Rajasthan Diaries

Nov 1^st to Nov 16th

I am back. Back home. Back home from a long outing. The journey back assisted by Indian Railways took around 40 hours. Most of us would want to get back home as soon as possible now that the best part of the vacation is over. Praveen was one who would belong to the “Most”. His face had the expression…”When is this train going to reach Bangalore?”. Sudeep is more easy going, he is happy to be by the window seat, staring outside or stealing short naps in between. I like to read, sleep, look at people around, get down at the railway stations en route, grab a snack. ‘Time pass’.

What if I attempted to travel back in time and see how much of this incredible vacation I can remember. I think I must have forgotten most of the details. I should have carried a scrap book and jotted down the interesting portions. I did notice some tourists, not Indian of course, doing the same. To be honest I did carry a scrap book, but did not make good use of it, in fact did not make any use of it. So now all I have left is my memory, if it serves me well.

It must have been Oct 29^th, and we are in Barista. Me , Sudeep and Praveen. Praveen has got all the maps and documentation one would need and not really need with him. So the three of us started marking and jotting down our itinerary. What’s fixed at this point is the start date and the return date. We have full flexibility on what goes in between. We complete the itinerary in an hour or so. We decided not to book our stays, because we were not quite sure where we are going to be, and not many hotels booked online. We would not have booked even if they did.

The next couple of days, we do some light shopping, clothes, essentials etc. and of course, wrapping our activities at work.

On 1^st, we are ready to fire. Praveen has to go to office to finish off some last minute work. He always has work. Sudeep had banged his car in the Bangalore rains and had to tend to it and also had some routine work, the details of which I do not recall now. The plan is, I board a rickshaw and pick up Praveen en route. Sudeep will join us at the station. We had planned to leave at 6:30 PM, and did splendidly actually. I left home at 7:00 PM, which is pretty good, since we had allowed for an hours delay. Guys will be guys, you know J. Praveen calls Sudeep to find his status. He is packing and about to leave in 5 mins. He ‘s the digital camera guy. Praveen is the analog guy. And I am the freehand guy. I am not much into photography anymore. Anyway, Sudeep forgot to buy a camera charger, without which his camera will hold for a couple of days at the maximum. We would fall short by a bit for a 2 week vacation. The idiot, I know he will pack n number of worthless things into his bag…and he forgets the charger. Anyway, we can’t do anything now. We are en route and I already used my best bargaining abilities on the richshaw-wallah. If I modify the route, he is going to go on the offensive. Besides we have to reach the station well in time, so that leaves us enough time to cancel the ticket (1 person dropped out, well actually 2). Sudeep assures us he ‘ll get the charger. How, I don’t know.

We reach the station in good time. I leave Praveen with the luggage and run over to the reservation counter to cancel the ticket, fearing the longest queue in the world. To my surprise, there was no queue. In fact I barely made it. The counter was about to close. When I get back Sudeep is also there. His idea was to catch a rickshaw and go to National Market to get the charger. We have an hour left for departure. And dinner was yet to be had. Sudeep will defer his dinner, we would parcel food for Sudeep. We have dinner at Comesum Café at Bangalore railway station more popularly known as Majestic. Sudeep not only makes it back in time but also comes back armed with a charger. So far so good. We rush to the platform, which is the last platform on Majestic. We all have enthusiastically crammed our bags with useful and useless stuff, mostly useless..and now the bags are so heavy we all start wondering how are we going to tug this along for 15 days. My bag is the biggest and doesn’t even have a shoulder strap. It does have wheels so I can drag it along if the ground is even…and you know how often we run into even ground in this country. Anyway, we manage to labour our way through to the platform. The train is already waiting for us. We load our luggage into our compartment. It’s the first compartment as we get in, and is the closest to the toilets. Fresh air was guaranteed….and believe me we got truckloads of it. Railway toilets never disappoint. Ammonia flavoured air on the house. What more can one ask for?

Other occupants of the compartment were two youngish guys on their way home, which was Palanpur. There is a single youth who would alight at Mahesana, another town in Gujarat. And there was another person, who for sure was Mohemmadan.., he was wearing the typical Sherwani and long beard and headband. Later I would realize that our train finished its journey at one of the most important Muslim shrines in the country, Ajmer-E-Sharif, the tomb of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, also known lovingly as Garib-Nawaz.

The train journey was largely uneventful apart from the hunt for Missal-Pav. All three of us have lived in Mumbai for varying periods. Praveen was reminded of the delicious Mumbai snack (actually Maharashtrian) called Missal-Pav, which is a spicy gravy served with Pav(Indian bread). We would get down at all stations in Maharashtra and hunt for Missal Pav. Sadly our wish was not fulfilled.

Sudeep had caught some kind of cold which kept getting worse and by the time we reached Pune he was in pretty bad shape. We had forgotten to carry paracetamol tablets along. Luckily we were able to get Anacin at Pune station. Its not quite the ideal medicine…but still it must have given Sudeep some comfort since next morning he looked a lot better. The train went the Mumbai route falling just short, taking a diversion after Dombivali. When I was looking out the window, watching familiar stations come and go by, I felt so nostalgic I can’t describe…having lived a good 20+ years in Mumbai. I observed that along the way homes are decorated, some elaborately, some modestly as their purses would allow. Mumbai is one city where citizens would make it a point to celebrate their festivals in whichever manner they can, whatever be their financial situation. We did not quite celebrate Diwali but I felt part of the festivities in some way.

We are in Gujarat on the morning of 4^th. Ahmedabad was the station I recall. The train halted there for a long long time. Our Palanpur friends were exuberant, perhaps because they were getting closer and closer to home. Sleep was impossible now. In another 4 hours or so we would be in Abu road, which was our destination. We got down at Abu Road which was like any other station in the country. We tug our luggages along outside and are met with several taxi wallahs with interesting and varying proposals. We finally after some thought settle for a Maruti Omni which would take us to Mount Abu for a sum of 200 rupees.

Mount Abu

The drive to Mount Abu from Abu road is around 25 kms and is mostly ghats (winding roads around mountains). We have heard that Mount Abu is a cold place, a hill-station. Sudeep and I have carried jackets along. Praveen rues the fact that he forgot to carry his. The road to Mount Abu was largely barren in the beginning, but got greener along the way. The taxi driver tells us that the monsoon has been good this time around. The temperature does reduce gradually as we go up..but not as dramatically as Ooty.(a hillstation in the south). The taxiwallah tells us that we have not chosen a good time to visit Mount Abu. Its Diwali season. And Gujaratis have ventured out in hundreds to places of tourist interest. The taxi-wallahs views are substantiated when we reached Mt Abu. The hotel rates have doubled, tripled, quadrupled. We ask the taxiwallah to drop us off, so we can hunt around for cheap accommodation. The best we could find was a Paying Guest accommodation for a sum of 900 rupees(which would have been thrice the normal rate). This was a house which converted a few rooms to serve as hotel rooms. We deposit our baggage, get fresh and venture out. First project was food. We settle for a roadside bhojanalay(a small restaurant..almost open-air). We choose to eat a local Rajasthani delicacy named Dal-baati. (fried wheat-balls with lentil soup). Delicious!!!

We did not have anything else left for the day except roaming around. We had kept the next morning for Delwara Jain temples, after which we would take the bus to Udaipur. So we walk along the market, where directions were given for Nakki lake which also had a Sunset point. Which tourist spot does not? So we walk over, only to find the Sunset point infested with tourists. We keep walking hoping to find a good spot… which we would not. We would have walked a kilometer from the market where we ran into a road-sign. De;wara temples – 3km. What the hell, lets keep walking. As we walk we find the Brahmakumari Ashram on the way, which is home to a lot of disciples mostly from the West, all wearing white robes. We keep walking….we see Bikaner palace Heritage hotel on the way. Praveen makes a note of it. We reach Delwara temples at around 5:45 PM. The temple closes at 6:30. Just in time.

Delwara Jain temples

The temple complex looked quite ordinary from the outside. It had one dome (shikhar) covered with mildew(or moss or some such kind) and some curious semi-circular domes…which I thought was unusual for a temple. We go in with not many expectations. But having entered, the visual treat we were subjected to was quite unbelievable. There are about 4 temples in the complex, plus another structure that housed 8 elephants. They say 800 elephants were used to bring the marbles and other construction materials to the mount. The artwork on marbles was quite extra-ordinary. In one of the temples was an exquisite Panch-Dhatu (5 metals) image of Adinatha (the first Jain tirthankara). We were told the image is called Utsav-Dev. Sudeep later clarified there is no Jain deity named such, and the shrine was none other than that of Adinatha. One of the 5 metals was Gold, Eight Hundred kilos of it. The temple has never had any security. In fact one of the walls is quite low and easily scaled. I am going to cite a bit of history now and I can’t vouch for its accuracy. Legend has it that the temple shrines take care of security. Once Alauddin Khilji tried to loot the complex. The entire army was blinded, and sight was returned only when they begged for forgiveness. Jains are known to be good accountants, business men, generally people who knew the value of money. Hence Delwara is home to another temple which was made from the refuse and spare parts of the other temples. That temple is also spectacular especially when you add this detail that it was made from scrap. Sudeep told me that Delwara is the second most important Jain complex, after Shikharji somewhere in UP. Photography was not allowed inside the complex, but pictures were available for purchase outside the temple. Praveen and Sudeep bought one set each.

