Chhoti Chaupar

Chhoti Chaupar means “small square”—that is how it is distinguished from Badi Chaupar to the east. Here the main commercial street intersects with the roads to Kishanpol and Gangauri Bazaar. When Jaipur was founded, reservoirs, temples, and the houses of leading merchants were placed at such intersections. That is why shops converge here from four directions, and the largest buildings occupy the corners.

At the southwestern corner stands Nathani Ki Haveli—a large house with arched gates and three courtyards. Until eighteen sixty-six, Bhikaridas Nathani and Lunkaran Nathani, among the wealthiest salt merchants in Jaipur, lived here. The size of the house showed the value of their business: salt was an everyday commodity, and a location beside the commercial square allowed the family to conduct large transactions and remain close to the city administration.

In eighteen sixty-six, Sawai Ram Singh II, the ruler of Jaipur, who sought to open a school for girls, received part of the haveli from the Nathani family. The merchants gave up a substantial portion of their own house so that classes could begin inside already completed courtyards. Thus Jaipur's first school for girls appeared—in a city where no separate place for their education had existed before.

Living quarters became classrooms, and the courtyards became school spaces. When there were still few schools of this kind, classes were held here in two shifts; the number of pupils reached nearly five thousand. Nathani descendants kept housing nearby, so the family was not completely displaced from its house: it ceded its main part to the school and remained its neighbor.

The haveli is still divided today. It contains a government school for girls, a police station, a temple, and housing for Nathani descendants. Behind the large arched gates, the three former family courtyards are occupied by classrooms, and the most spacious one serves as a place for school assemblies.