It has been almost three months since I went on that trip to Rajasthan (literally the land of kings) and I decided to chronicle it – before the memories of that trip fade away thanks to the back-breaking, head-splitting life in NTU. Most of it has already faded away due to my decreasing ability to make memories.
We had long been planning a trip to Rajasthan, the one place in India truly developed for tourism. Since my brother’s first 6 days of the holidays coincided with my last, the trip was going to be only a short one and we decided on Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Udaipur.
We took the Jet Airways flight to Mumbai and another one from there to Jaipur. In the process of boarding numerous domestic flights, it came to my notice that domestic air travel in India has come a long way. Jet especially seemed to have planes every five minutes to every nook and corner of the country. The operation of domestic flights seemed to have been reduced to the simplicity of a bus company’s while it was still efficient and comfortable. The airports were well maintained and the whole thing was very impressive. No wonder Boeing and Airbus consider India their favourite customer.
We reached Jaipur in the night and the sight-seeing was scheduled for the next day. Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, is known as the ‘Pink City’. The old city was built mainly of Pink Sandstone and there was an edict that all buildings inside the old city wall had to be painted pink. New Jaipur is a well planned city and the Birla Temple and the State Legislative Assembly were built impressively. But, what was more impressive was that the founding King of Jaipur, Sawai Jai Singh II, had foreseen that his city will grow and had ordered wide streets even in the old city which is some 350 years old. (The title Sawai means ‘one and a quarter’)
The Hawa Mahal (Palace of Air) known for its architecture that makes the place windy is now not open for tourists due to a fault developed during last year’s earthquake. We went to the Amber Fort (Amber = city of Mother Goddess, Amba). Amber, a hill fort built by Maharaja Man Singh who was the Mughal emperor Akbar’s commander-in-chief. Having allied with a Muslim ruler Akbar, Man Singh was under threat from other Hindu kings. Amber shows the architectural beauties of both Mughal and Hindu workmanship.
The elephant ride at the entrance of the fort was the highlight though the construction of the fort itself was mystifying. Three entrances from the city wall we reach the fort proper - The gardens in memory of the architects, the courtyard, the temples, and the three royal residences – summer, winter and monsoon ones, the sandstone architecture. Special sights were the painted wall were the painted areas were large gems of the same colour (currently in the Indian Govt. treasury), the door whose layout was identical to the garden plan, the large green marbles that show the leaves of the banana tree in the temple, the carvings on the wall which were animals (Hindu) from one end and flowers from the other (Mughal).
Jantar Mantar – the temple of astronomy/astrology is another special place in Jaipur with large astronomical instruments, sundials, etc. Many kings of Jaipur were themselves mathematical geniuses (supposedly!). Then it was the time for the City Palace of Jaipur still in the hands of the Jaipur royalty.
The collections of the textiles and embroidery of the kingdom, a huge arsenal of ancient weapons and some not so ancient (knives, daggers, swords, and guns), collections of the chariots and palanquins, vessels, jewellery, etc were on display. The world’s largest pieces of silver (the giant silver vessels containing water from Ganges taken to the coronation of Prince Charles), collection of ancient scriptures (surprisingly including Tamil ones) and the polo sticks of the world’s best player Maharaja Man Singh I were also on display.
That night we were on a 12 hour train to Jaisalmer, the western frontier town of India. With Pakistan on three sides, Jaisalmer was also right in the middle of the Great Indian desert. Ofcourse, we did have to first have the misfortune of being involved in a grand mix-up of the Indian Railways Reservation System. Two sets of passengers (one was us) were allotted the same seats on the train, to add to the confusion were a bunch of Europeans who had rightly boarded on the day their ticket stated only to later realize that the original train was scheduled for 2355 and that though it was rescheduled for 0010, it was still the previous day’s train!
To add to this, our train already delayed by two hours hit a jeep on an unmanned railway crossing – luckily the people on the jeep did not lose their lives. Our Jaisalmer travel guides though were smart enough to pick us up at the crossing where the train was stopped. Jaisalmer was known as the golden city because its entire city was built with yellow sandstone. Sandstone lends itself to easy carving almost like wood, meaning that the entire city was a living monument. Quite literally, since the living Jaisalmer fort still housed more than 5000 occupants of the old city.