When we came out of the temple it was starting to get dark, and we had to walk back to our hotel. The weather was good, a little chilly, but walking was no problem. We would have dinner on the way. The dal-baati we had in the afternoon was beginning to lose its affect. Replenishment was called for. Sudeep and I would have walked naturally into the nearest market area and found a small little crowded place to eat. Crowd is a very good indicator of quality of food served… in direct proportion. Praveen had other ideas though. And once Praveen forms an idea its better to give in. He wanted to have food in the Bikaner Palace hotel, one he had already marked in his mind on our way to the temple. So that’s where we had our dinner. It was a palace, a small one comparatively…must have been some small time king or village chieftain. The palace must still have had around 50 rooms. We had Rajasthani Khichdi with kadi. The food was good, ambience was nice, and Praveen was happy. We walk back to our hotel through the crowded Mt Abu market (it must have been past 10 at night). On the way we found that the first bus to Udaipur was at 8:00 in the morning, and tickets could be booked at 6:30 AM. Me and Praveen would go and book tickets. By the time we were ready it was already 8:00. We had a hurried breakfast at our hotel and rushed towards the bus station. Luckily the bus had not left yet. The bus was a pretty comfortable 2x2 seater, the driver was nasty and Praveen’s neighbour was a nauseous wreck. He puked all the way to Udaipur. That’s what I remember of the travel to Udaipur.

Udaipur

It was afternoon by the time we reached Udaipur. My first impression of Udaipur is it was quite a big town and must be one of the important cities of Rajasthan. One myth I had about Rajasthan was it must be an incredibly hot place . Wrong!! In fact Udaipur climate is almost identical to Bangalore.

We got down at the bus station and were besieged by rickshaw-wallahs trying to lure us. Finally after a lot of persuasion, aided by our ignorance we gave into an auto-wallah. He was ready to escort us to a hotel, in fact hunt for a hotel that fit our budget, all for a sum of only 10 rupees. We bit the bait to say the least. On the way he informs us its tourist season, all hotels have increased their rates, and hotels are hard to find. In the end we booked into a hotel that would charge us 900 rupees. Also the hotel-wallah would offer us a super-deal where a rickshaw would show us all the important sites in Udaipur city for the whole of the day, all for only 300 rupees. We bit that bait as well. And voila, it’s the same rickshaw-wallah. Get the picture? So that’s the real business and not the 10 rupee ride. The rickshaw-wallah would first at our request take us to a restaurant, where we were treated to the best north Indian meal I have ever had. Our bellies were ready to burst at the slightest provocation. The rickshaw would take us to the first and the most important site of Udaipur City and that’s the city palace. The entry to the palace was through narrow roads with shops and vendors on both sides. It was a maze and I have no idea how we got there and the palace sprung up magnificiently in the midst of a marketplace. The palace was as crowded as it could get. Tourist season, you know. Udaipur was established by Rana Udaisingh, I forget the year. Udaisingh was the father of the great warrior king, Maharana Pratap. A good part of the palace was converted into a museum. Almost all palaces of Rajasthan are either museums or hotels, which is a good thing in a way as they are better maintained. The palace had several sections, the servants quarters, the Diwane-aam(house of commons), Diwane-khas(house of lords), the rani-mahal(queens palace), the sheesh-mahal, which was a room laced with mirror-work. The lighting of one lamp would illuminate the whole room. The palace interiors were a visual delight. One curious thing I remember about the palace was a5ft by 5ft stone vessel. This is the container which would be filled with silver coins from the treasury. On one particular day of the year the king will throw the coins over the window to the general public assembled outside the building. The generosity and style of the great kings. The palace was 5stories tall. Another curious thing about the palace was there was a garden in the top floor. The garden had 5-6 huge trees. How did the trees grow on a terrace and what happened to the roots. The guide would tell us that the palace was built by replacing a mountain. So parts of the mountain still remained between the walls and that’s where the roots went. The top floor of the palace would provide a spectacular view of the lake outside, and the summer palace of the king, called the Lake palace.

One would have to ferry to the lake palace. It was built so the royalty would stay there during summers when it would be hot and the surrounding water will keep the lake palace cool. Now the lake palace is a Taj hotel, and rooms are available at an exorbitant price. The guide as is the nature of guides all over the world rushed us through, though I was pretty pleased with the tour. In that crowd a closer inspection would have been impossible. And the guide had a lot of tales to tell. We came out of the palace building. Praveen’s wanted to take a ferry ride to the lake palace which would give another view of the palace. Unfortunately ferry rides were closed and available only the next morning. Also, it was about 325 rupees per head with a tour of the crystal darbar also. (A museum that housed the Raja’s crystal collection).

The rickshaw-wallah would take us next to Lake Pichhola which was the same lake we observed from the palace, but this time we got to observe it from a deck. We got another view of the lake palace. I could tell from Praveen’s face how much he would have liked to dine at the Lake Palace restaurant. That was not to be. Udaipur is a city of lakes. All lakes are man-made, or King-made, and were interconnected at the time. Don’t know if it’s true now. The rickshaw-wallah would take us to the other sites, mostly gardens, all of which we reject. What can three guys do in a garden? One of the gardens, we later learnt, we should have visited. Its called Saheliyon ki baadi. The king and queen would visit the garden to take rounds. The drainage and irrigation system of the park is quite interesting, we were told. Anyway the rickshaw-wallah suddenly found himself short of a case for 300 rupees he was going to charge. So he takes us to a nearby auditorium that stages puppet shows for the benefit of tourists. The puppet show was pretty good, and was followed by a folk dance routine. One of the shows had the male dancer with around 10 earthen pots atop his head. We came out pleased with the show and that pleased our rickshaw-wallah as well. Our next stop is a handicrafts showroom which housed rare and incredible handicrafts of Udaipur. This was our first visit to a Rajasthani handicrafts showroom, (in fact I have not visited any handicrafts showroom in the past...) The handicrafts showrooms in Rajasthan have a unique way of sales. They would speak to prospective customers as though their shop was a museum of rare relics. We were all taken in by the introduction. The first item presented to us were the sandalwood perfumed saris of Udaipur. It was a specialty. All that needs to be done is dry-clean the Sari and the sari would emit a life-long sandalwood fragrance. Unbelievable. And the first saree he showed us only cost around 200 rupees.

Other unique sarees followed, Banana silk, Auto starch, Bamboo silk…all of which we found fascinating.

We all buy two sarees a piece.

The best part was we would only have to pay 40% of the money upfront. The items will be dispatched by courier free of cost, the remainder of the payment can be made on delivery. What a super facility. The next item was a 100 gram quilt(rajai), which could be folded into a small bundle and carried along anywhere. Also it could be washed as it was not stuffed with cotton. The salesman told us the stuffing was an extract from a tree which bore the Setut fruit or vegetable. To this day none of us know what ‘Setut’ is. This stuffing does not absorb water so can be washed in any temperature of water. So we buy a few unique Setut rajais. Next we buy salwaar-kameez’s, kurtas. The party is not over. The salesmen downstairs talked us into buying zinc jewellery, which is unique to Udaipur. All in all we had shopped around 8000 rupees worth items. We all left happy knowing we had purchased such unique relics. The rickshaw wallahs were very interested in how much we had shopped for. We thought maybe they received some paltry commission.

The hotel manager had offered us a taxicab to take us around sites of interestnear Udaipur, especially Haldighati (RanaPratap’s workplace, and the place where his famous horse Chetak died in the battle of Haldighati). The autowallah dropped us a super tip, I think he felt obliged. He said if we are interested in history then Chittaurgarh is a place we should not miss. Its only 115 kms from Udaipur. There is nothing much in Haldighati to see…. The hotel manager has told us Haldighati is a spectacular sight and what not… Hmmmm…Its all business, nothing personal. So next morning we walk over to the manager saying we are ready to check out, we are on our way to Chittaurgarh, from there we go to Kumbhalgarh and then to Jodhpur. The hotel manager would now weave another web. There is no way we can reach Kumbhalgarh from Chittaur unless we had a personal vehicle. Better idea was to visit Chittaur and come back to Udaipur. Then he would arrange for a taxicab(again), which would take us to Haldighati(!), Kumbhalgarh, Ranakpur temple and then drop us off at Jodhpur all for only 2200 rupees. Hmmm, what to do now. So we chew on it and finally give our nod on it. We are off to Chittaurgarh, by bus.

