The long watercourse points like a gleaming arrow to the distant tomb. A marble wraith, it stands silhouetted against the sky, brooding over the slow, silent Yamuna below.

A Partial India A to Z

U is for Udaipur

Rajasthan is the Land of the Kings, homeland of the Rajputs. Elsewhere in India, where the Moghul influence had been strong, there was a balance between the temporal and spiritual; Islam proved a crucial ally to the expansionist ambitions of the emperors, but it also exacted homage as more than an equal. In Rajasthan, the warrior ethic was all.

This is visible in the massive forts which dominate the towns throughout the region, and in some cases wholly contain them. Like Chittorgarh, once the scene of numerous acts of suicidal chivalry according to the haughty Rajput code. Now the small modern town camps outside the broken walls surrounding the long low hill of the city, as if aware of the disparity between its glorious past and quiet, dusty present.

Most of the cities in Rajasthan have been touched by the Rajput vision; but one of them has been completely shaped by it, and remains its greatest achievement: Udaipur. It was founded in 1567, born of the third and last sack of Chittorgarh, and a monument to its people's indomitable spirit.

The magnificent city has grown up around the lakes and the palaces built by its successive rulers, As if conscious of their standing – the Maharana of Udaipur is the highest ranking of the Rajputs - each strove to enhance an already impressive city with new expressions of their majesty. First came the artificial Pichola Lake, a huge sheet of water which provides the centrepiece of the city's design. It must have seemed paradise for the erstwhile dwellers of the cramped and arid Chittorgarh.

Then, to match the lake, and use its incomparable setting, the huge City Palace was built, an Escher-like concoction of towers, arches, balconies and cupolas. Appropriately enough, it is the largest in Rajasthan. Today it is a museum; its collections are varied but curious in their scope. There are extensive memorials to the region's past, faded delicate miniatures, fragments of ancient stone inscriptions, and a pair of stuffed siamese-twin deer. All are displayed amidst genteelly run-down surroundings evocative of the passing of time. The overall effect is one of Udaipur as a forgotten oasis amidst the bustle of the outside world.

From the City Palace there are impressive views over Pichola Lake, set amidst the surrounding hills, and of the two island palaces. The later and more famous of these is the Lake Palace on Jagniwas, which covers the island entirely. It has been converted into a gleaming white hotel, and looks like nothing so much as a floating iced wedding cake. Less prettified, and more romantic, is the Jag Mandir island palace. It sits at the southern end of the lake, a little apart from the city, hovering like some unearthly vision in the still green water,

The rest of Udaipur has grown in response to these elements. Answering Pichola, another artificial lake was built to the north. The city itself clusters around the great palace on the banks of the lake. Its narrow twisting streets, many of which are steeply inclined, recall the stern hilltop forts of Chitttorgarh and the rest. For all its extravagant glories, Udaipur remains true to its origins.

A Partial India A to Z