That evening though we went out to the desert for a camel ride and a folk dance and dinner looking at the sun-set. The road was better than any even in cities. Because it was army-built and maintained and lead to the borders. The shifting sand dunes would settle on the road and make it disappear but the army cleans it up everyday! We were going towards one such sand dune. Where the road ended, we took the camel to the sun-set and then there was dinner with folk dance. It was clear that the dance was meant for the western audience as these people were pushing through some contemporary filmi music and even one ‘French’ song as folk. But, here I got to see globalization in its more elementary form. The performing kids fund their schooling by dancing, singing local tunes and playing local instruments for the tourists. They destroyed the stereotype of the Indian villager who does not know about the wide world around him.
The next day we went to the local fort and its annexes. The lake in the town was now fed by the world’s largest irrigation project that had made large tracts of the desert suitable for agriculture. The grand entrance to the lake was supposedly built by a court dancer (read prostitute) and when the king came to know about it, he sent his army to demolish it. The smart woman who had the built the entrance to ‘atone’ for her sins did not want to let it happen – so she quietly installed an idol of Lord Krishna in the gate. Now, the gate was a defacto temple and the king’s soldiers had to go away.
The town of Jaisalmer was a huge gamble – it was right in the middle of the desert and the first kings decided to settle there because they knew that travelers from Persia and Afghanistan to India would need a resting place in the desert. It was the first Singapore – a transit place whose GDP was dependent on traveller’s indulgences and bankers who used to deposit their belongings in this desert town.
The Jain bankers (The Jains in India are like the Jews and the Parsees, a community that created its social position based on financing) who were the biggest patrons of the king had built numerous beautiful Jain temples in the city. The highlight of the fort was the huge multi-storeyed mansions of the richest merchant of the city. All these buildings were close to a thousand years in age. The best parts of the tour were the local musicians with their mystical instruments and the magical music.
We took the train from there to Jodhpur or the Blue City. Unlike the other cities, the name was not due to the sandstones, but because the upper caste Hindus or Brahmins painted their houses blue to prevent untouchables (lowest in the Indian caste hierarchy) from accidentally polluting their walls. The Brahmins were so numerous in Jodhpur that entire portions of the city were blue in colour (even today).
The fort is a sight to behold. It is constructed at a height of 125 m from the ground so much so that one of the fort walls has been modified into a lift. Known as the Mehrangarh Fort, this invincible fort showcases the best of Rajput life. Our guide in the fort was a well built, macho (typically proud) Rajput. A Rajput’s identity in India comes from his chivalry and his pride in his warrior ancestry. In his commentaries, the guide’s pride of his heritage was very visible and these people still move around in a very old-world manner with their elaborate greetings of fellow Rajputs, their moustaches, etc. But, the guy obviously had reconciled well to the fact that today he is only a tour guide (and he had no complex whatsoever about his very noticeable stuttering!). Clearly, self-esteem is unrelated to how your life plays out but only how you feel.
Then, opium. It was the staple drug of the Rajputs. They were mandated to consume it three times a day – to freshen up in the morning, to recharge in the afternoon, to forget their pains in the evening. They assume that they would be in war everyday. One old gentleman was proudly displaying his opium box though it was illegal to consume it (and to even have some in your possession).
The other big place in the city is the Umedh Bhawan Palace (current residence of the royalty) also a Taj Hotel. Our tour planners had screwed something up when they had given us only a few hours in the evening to spend in our next stop - Udaipur or the Lake City. But, it turned out to be just enough.
The Udaipur fort was much bigger than all the other ones but very bland in architecture. The huge monstrosity had very confusing and narrow pathways inside and one could very easily get lost there. It was built overlooking the biggest lake in the city. And in the middle of the lake, there was a Taj Hotel (it was the winter palace of the kings which was taken over by Taj). But, now water mining in the city has dried up the lake and many others in the city. In that sense, Udaipur was more like contemporary India than the other places we visited that day.
The next morning we flew back to Chennai via Mumbai, where we took a few hours rest in our relative’s places. Mumbai (Bombay) was only a few days away from the monsoon flash floods that killed so many, and destroyed so much. But on that day it had a very different image to offer me. The airports were becoming larger and better. The whole city looked like an Indian equivalent of the Manhattan, crowds and the buzz betraying its origins but the buildings and the most visible people – very cosmopolitan.
There – finally the itch to chronicle this trip is out of my system.