Chittaurgarh

We caught the wrong bus. It took a longer route and stopped at many villages on the way. It was around 1:00 PM by the time we reached there. The omnipresent rickshaw-wallah was there to extend his services there. Chittaurgarh had a 13 km perimeter and it would have been a difficult proposition to cover it by foot. It never crossed our minds that sites of interest inside may have been spread across a much smaller area. Anyway, we engage the rickshaw-wallah for 200 rupees. We have lunch and are on our way to the most spectacular Chittaur fort.

“Garh mein garh Chittaurgarh, aur sab garhaiya”

That’s all I remember of the little verse written in praise of Chittaur fort.

The entry to the fort(this is a new entry which would actually take us in through the backdoor) is a winding road which has 7 gates on the way. All gates have different names, the final one named after Lord Rama. On the way there are two memorials dedicated to Jaimal and Phatta, great Mewari warriors. I don’t know the exact history attributed to them.

The fort looks magnificient with the seven gates adding to the aura. The autowallah offers us to play guide for a nominal cost, less than what an official guide would cost. We are still guileless, we buy that also. The first structure we went to was the King’s mahal, called the Kumbh-mahal, named after King Kumbha. Its pretty much in ruins… we still can make out the horse stables, the servants quarters, the ladies quarters etc. Also the Rajah’s seat to the house of commons, or Diwane-aam. One more interesting room was the site where Pannabai, the faithful maid-servant offered her own son as sacrifice to save the life of future king Rana Udaisingh, who would form the city of Udaipur. The uncle on the father’s side had this wicked desire of seeing his own son as the heir to the throne, which would be easily achieved if the infant Udaisingh was killed. Pannabai replaced the prince with her own son who would be killed by the uncle. Chittaur is home to many more stories, I will try to mention as many as I remember.

They say the fort was actually built in a single night by Bhima, one of the Pandavas. For some reason the fort had to be completed by daybreak. Outside Kumbhmahal, there was a vendor selling artwork(paintings) on marble. They looked like screenprints to me, and cost 350 rupees apiece. Praveen was interested but the cost discouraged him. We go ahead. The next site we visited was the temple of Mirabai. I don’t really need to say who Mirabai is. Anyway, Mirabai was a great saintwoman of India. She was actually a queen, and legend has it, when her King died, she immersed herself in devotion of Lord Krishna. She was ostracized from the Kingdom and many attempts were made on her lives, all to no avail. The Lord was protecting her. The temple, needless to say was beautiful, with intricate carvings.

The next site was a water tank. Chittaur fort has many many water tanks and many many temples. Around 84 tanks is what I recall. This particular tank has a peculiarity, called the Gaumukh (meaning “face of a cow”). The Gaumukh is actually a natural water tap in a small cave by the water tank. Water would never stop flowing from the Gaumukh, and in a pretty good pace. No one knows where the source of water is. We helped us to some water from the Gaumukh. The tank, I would like to think of it more as a pond, is along the boundary of the fort and offers a spectacular site of the old city. There is a temple adjoining the tank. I can’t recall the significance of the temple. Next site was the ‘Vijayastambha’ or the ‘Victory Tower’. This was built by Rana Kumbh celebrating the victory of Rajputs over Muslim rulers. The tower must have been around 70 feet tall with atleast 5 stories, around 25 feet perimeter. You can climb over to the top of the tower through a narrow winding passage. Its very dark inside and is a one-way passage.

And you would have to stop somewhere to let people in the other direction. The walls are low and I must have banged my head on several occasions. The inside walls are carved with Indian mythological stories and deities. If interested in details the tower itself would require 2-3 hours of inspection. The crowd forced us to make a quick retreat. The next site we visited was the Rani Mahal, a lake palace, but one that’s home to a very important piece of history. The lake palace, once again is the summer palace surrounded by water. Adjoining the lake is a building with balconies facing the lake. History goes that Alauddin Khilji was planning to invade Chittaur fort. He surrounded the fort and stay put for 6 months. He heard about the great beauty of the queen, Rani Padmini, and made an offer to the king. The offer was if he was allowed sneak a peek at the Rani he was willing to go away. The Rajputs are people who give more importance to their honour than life. And in Rajput custom, the Rani cannot be seen directly by any male other than the King. To get rid of Khilji, the King allowed him to take a look at the Rani, but via a reflection. Mirrors would be placed in a room overlooking the lake palace. The room was so placed that even if anyone tried to look over his shoulder the Rani won’t be seen. And if anyone tried something more conspicuous, the King’s brothers were ready with swords. So Alauddin Khilji sees the Rani through the mirror. The Rajput king as a mark of respect, goes personally to the main gate to see off Khilji. But Khilji blinded with passion by the mesmerizing beauty of the Queen turns traitor and takes the king hostage. His condition now was the King would be returned safely in exchange for the queen. The king sends a letter to the queen Padmini asking her to escape from the fortress. But Padmini Rani was a Rajput herself. She replies to the king that she is coming over with 700 maid servants. So seven hundred maid costumes are designed for 700 Rajput warriors and they go to Khilji’s camp to rescue their King. Alas, their plan is foiled and the King is killed. The Chittaur fort was open to the invaders now, for looting, plundering and rape. There is an underground secret passage in Kumbh Mahal which would lead to the water tank. This is where the MahaSati aur “Jauhar” was performed, when Rani Padmini along with 16000 ladies of the fort committed suicide by burning themselves alive in a massive pyre. There is another site where Rani Karnawati performed Jauhar with 13000 ladies. The Chittaur fort was invade thrice, by Khilji, Bahadur Shah and finally by the Mughals.

So that was the lake palace and the heart wrenching story of Rani Padmini. The crowd did not allow us to soak in the story and the site as well as we would have liked to. Next we would visit a couple of Jain temples. The Rajput kings of Rajasthan would always have ministers who belonged to the Jain community. Hence most Rajput forts are home to Jain temples. The ministers naturally would have been powerful men in their own right. But it also speaks about the magnanimity of the Kings and the fraternizing between the Hindu and Jain communities. The Jain temples were spectacular, needless to say. There is another tower similar to the Victory Tower, smaller in size. This was built by a minister, to celebrate what occasion, I do not recall. This tower was closed and we could not go upstairs. Then we would visit the main entry (or the old entrance to the fort)… now not used anymore. The entry to the main gate was much more difficult, especially now, since its not used. But we could get a fair idea, how people could come in on horseback or elephant back. The view outside the gate was spectacular. There is a huge plateau used for cultivation now. Beyond that there is a range of mountains, flat topped. Alauddin Khilji first set camp behind one of the flat mountains. The land used for cultivation now, was a massive battlefield, home to how many valiant battles I don’t know. We sat there for a while, trying our best to go back in history. So that’s the end of Chittaurgarh , the fort for us. A fantastic experience. It was starting to get dark and one last site, the rickshaw-wallah was obliged to take us to. It was in his contract. It was yet another handicrafts showroom. We did not want to buy anything since we had completed our shopping yesterday. We thought we will complete this soon and be on our way back as soon as possible. We had a long day coming the next day. We were made to sit in the same fashion as yesterday. The salesman started delivering the same lecture we heard yesterday. This was the first time I started smelling a rat. Could this be a big industry in itself to befool unwitting tourists ? I cut him short and told him we had heard all this before and we did not want to buy anything and thank you very much. He asked us where we did our shopping from ? We replied ‘Mewad handicrafts’. He said, ‘Didn’t you read the big warning boards outside all prominent locations in Udaipur warning tourists not to buy handicrafts from unauthorized shops’. There is a big fraud racket where bogus stuff will be sold to hapless tourists at a premium. He proved it by showing us similar items for almost half the cost as we paid yesterday. I felt like blunt thud in my heart. What an idiot I was?? He also went on to show us that the items sold to us were not even made by products they had claimed to be. For example the light rajai was stuffed with Australian wool and not ‘Setut’. What was claimed as Banana silk to us was some other kind of silk. In short all items we bought yesterday were fraudulent. He said we can easily get our money back by going back to them and requesting it and slipping in the name of the current DIG, Mr. Godhika. That’s all was needed. The money will be folded neatly into an envelope and returned to us, else the police will come down hard on us. Our day was wrecked and our return journey was filled with the thoughts about how we were made asses off. One thing all three of us were determined was to get the money back even if we had to stay back in Udaipur another day. We had anyway saved a day in Abu. We would have to sacrifice Kumbhalgarh…but this is a case of ‘izzat’… ‘honour’. What would happen to the world if young men in their late twenties got conned in this manner? Also, now we suspected even the hotel manager to suggest a plan where he could make a silent buck for himself via his taxicab. Cut cut cut!! From now on only public transport!!!

