This article explores the elaborately painted nineteenth- and twentieth-century architectural structures in the Shekhawati region of Northeastern Rajasthan as acts of place-making by a peripatetic merchant community (Marwaris). The phenomenon of painted buildings that make the region unique was linked to the migration patterns of merchants from the towns of Shekhawati to the trade cities post their involvement in colonial trade practices. The move away from Shekhawati produced it as an ancestral homeland, which is explored through a discussion of cenotaphs as acts of invented tradition and ancestor worship. A dichotomy though marks these acts of place-making when one analyzes the motifs of travel in the wall paintings. Through an analysis of paintings of processions and trains, and how these discursively interact with other figural imagery around them, the article explores how this decorative art created a paradox by referencing the mobilities that unmake place by highlighting its transitory character.