Rajasthan : Jaisalmer city in Rajasthan is located in the desert area. The desert is spread hundreds of miles outside the city, where there are huge sand dunes at many places. A few miles away from the city is a beautiful village named ‘Kuldhara’ which has been deserted for the last 200 years. The people living in this village left their village overnight 200 years ago and went somewhere else and never returned.
Kuldhara Village
Kuldhara village is now under the supervision of the Archaeological Department. According to local tradition, two hundred years ago, when Jaisalmer was a princely state, Kuldhara village was the most prosperous village of that state. The maximum revenue came from here. Festivals and traditional dance and music concerts used to take place here. Paliwal Brahmins lived in this village. A girl from the village was about to get married, about whom it is said that the girl was very beautiful.
Kuldhara Village
The Diwan of Jaisalmer state Salim Singh saw the girl and fell in love with her beauty and insisted on marrying her. According to the stories prevalent at the local level, Salim Singh was a tyrant whose stories of cruelty were famous far and wide. But despite this, the people of Kuldhara refused to give the girl’s hand to Salim Singh. Salim Singh gave the villagers a few days to think. The villagers knew that if they did not listen to Salim Singh, he would create a massacre in the village.
History is coloured with stories of Taimur’s atrocities
Kuldhara Village
According to tradition, the people of Kuldhara held a panchayat in a chaupal located near the village temple and decided to leave the village forever to save their daughter and the honor of their village. All the villagers left their homes in the silence of the night with all their belongings, cattle, grains and clothes and left from here forever and never returned. Salim Singh’s mansion still exists in Jaisalmer but no one goes to see it.
Kuldhara Village
The stone houses built in several lines in Kuldhara village near Jaisalmer have now slowly turned into ruins. But these ruins reveal the prosperity of this village in the past. The presence of stoves, sitting places and places to keep pots in some houses makes it seem as if someone has just left from here. The walls here give a feeling of sadness. Being situated in an open space, the sound of the wind rustling in the silence makes the atmosphere even more sad.
Kuldhara Village
Local people tell about what they have heard from their elders that in the silence of the night, the sound of someone’s footsteps can be heard in the ruins of Kuldhara. It is also a popular belief among the local people that the souls of the people of Kuldhara still wander here.
Kuldhara Village
The Rajasthan government has restored some of the houses in this village to attract tourists. The village temple still stands at its place as a witness to the past. Every year thousands of tourists come here to see this village. The local people here respect this village a lot.
Kuldhara Village
Another popular belief is that when the people of Kuldhara were leaving this village, they had cursed that this village will never be inhabited. Even today, two hundred years after their departure, this village is deserted in the desert of Jaisalmer.