Its almost 10:00 by the time we reach Udaipur. We are yet to have dinner. We got down near the palace. We thought there might be some restaurants near the palace. Praveen already had his eye on a European restaurant by Lake Picchola overlooking the Lake Palace. He must have been a King of some kind in his previous birth. Even such a big swindle could not wrest him away from his royal ways. We go to Lake Pichhola… the European restaurant is actually a bakery. I am not interested in bread or cake of any kind. But there was a Haveli just adjacent with a rooftop restaurant. The Haveli is called Bagore ki Haveli…which belonged to powerful ministers of the palace…. Rajputs themselves. Its also home to 4 heirs of the palace. The service in the restaurant was very poor. It took them 10 minutes to get us a table and we were made to change tables thrice. But the view was spectacular, and the food was good. The rates were not over the top either. After dinner, we start to walk back in hope to find a rickshaw. We did find one but were not happy with the fare. So we continue walking. We find a a few youngsters on the way, 3 of them actually, one of them atop a motorbike. We ask them the way to our hotel. They claim it’s a very long way off and we should catch a rickshaw…which would be available only at the junction we had crossed. We did not want to go back there . At this point another friend of theirs came in a scooter. One of the youngsters offered us a ride. And there we were in the middle of the night riding pillion with motorcycle riders who are complete strangers to us, doing a good Samaritan act for us for nothing. We were back in the hotel in 5 minutes, quite taken aback with this gesture. So not all of them are after the blood of tourists. Humanity still exists in pockets.

Next morning, we checked out of the hotel first. Then we deposited our luggage in the cloak room of the bus stand. Our next project was to get our money back, tourism be damned. We have our breakfasts on a street stall. We catch a share-rickshaw(called tempo) to the venue. We have a tough time finding the venue but finally we did. In 30 minutes we were back with a full refund. We did not even issue a direct threat. How, why, who knows!!! It was time to rejoice now. We had half of the day remaining with nothing particular to do. At night we were traveling to Jodhpur. We stop over by the nearest RTDC counter, which was closed as it was a Sunday. We find out how we can go to Kumbhalgarh or Haldighati, since we already know Rajasthan roadways did not run buses to these places. We were directed to a place called Chetak circle where private buses plied on these routes. We came to know that Kumbhalgarh was an impossibility as time was short. Okay, what next to do. I say we go to Haldighati, but the next bus is after an hour. Praveen is not interested to wait under the sun. Besides, he wanted to take the ferry ride in the city palace, and get a view of the palace from that angle. I was not the least bit interested in any other view of the palace..and I really don’t know even today what about it interested Praveen so much that he was willing to pay 325 rupees for it. Anyway, different strokes for different folks. I was not about to cooperate with him and I had Sudeep agreeing with me. Poor Praveen was singled out, but I simply could not get myself to agree with that plan. We decide to go to Eklingji, which is a 700AD temple built by Mewad rulers, home to 108 shrines. So we let Praveen go off on his own. He was more than happy to… he was not interested in temples at the time. So we catch the next bus to Eklingji. We reach Eklingji only to find the temple is closed and will open only in the evening. What a gyp. So we survey the temple from the outside. Next we investigate how to go to Haldighati. Catch the next bus to a place called Oudhan. We find a Gujarati family, share a rickshaw with them and go to Haldighati. Haldighati is the place that is synonymous with Ranapratap. Ranapratap was the son of Udaisingh, but story has it that he has never been in Chittaurgarh(Mewad rulers ruled from Chittaur_, but harboured dreams of winning it back from the Mughals when it was lost to them. RanaPratap was born in Kumbhalgarh. He was a great warrior and strategist, very close to the Bhil tribals. And his association with the great and loyal horse Chetak is legendary. It is in Haldighati that Ranapratap staged a famous battle with the Mughals. The most curious thing about this battle was, the commander-in-chief of the Mughlar army was a Rajput, Mansingh of Jaipur. The commander-in-chief of Rana Pratap was Hakim Khan Suri, a Muslim. Ranaprataps horse Chetak had an artifical elephant trunk tied on its face so it would look like an elephant to the opponent army’s elephants and would be left alone. Ranapratap in an attempt to kill Mansingh has the horse lift its legs almost vertical atop Mansingh’s elephant. The horse did, but on the landing lost one of its limbs. Ranaprataps army was now beginning to retreat and the battle looked lost and Ranapratap was nearing his end. It was at this time his brother would wear Ranaprataps armour and crown. Chetak would gallop one limb short, jump over a massive chasm and lead his king to safety, but at the end of the ordeal succumb to death. Haldighati is home to Chetak’s memorial. After Chetak’s death Ranapratap would vow to lead the life of a tribal, eat grass-roti’s.. a vow he stood true to till the end. He would never enter any palace, stayed in jungles of Haldighati with tribals. We were shown the chasm, the Chetak memorial and were able examine the terrain where the great Rana must have lived and fought many battles. Its called Haldighati because of the colour of the mountains. (I did not find it to be yellow really). The place is also home to a museum dedicated to Ranapratap. The museum is quite interesting really. Since there are no ruins and no evidence of Ranapratap in Haldighati, the museum has models of the Haldighati terrain..with key places marked out. Also another room has weaponry etc. There is a small theater which would stage a short 10 minute video about the great story of Ranapratap. Then a few lifelike models about the life of Ranapratap and other Mewad stories. Also there was a model of the Kumbhalgarh fort. I was quite impressed with the museum and it would present a good experience to tourists who are not exactly history buffs. It was how places would be marketed in developed countries. The museum also has a few stalls where local products are sold. Rosewater locally made, Pickles, Rose Sherbet, etc. So that’s Haldighati.

Our next venue was Shrinathji. This is one of the most popular Vaishnava temples in North India. (Ambani of Reliance fame was a Vaishnava). Its one of the most crowded temples I have been to. And inside was an arrangement I have never seen elsewhere. The shrine is open only at certain intervals. We were in at 6:00 and the next interval was at 7:00. There was a huge crowd and we had to be back soon. Praveen would be alone. So we retreat…. We had a tough time catching a bus. As I have told you before ,local Roadways buses do not ply here. And Private buses have a timetable of their own. We finally managed to catch a long distance roadways bus on the way from Jaipur. When we reached Udaipur bus stand Praveen was waiting for us with a smiling face. He was very happy with how his day went. But first things first, tickets to Jodhpur. I go and stand in the queue. Phew, lucky us. There are 4 tickets remaining, all last bench. But beggars can’t be choosers. The corrupt looking officer directed me to the conductor of the bus and asked me to deal with him. The conductor was happy to sell me the tickets at a higher price though. Hmmm, the corrupt bastard. But what to do. We had to go to Jodhpur. I agreed and asked him to give me the tickets. He said he will take the money later and the seats are 100% assured for us. With that assurance we go have dinner. When we are back, we learn that the 100% assured tickets are given to someone else. The conductor was a crook, I knew it…still I bit the bait. Now we are stranded in Udaipur at a time when there are no private buses either. I talked to the officer who said he had done his best and we screwed up. Anyway, no point talking to these third rate crooks. What other options do we have. After fidgeting around for a bit we arrange a taxi to Jodhpur for 1900 rupees. Praveen was happy, taxicabs ensure comfortable travel, plush seats even if it cost more. I took the whole thing with a pinch of salt. At this rate we are looking at a 30K budget per head. Praveen takes the front seat. Sudeep goes off to sleep soon. I too manage to sleep, in breaks. Praveen hardly managed to sleep a wink the whole night. It was more like the effect of a light sedative for him. He was of no help to the driver as he was trying to sleep all the time. Praveen would never mention a taxicab for the remainder of our vacation after that experience. Good. The taxi drops us off at Jodhpur station early morning. We have to book train tickets to Jaisalmer. The reservation counter would open only at 8:00. The retiring room can be used only if we had tickets. So we had to get a hotel, at least for sanitary activities. We hunted around, the only good hotel nearby was all booked. The others were really shanties. We checked out one dormitory…which was unhygienic even by my low standards. Finally we found a hotel near the station. Not exactly five star. It was a pretty run-down unit, one that should have cost around 100 rupees to give you an idea. It came for 400 rupees. Season, you know. Praveen hated it. He became so paranoid that he forced Sudeep to call youth-hostels of Jaisalmer, Agra at 6:00 in the morning to book in advance. We actually managed to book a room in the youth-hostel of Jaisalmer. Which actually was an intelligent thing to do in retrospect. 6:00 AM was still an extreme. Anyway, we later went to Jaisalmer station Reservation office, which for some reason is at least a 5 minute walk from the station. We got tickets to Jaisalmer (WaitingList) for the night. Next, we went to RTDC office in Jodhpur. There Praveen would book hotels in Jaipur and force Sudeep to confirm bookings in Jaisalmer and Agra. The hotel had made a deep impact on Praveen’s psyche. Later the RTDC guide will explain us the sites to visit in Jodhpur city. This, according to me is the best way to go. Any place you want to visit, first go to the Tourism Development office, get a travel guide book and get the counselor there to explain the sites to visit. It will save you a lot of trouble. In most places a lot of sites are concentrated in one area easily traveled by foot. Our first venue in Jodhpur is Mehrangarh Fort, home to the Marwar Rajputs.

