Mirza Ismail Road was cut in the 1940s and named for the prime minister of Jaipur state who laid out the new city beyond the walls. It runs west from Sanganeri Gate past Panch Batti, the five-lamp junction, to Ajmer Road, and it became the street where the city bought its shoes, its watches, its sweets and its sarees from proper shops with glass fronts.
It is still that street. The old names are here: the sweet shops and the restaurants that every Jaipur family has eaten at for three generations, the shoe shops, the bookshops, the handicraft emporia with their painted elephants on the pavement. Panch Batti is the junction everyone gives as a landmark, and the Raj Mandir cinema is a turn away.
For a visitor MI Road is the convenient middle: the walled city at one end, C-Scheme on the south side, the station and the bus stand at the west. The hotels along it are mid-range and well placed, and the evening is for walking from the sweet shop to the kulfi stall.
What is here
| Name | Where | What it is known for |
|---|---|---|
| Panch Batti | MI Road | The five-lamp roundabout; the landmark for the whole road. |
| Lakshmi Misthan Bhandar (LMB) 1727 (claimed) | Johari Bazaar end | The old sweet house with a vegetarian restaurant; ghewar in season, dal baati all year. On the Johari Bazaar side of the junction. |
| Rawat Misthan Bhandar | Station Road | The pyaaz kachori shop that made the kachori a Jaipur emblem; also mawa kachori and sweets. |
| Niros 1949 | MI Road | A Jaipur restaurant of long standing; Indian and continental, the mirrored dining room unchanged. |
| Handloom and handicraft emporia | MI Road | Rajasthali (the state emporium) and the private showrooms; fixed prices, quieter than the bazaars. |
| Rajasthali Emporium | MI Road | The government handicraft emporium; blue pottery, block print, miniatures, fixed prices. |
| Shoe and juti shops | MI Road | Where the city buys formal footwear; mojaris at the bazaar end. |
| Bookshops | MI Road and Chaura Rasta | The city’s bookshops; Chaura Rasta inside the walls is the textbook street. |
| All Saints Church 1870s | MI Road | The Anglican church of the old cantonment side. |
| Jaipur Junction 1875 | West end | The main railway station, a kilometre west of Panch Batti; Sindhi Camp bus stand nearby. |
Worth knowing
- Pyaaz kachori is a morning and evening snack; the shops are busiest between five and eight in the evening.
- The emporia on MI Road sell at fixed prices; the bazaars inside the walls bargain.
- Sindhi Camp, the main bus stand, is at the western end; most inter-city buses leave from there.
- Hotels on MI Road are the best placed for a first visit: everything is within an auto ride.
Named houses on this page
Rajasthali
Rajasthan government handicraft emporium · MI Road, opposite Ajmeri Gate
Lassiwala — Kishan Lal Govind Narain Agarwal
Kulhad lassi · MI Road, opposite Natraj
Raj Mandir Cinema
The Art Deco movie palace of 1976 · Bhagwan Das Road, off MI Road
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