Mehrangarh Fort

We catch a rickshaw just outside the RTDC office. By now we have gotten into the bargaining habit and manage to knock 10 rupees off the claimed fare. We had to gone 50 yards, and there it was the red (brownish red) magnificient Mehrangarh fort atop a hill just on our right. After all we thought the rickshaw-wallah managed to con us. By now we were getting used to it. But actually we had to cover quite a distance to get on top of that hill. So we did not get conned after all. Mehrangarh fort is the place from where Marwar Rajputs ruled. Marwar does not have heroic stories associated with the Mewadis. Still their fort was a superb structure nonetheless. It was built across generations, all in red. Mehrangarh fort authorities have added an innovation to their tourism potential. They rent self-help headphones. All sites are numbered and all you need to do is click a button and the auto-guide is there to help you out. The foreigners absolutely love it. Anyway, we arrange for a human guide. I always have a few extra questions for guides. Same for Sudeep and Praveen. The fort is home to most beautifully carved palaces. It has all the works, the darbar, the Sheesh Mahal (house of mirrors), the house of lords, house of commons, a room where the Rajah’s palanquins are kept for display, Weaponry. One particular item of interest was a fantastic painting made a long time back by a German painter. The painting describes a forest scene with the main character being Veer DurgaDas. There is naturally a story that goes with him. He was the son of a minister, or a courtier. He was a rebel and his father was forced to ostracize him. He became some kind of a smalltime trader. Once some injustice was done unto him(don’t remember exactly). Anyway to cut a long story short, he chopped off the head of one of the offenders. He was immediately summoned to the court for this heinous crime. Durgadas being the son of one of his ministers, the King asked the minister what should be done. The minister said he does not care; he has ostracized his son and that was that. The King asked how he dared to kill a person in a market place and that by chopping off the head. Durgadas remained silent. On repeated questioning Durgadas responded by chopping off the head of the other offender who incidentally was standing beside and said “Like this!!”. The people felt now the lad was destined to doom. But the King impressed with the audacity of the young lad inducted Veer Durgadas to his court, where he would serve the Rajputs loyally for many years. Later owing to some misunderstanding with the King he migrated to Madhyapradesh (as is called now) and vowed never to come back and he never did.

Indian art as you know is largely stone-art or sculpting. Our artists have never really delved into painting as an art form. The Jodhpur Rajputs however encouraged local artists to learn painting under Mughal or Arabic tutelage. This gave birth to an art form that’s typical to Rajasthan and is preserved even today. Mehrangarh fort still has artists practicing this art form and their paintings are sold in the fort museum. We will get to it later.

One of the rooms housed the incredible original paintings. One of the paintings , I think the name of the painter was Dalchand, we were told would sell for many lacs of rupees in Sotheby’s or Christies. It’s the current Raja’s personal collection.

There were other beautifully decorated rooms. The Moti Mahal being probably the best. The queens kitchen, and if I recall well gymnasium was on display too. The top-floor of the fort will present a view to Jodhpur old city, also called Blue City. It is actually blue. All buildings in the vicinity are blue, the light sky blue. I was told that a part of Jungle book was shot there.

The guide would take our leave now. We are so impressed with the quide, we tip him over his fee. He leads us back to where we started from..and we take a further detailed look and this time my photographer friends got to business. The last venue in the fort is the fort museum…which houses a collection of Jodhpur painting art. Praveen has a good mind to buy a few. But the prices were so exorbitant even Praveen was discouraged. We saw paintings, not that big in size, worth 60000 rupees. We would learn that similar art, may not be as good in quality, were available in the market for far less. We get out of the museum , Praveen armed with a t-shirt bearing a Mehrangarh screen-print. Next we walked over the periphery of the fort. We could see the fort walls that enclosed the old city. The walls were crumbling at places and missing at places. In the fort boundary are an impressive array of Cannons. At least around 30-40 cannons of varying shapes and sizes.

So we have completed our tour of Mehrangarh and are quite hungry as we were walking out. We learn there is a restraurant called the palace restaurant in the campus itself. Praveen’s antennae shoot right up. No point arguing and I was hungry myself. We had Rajasthani thhali in the Palace restaurant. That’s what I remember of the Palace restaurant. On the way back we have to refund our elevator tickets. We did not use it. There is a lift for the benefit of people not able to negotiate the upward slope walk to the palaces.

Our next venue is the UmedhBhavan palace, which is a 20^th century palace built by Raja Umedh Singh in 1905 whereabouts. We were quite exhausted by the Mehrangarh tour, so we hesitantly go to UmedhBhavan. Its one of the biggest palaces in India built in a British Imperial style by British architects. It looked like the many Imperial buildings I have seen in Mumbai like the Victoria terminus. Since there is no history really attached to it, none of us were that keen to explore the place. So we take a quick tour. There were some of the Kings royal artifacts on display. The Rajah had great interest in aviation. So some model planes were on display. Jodhpur airport is older than the one at Jaipur. This might explain why.

There is a film shooting going on outside. The scene was of people agitating against Corruption in Indian cricket. The technicians were foreigners. Wonder which movie this was. In the beginning I thought it was an actual demonstration…which was being stage managed for the TV. (Stupid me!) Praveen and Sudeep had a good laugh. Anyway, we were so exhausted we went and collapsed in the nearby lawn. We were later ushered out as were a number of other tourists. We decide to walk down to the city as the rickshaw-wallahs were claiming an unreasonable rate. Our next venue was the bazaar. We had a lot of time to kill since our train was only at 11:15 PM.

Jodhpur Market

Is just near the clock tower. (Ghantaghar). We must have walked about 2 kms and then got into a rickshaw for a much lesser fare(pat on the back). I would later learn that it was the costliest rickshaw ride I have ever taken so far. I lost my cellphone in the rickshaw. I immediately call Airtel and block the number. Anyway let bygones be bygones. The Jodhpur market is an incredible place. If tourists want to do Rajasthan related shopping this is the place. No one will woo you, no bargaining. What you see is what you get. We must have spent around 3 hours in the market, where Praveen was treated to the spiciest Chilly Bhajia he has ever had. He had to discard it half way. Praveen eats raw green chillies quite easily…so you can imagine. I think I would have fainted if I had ingested one of those. As for our shopping we had nothing to buy really. We had completed our shopping in Udaipur itself. But we kept walking, and there was one item still which had eluded us. Praveen wanted to buy a sword. No, he is not a man of violence. He wanted it for decorative purposes. The only place in Jodhpur where you can buy weapons(decorative weapons just to make it clear) is Adda bazaar. On the way we run into a whole sale Bandhni shop. Bandhni or Bandhej is a Rajasthani contribution to Indian textiles. It’s a tie-and-dye concept, where knots are tied in a rhythmic fashion everywhere in the fabric. These are later dyed. It’s a painstaking manual effort…and the number of knots would determine the cost, we learnt from the vendor. I bought one for my sister, Sudeep and Praveen did the same respectively. We continue our walk to Adda Bazaar. Praveen finally managed to lay his hands on a full-size sword. Swords are really not that expensive. A full size 3 feet sword costs only 300 rupees. Praveen bought a costlier one for 900 rupees. It had a golden sheath with intricate carvings. We get into a rickshaw which would take us back to the hotel.

The Mehrangarh palace hotel food has not gone that well with me. My stomach does not feel right. I still help myself to a light meal. We are ready to go to the station to get into our train. We have Waitlisted tickets. Wonder what the story is going to be there. In the station we learn that Praveen and me have one berth to share, and Sudeep would share his bed for the night with a stranger. Can it get any worse ????

It can!!!! Our compartment was invaded by a bevy of very chirpy college girls, I suspect it was an NCC camp. Now one would think that’s not a bad thing for guys, in fact for many it’s a dream come true. Believe me, it’s a nightmare, not a dream at all. Just to clarify, a team of NCC girls is not exactly similar to an American school cheerleading squad. Without making sexist comments I will just say that this was not needed at the time. It was the noisiest bogie in the train and may have won the prize on any train in the world. Mostly Bengali speaking girls of various shapes and sizes. Our night was wreaked. No hope for sleep and we did not have a berth exactly. We get luckier in the night. By midnight for a presentation of 50 rupees at request, I get a berth from the TC. We all collapse to sleep despite all the noise. I thought I must have slept for only a half hour or so, I was violently jolted from my sleep. Hearing the shrieks of the girls I thought something dramatic must have happened. But it was only that we had reached Jaisalmer. I had slept for 5 hours. I got off the upper berth only to find Sudeep and Praveen still sleeping peacefully without a thought for the world. I woke Sudeep up…. It was really cold outside. Once again we are approached by the friendly neighbourhood rickshaw-wallah who was prepared to take us out to any hotel we desire for only 10 rupees. Inspite of repeatedly telling him off…he would not relent. Well okay, if that’s what he wanted. When we got off at the youth hostel, which was actually a few rooms in Hotel Payal dedicated to youth-hostel members, the rickshaw wallah was starting to panic. He came out with his real story. He ran a tourist service…and he would take us around Jaisalmer city and the desert for only 300 rupees. When he realized we were not buying his deal, he cursed us a lot before he left. Well, he can’t say that we did not warn him.

Sam Sand Dunes

We take a room in Hotel Payal, thanks to Sudeep’s youth-hostel membership. We may not have got a room otherwise. The first thing we do is sleep off our exhaustion of our previous day. Its 1:00 PM in the afternoon by the time we are ready to get the show back on the road. The Payal guys run an overnight tour to the desert, with stay in tents accompanied with folk music/dance.. all for 1000 rupees per head. We do not commit and walk straight to RTDC office. Once again, we are explained the sites to visit. The counselor indicated that RTDC tours to the desert must be booked already. So we go back to Payal and book three seats. We have lunch in a Dhani . Dhani is Rajasthani for Dhaba. This Dhani was not a original Dhaba really but one that was made to look like one. We had Rajasthani food like Kings sitting crosslegged on floor cushions. I had a stomach full even though I did not really feel hungry. I should not have I would learn later.

Payal has arranged a jeep for just the three of us. The road to the desert is a straight one of very good quality. The jeep really hit the road and was going at 80-90K or even more maybe. It was an up and down road..so by the time we reached the desert I had started to feel really sick and was blessed with a headache as well. I found Sam to be a place customized for tourists. There were a number of tent campuses, one of them belonging to RTDC, the rest were private. Each campus would hold around 20 tents on the periphery, open space in between. The open space will be used for folk dances and music at night. The three of us were allotted a tent. On getting in I thought the tent is a bit of a façade really. There was a comfortable double bed inside, and an attached toilet with modern sanitary facilities to go with. So it was pretty comfortable that way. The first thing I did was hit the bed. I dozed off mostly due to sickness than anything else. I felt a little better when I woke up. Next was camel ride to the neighbouring sand dunes. The myth that I was exposed to is a desert is full of sand. Untrue. A desert is really a mix of sparse shrubbery and sand dunes also may occupy some area in between. At least such was the case with Thar. We were told that the border area is more thickly occupied by sand. But it was cordoned off. It was a bit of a dampener to be honest… we wanted to be in desert country as in movies. Like O’Toole and Omar Sharif in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. That was not to be. Anyway next event was Camel Ride over Sam Sand Dunes to Sunset point.

So we get on camels marked for us. I get the front seat, Praveen gets the back seat. Sudeep gets a camel all to himself. Camel riding is no pleasure really for amateurs, especially guys. It keeps tossing you up and down, especially when its on a canter. And the landing each time is pretty tough on guys, getting my point? Girls I feel must feel a little more insulated. I shudder to think what would happen when it gallops. Camels can reach pretty high speeds contrary to what one may assume.

So they take us to a point which is not at all far from our tents, that’s called Sunset point. This point is extremely crowded with camels and tourists and the dunes are spoilt with human foot prints. The camel mahouts(for lack of a better word) suggest that we go to a further point in the Thar desert which will be only sparsely crowded and the sand dunes will be untouched . All this for 400 rupees. We agree. They must have taken us a few hundred feet further and stopped. This is Thar. We can still see the same tourists just behind our back. What a gyp!!! Anyway,what to do? Such is the life of a tourist!!! I don’t know how people live such lives spent making a fool of hapless tourists. Anyway photography time. Praveen suggests we go to a point further east away from the sun where there might be less crowd. I decline. I would still like to see the sunset and am confident we can get some pretty good shots from where we are. He did not buy it and went off on his expedition on foot. Sudeep and I got some splendid snaps of the sunset and camels. Camels must be the most photogenic creatures on earth.Praveen must have got some pretty good ones too. We will know that after he gets them developed. We take our rides back to the tents.

My head has started throbbing now. I have an upset stomach as well. I think I might have to skip the tour of Jaisalmer city tomorrow. Too bad. I decide to skip dinner. Praveen strongly advises me to do that and also take an Anacin while I am at it. I do that. The folk presentation is about to begin. I am not in the mood at all. And the crowd was completely turning me off. Mostly families, pretty big ones who had come for one big outing. So I suggest we sit right outside our tents instead of the campfire. But when they started their first song, which is a personal favourite, ‘ Kesariya Balamwa, padharo mhare des’….we went over by the camp fire and were treated to some good Rajasthani folk music and Kalbeliya dances. It was not exactly the raw folk kind I would have liked to hear, it was a professional troupe. Still the experience was pretty good. Slowly at an attempt to win over the public they started to move over to the more peppy folk numbers popularized by Hindi cinema. So we retire back to the tent. A herd owner approached us an made an offer of a camel ride to see the sunrise… this time he promised to deep desert. We received several assurances from him that this is untouched desert we are talking about, 3-4 kms long sand dunes. The width may not be much but all tourists he has sent on this ride have come back elated. We accept the offer. 400 rupees for two camels.

I hit the bed before dinner was served. I could not get any sleep though. Head throbbing and stomach not exactly in good shape. Dinner is over, Praveen has hit the bed. I can hear Sudeep jump into a lengthy discussion with a fellow tourist. I don’t remember when I dozed off. We were awoken by the call for the early morning camel ride at around 6:00 AM.

When I saw ourselves being led in the same direction I thought this was going to be another gyp. But we did travel somewhat deeper into the desert than yesterday. We stopped at a patch of sand-dunes which was untouched as the guy had promised yesterday. It must also have been a few kms long. But it was only a 100 feet wide. On either side was sparse shrubbery. But still with some imagination we could see what a desert must be. We got some pretty good snaps again. This time I thought our camel(Praveen and me) was a weakling. It was a She, we were told. I could hear her taking deep breaths. I don’t know if it was her nature or it was the effort she was putting. Anyway we did not take a single camel ride after that despite several opportunities. On our way back we took a different route through the desert national park, through the shrubbery. Our experience of the desert will always carry the shrubbery with it.

On our way we did sight a desert deer. It’s a rare sight, we were told. Back in our tents, after taking a quick bath, we are ready for breakfast. Praveen decided to postpone his bath until we got back to Jaisalmer city. I skip breakfast while Sudeep and Praveen helped themselves to delicious Puri-Bhaji. In Jaisalmer there is another rule. Tourists have to tip anyone who has offered even a menial service. Its called Inaam.. Inaam to the camel-wallahs over the fee. Inaam to the guy who got us hot water to bathe, Inaam to the guy who attended to our petty requests. Anyway, our jeep driver also doubled as a cook… so it must have been past 10:00 AM before we hit the road back to town. When we reached Payal, the hotel wallah booked us on a private bus to Ajmer. That was our next destination. Now the plan was Praveen would use the hotel bathroom for his sanitary activities. Sudeep and I would proceed to the fort, as the Jain temples within the premises would close by 12:00 noon. Praveen would join us in the fort. So we rush over to Jaisalmer fort.

Jaisalmer Fort

It’s a short walk to the fort. The fort is made of yellow stone, so it looks golden from a distance. Jaisalmer is a desert city so everything has a desert feel to it. So it looks pretty dusty. One has to look above it to appreciate the beauty. When we entered into the fort, we se e that its thickly inhabited. It was a throwback to old times. Only the costumes and the shops have changed. A period movie could easily be staged inside. We walk straight to the Jain temples complex. Now to put it one line, we were subjected to a most spectacular set of Jain temples one could see anywhere in the world. All built once again by ministers of the Bhatti Rajputs, powerful men in their own right. With due deference to the Hindu kings there are a lot of Hindu sculptures on the outside. Inside the temples the peculiarity of the temples was the number of shrines it housed. There were shrines every where. Parshwanatha, Adinatha, Simhanatha, and many other tirthankaras I don’t know the name of. Intricate carvings, quite different from other temples I have seen. The complex also housed a small library called Gyan Bhandar. This library has some old scriptures and also the unstitched costume of a Jain sadhu called Gurudeva who had stepped into a pyre for his Samadhi but legend has it that his clothes did not burn. Praveen had joined us and he took a survey of the temples on his own and was quite mesmerized himself. We help ourselves to some food in the fort campus itself. It’s a bhojanalay called Vyaas, where an old lady cooks homely food . My stomach is feeling a lot better, and I help myself to the most delicious ‘Poha’ I have had so far. Praveen had a thhali and he liked the Poha so much he ordered another serving.

Havelis

We quickly made an exit from the fort. We did not enter the fort museum, because by now we knew what to expect from museums. Besides Bhatti Rajputs history is quite different from other provinces. Jaisalmer was never subject to a serious attack or invasion. In earlier days people would fear to go to Jaisalmer. It was desert country and the Indira Gandhi canal came only a few decades back. Water used to be scanty and at a premium. People would do labour for water in return. Precious jewels and gems would mean nothing when compared to water.

Salam Singh ki Haveli

Jaisalmer tourist map has three havelis, namely Salam Singh ki Haveli, Patwon ki Haveli and Nathmalji ki Haveli. We visited Salam Singh Haveli first for historical value. Salam Singh was a diwan of the Rajputs. Let me see how well I can tell the story. His father was a diwan also, a corrupt one at that, and one so powerful that he had even the King in his control. The Diwan was killed. The Diwan’s son Salam Singh was a toddler and was taken into the King’s reins. Salam Singh knows very well about his father’s death and would later go on to take out a vengeance of such intensity that it would rock the people of Jaisalmer out of their peaceful existence. He gained prominence and became almost as powerful as the King himself. He would impose exorbitant taxes and run the traders and subjects to the ground. People started migrating to other parts of the country. Scores of villages were emptied because of the atrocities of one Diwan. He built his Haveli outside the fort. He wanted to build a multi storeyed Haveli as big as the palace and build a connecting road on air to the palace just like the Petronas. This even the King could not put up with. He not ownly disallowed the private passage but also had a few stories removed from the Haveli so no building could stand taller than the palace. The Haveli today is not in very good shape. One particular detail about the Haveli is that there is no binding agent used like cement or mortar. Its built more like wooden furniture. Male joint, Female Joint and a metal rod to lock the pieces. This is because as I mentioned, water was costly. The Haveli is managed privately, and the entry fee and some handicraft items are sold in the Haveli, Little lamps, incense holders etc. They are pretty interesting items actually.

Patwon ki Haveli

Next we went to Patwon ki Haveli. It has intricate carvings on yellow stone and is pretty huge. We did not take a very detailed look as it was very crowded, and not very well maintained. People say that it was opened for tourists only recently. Local people used to think of it as a haunted house.

We spent more time outside the Haveli with an old folk musician who sang some melodious songs for us.

Nathmalji ki Haveli

We did not visit Nathmalji ki haveli since we were running out of time. Our bus was at 5:15 PM. Anyway we learnt later that Nathmalji’s haveli is very beautiful. It was built by two brothers, both not interfering with each others work. In old Rajput houses, there is always a male section and female section. So one brother took the male section and the other took the female section. This inspite, the buildings joined together in perfect harmony.

One more thing about Jaisalmer. The town was named after King Jaisal. Meru is Sanskrit for fort. Jaisal’s fort is Jaisalmer.

Pushkar

We reach the travel agent, which is by Hanuman Circle in Jaisalmer well before 5:15 PM. We are booked for middle seats, 16,17 and 18. You know proper planning is very important for a successful vacation. Well anyway to get to the point, the travel agent had absolutely no record of us anywhere. I wasn’t even sure if he knew he ran a bus service. He kept staring at the booking receipt as if it was a letter from the aliens. He asked us if he can put us on a bus to Ajmer. No Sir, that will upset our plans. We have to drop our luggages at the cloak room in Ajmer Railway station. And Pushkar is a good 15 kms away. Okay, lets see what can be done. He dumped us in a bus filled with traders who are taking along their ware to the Pushkar fair. There is luggage everywhere in the bus and yes the bus was going Pushkar…but we’ll be dropped at Ajmer station en route. Well, that’s good enough for us. We mount our luggage on top of the already mounted luggage and hop into whatever seat we found empty. The bus waited there a long time loading wares from various traders. Anyway, according to our plans Ajmer was a good 14 hours away and we would reach there at the best by around 8:00 AM. Sudeep by now has developed a knack of making small talk with locals. Hell, he was a hero in the Desert camp, known to all locals. In the bus he struck a conversation with a Khadi trader who had many many stories to tell about Jaisalmer. We were the only tourists in the bus and the traders were at pains to make us feel at ease. Sudeep’s neighbour offered hi s seat to Sudeep so he could stretch his legs while the neighbour went and sat in the cabin with the driver. He said, “you must have had a tough day. Relax now!!”. See, that’s Indian hospitality at its best. And that was not all, the passengers made the driver revise his choice of dinner place and had the bus stop by a better restaurant. We were served delicious paranthas with curd. We had a peaceful night’s sleep in the bus which played Rajasthani folk music all night. We are woken up hastily by the conductor/cleaner/helper. Its only 4:00 AM and we are already in Ajmer. Wow, 4 hours early? The driver must have been possessed. I did think that the bus was moving pretty fast…but 4 hours is unbelievable. We are near Ajmer railway station even before dawn. Our plans were to leave our luggage in the cloak room, conduct our sanitary activities in the station itself and go over to Pushkar. We had no big expectations from Pushkar.. We had all heard about the Pushkar festival and just wanted to take a look and be on our way to Jaipur. Okay, in Ajmer station, we realize its impossible to even brush our teeth. The whole station is cramped with travelers, and the toilets were not exactly in pristine condition. Sudeep is a pretty tough guy that way, and he discouraged us from going anywhere near the toilet. Alright that was enough for us. Call RTDC. We are given hopes of dormitory beds in Pushkar. That’s good enough for us. We catch a private bus to Pushkar and we are carrying no baggage. We expect to be back by afternoon or evening. The road to Pushkar is a winding one around mountains and it kept getting colder. And we were wearing light summer clothes. The bus was filled with pilgrims wanting to take the holy dip in Pushkar sarovar. We begin to realize that Pushkar is a holy place, somewhere in the league of Banaras or Rameshwaram. And we are not exactly pilgrims. We reached in about a half hour. We enquire about RTDC hotel and start walking in that direction. We reach RTDC hotel finally. The dorm room is not available yet. But we were allowed to use the restroom. We would have left immediately but the dorm room was ready before we could escape. So we had to check in. Well, so we stay the night. Whats there?

The dorm room looked more like servant quarters, and rates had been tripled on account of the festival. Beds were going for 150 rupees a night.

I have decided to take the holy dip now and Sudeep also agrees. Praveen’s family had seen a death and he would not visit places of worship for a year. But we are not carrying clothes… Well we could wear the same set over, but not under. So we went shopping. We had to look for a good hour to get what we wanted. Didn’t people Pushkar change after a bath? Anyway armed with new clothes we walk to the holy ghat. Pushkar, as legend as it was created by Brahma. There is a Brahma temple adjacent, claimed to be the only Brahma temple in India. Untrue, I know of a Brahma temple near Tirupati in Andhra and Tirunelli in Kerala. Anyway, the Brahma temple came later. The real deity in Pushkar is the Sarovar or the tank itself. The sarovar has around 5-6 ghats. Its said that Arjuna spent time in Pushkar during the exile period. There are other mythological stories about Pushkar. A holy dip in Pushkar, according to popular thought, is equivalent to a visit to all pilgrim centres in the country. We, Sudeep and I, take the holy dip and perform Puja assisted by a Brahmin. That being done, we are free to explore the place the rest of the day.

The sarovar is surrounded by a narrow lane all through the periphery. The lane is lined with shops on both sides. These are permanent stalls, all around 5 ft to 10 ft wide. We see that there are a lot of restaurants serving international cuisine…like Lasagna, Pizza etc. Also a lot of boards written in Hebrew, I think. We realize that Pushkar is a very popular haunt for Israelis. I had read about a controversial story concerning an Israeli lady recently. These lanes were being thronged by foreigners, who I thought were equal in numbers to desis. They must have come in search of spirituality, but I thought that it was the liveliest place I have ever been to, and that may be one of the factors that attracted tourists. I read another article saying that foreigners had unwittingly changed a holy place into a hippie place. Spirituality has so many varieties to it. But I must admit its absolute fun to walk in Pushar through the narrow lanes. I think its called the Adhyatmic Yatra marg, or the Spiritual Walk lane. One of the days before Pushkar Poornima, pilgrims would take a Spiritual walk along this lane. We keep walking and reach the venue of the Pushkar fair. Pushkar is home to one of the biggest cattle fairs in Asia. The cattle include camels, horses, bullocks. I think there must have been around 10000 camels in the fair. I learnt later there were at least 20000 cattle in the fair. The cattle would be auctioned off at the fair. There were many many makeshift stalls selling all kind of wares. The traders from the overnight bus journey would also be there somewhere. Also there was the Pushkar mela ground where events will be played out whole day. We were in Pushkar on Navami (9^th day), last three days before Purnima (15^th day) would be the busiest and the best events would be hosted on those days. Today was a football match between locals and tourists. We missed it. In the afternoon would be a bullock decoration contest. We missed that too. The next day would have been a lot of fun, there was the camel race event. Anyway it was so much fun just walking around the place that we never felt bored for a single moment. After a while we walked our way into exhaustion. Time for a quick nap. Praveen was the most skeptical about Pushkar… he did not want to go at all. He hates crowds. But I think he liked the place the most. Just the liveliness, anyone would like it. He woke up in less than an hour, I think out of hunger… That means the others had to wake up too. We were back on the lanes of Pushkar. We decide to do a little bit of shopping. Shawls. The first shop we walked into, we purchased shawls from. The salesman was a fast speaking no-nonsense, no-bargain shop. He said if we found shawls cheaper anywhere in Pushkar he would give us the shawls for free. You don’t argue with that. There was something quite amusing about the way he spoke and I don’t think I can put it well in words. It was one of the oldest shops in Pushkar and he paid only 40 rupees a year as rent. We spend some more time walking around and it was time for dinner. We had read boards everywhere in Pushkar about a certain Pink Floyd café. We were curious enough to check it out. After a longish walk ending in lonely dark lanes and alleys we finally found Pink Floyd café…which was designed in a sort of voodoo fashion… just the kinds which would attract spiritual tourists. The names of rooms are ‘Dark Side of the moon’ and ‘Momentary Lapse of Reason’. We found the place not to our liking and they were not even playing Pink Floyd. We mostly thought it was a gimmick to attract foreigners. And it was working well. We found a pretty straightforward way to get back to the mela… So all the directions and signboards were just a gimmick to make it dramatic. Praveen had marked another restaurant on the way which played good music…and he would not relent until we checked it out. I did not want to go there as I had noticed that place was always crowded with tourists and may serve only continental food. Anyway on Praveen’s insistence we walk to the restaurant and this was my first experience of reverse-racism. The owner was downright rude to us and asked us to dine at another restaurant. It is festival season and lot of tourists visit the place. So they serve mostly European food, and they don’t have the time to prepare Indian food. We were pretty well dressed and did not look like people that did not carry money. Even then this attitude. I don’t know if such type of incidents are faced commonly by Indian tourists. We may have to come up against some sort of defence against this … its not our fault that our currency is not strong enough.

That was that, we had our dinner and retired to our beds. We had to catch the first bus next morning to Ajmer. The first train to Jaipur would leave at 6:40 AM.

Jaipur

Its 6:40 AM in the morning and we are in the passenger train to Jaipur. The train had wooden seats which would seat 4 on each side. We reached Jaipur at around 10:30 AM. The rickshaw-wallah was there at the station to receive us. Our hotel(RTDC) was pretty close to the railway station. Outside the station we were subject to the worst kind of harassment by rickshaw-wallahs. They would not listen to the loudest NO’s and keep on with their sales talk. In the end when the rickshaw-wallah found we are not giving in he complained to the nearest policemen that Praveen was carrying a sword. Anyway it was a decorative item and Praveen even with his beard hardly looked like a terrorist. He was let alone. The best way to get out of Jaipur station if you look like a tourist is to close your ears and keep chanting ‘La-la-la-la-la’ loudly until you are way outside the station premises.

We reached RTDC hotel and booked ourselves into a room. After we freshen up, we are ready to start touring the city. As our usual practice we look for the nearest RTDC office. We don’t find one, but we run into a ITDC. Good enough. The counselor marks the important place and does some hard-selling for his Jaipur sight-seeing bus. We listen to his sales talk and decide to go our own way. The main agenda for the day was to tour the Old city, also known as the Pink City, visit the City palace, Jantar Mantar. We were planning to visit Amber Fort and Jaigarh fort the next day. Next immediate activity was lunch. I thought it would be a good idea to walk to the Old City and have food there. We might be able to locate a good old-style eatery. But Praveen had already started grumbling and wanted to have food at any place where edible items are served. Anyway we still carried on for awhile, but finally under pressure we walk in to a restaurant called Niros. It looked like a perfectly normal restaurant from the outside. On the inside it was quite a chic place and it was fairly obvious that the restaurant was quite a hit with foreign tourists. The menu also was consistent with the ambience. The food unfortunately was not to our liking. Quite bland. Praveen had ordered some chicken item which was a lot worse than the veg food Sudeep and I had ordered. Anyway, a meal is a meal. At least our stomachs won’t complain for a while now.

We resume our walk to the Pink City. It’s a good think we had our lunch. The pink city did not have any old style eatery I had imagined. It had busy crowded streets lined with pink shops on either side. The pink was really more of a shade of red. Maybe it looked pink from a distance. We walked towards the city palace. Finally we stopped at a place where the palace was to our left and the Jantar Mantar was to our right.

Jantar Mantar

To be honest I was not impressed with Jantar Mantar at all in the beginning. It looked like a garden with a lot of geometrical objects in stone here and there. But Sudeep and Praveen wanted to check it out, especially since one of the objects was pretty tall and would give a good view of the Hawa-Mahal. (Wind-palace). I am glad we did visit the Jantar Mantar.

Its one of the oldest observatories in India. In fact there are three other Jantar-Mantars, but Jaipur’s is the best. It was built by Sawai Jai Singh II in the 18^th century, whose pet subjects were astrology and astronomy. And he would spend a lot of time reading books and texts on the subjects. And this interest lead him to make these stone structures as he believed they were more accurate than other metals. There is a stone sun-dial which can read the local time to an accuracy of 20 seconds and the shadow the sun would cast serves as the needle. There are other huge instruments, one which would read constellations or zodiac signs, again making use of the shadow the sun would cast on a semicircular surface. It can be used to make a horoscope. Then the Jantar Mantar itself, which is a set of huge metallic plates one which is the Jantar (instrument), the other is Mantar(board where formulae can be worked out). Theres a stone object which is at a slope with a mark made at the bottom of the slope. If you kept your eye at the bottom you would be directly in line with the polestar. Used for direction marking. Also there’s the biggest sun-dial in the world. That’s the tall object I was talking about earlier which would present a view of the Hawamahal. It reads time to an accuracy of 2 seconds.

It’s a fascinating place over all.

City Palace

The Jaipur City palace is home to the current King...so one portion is closed to visitors.

The palace is now a museum with a weaponry section, textile section which displays the carpets and other textiles that belonged to the palace. Then there is a another hall where two large single piece silver vessels are placed, around 5 ft tall. They are the largest twin silver vessels in the world and are in the Guinness book of World records.

Hawa Mahal

Adjacent to the City palace is the Hawa Mahal or the wind palace. There is nothing much to see on the inside. On the outside it looked like a pretty structure on a crowded Jaipur street. That’s all one can say about the Hawa mahal.

Next we visit the Birla temple. It’s not really a heritage site. It’s a quite modern temple, but still worth a visit. There ‘s some impressive work with marble as with most Birla temples in the country.

We must have spent some more time walking across the streets of the old City with no particular intent. We then get into a rickshaw to go to the last venue of the day and that is the Rajmandir movie theater. It must be the biggest movie hall in the country. We watched a bad movie with an incomplete title “Kyon ki”. Next day our plan was to visit the Amber fort.

Amber Fort

Its pronounced ‘Aamer’. Amber fort is around 11 kms away from Jaipur City. The city bus drops us at the foot of the hill. It’s a 20 minute hike to the fort complex from there. We book a guide. The palace is from where Jaipur Rajputs ruled. Its situated in a beautiful location surrounded by mountain ranges and there s a water body nearby to add to the beauty. History-wise its not very colourful as he Jaipur Rajputs had signed a treaty with the Mughals. In fact Raja Mansingh received the title of ‘Mirza’ from the Mughals for his valiance shown against the enemies of the Mughals…which must have included the Mewadi Rajputs. The palace had the usual wares, with the house of lords and commons. There was a huge Sheesh Mahal or the house of mirrors, the biggest we have seen so far. There was a Ganesh Pol, or the Ganesh gate, named so because of an image of Lord Ganesha just above the gate. This image was made out of a single coral, the biggest of its kind in the world. What made this palace different from other palaces in Rajasthan was the liberal use of colour art. Most walls were used for beautiful paint patterns. The colours were natural colours made from vegetables…and would stand extreme weather. Its survived many decades, centuries now. We were shown the summer rooms, the queens corridor, the tank which could house a huge quantity of water, one that could provide for a period of 6 months. Also there was an intricate pattern made out of ivory on a door. The same pattern was repeated on a garden just behind us. Another room which was closed to the visitors, had a huge beautiful painting depicting some palace festival. We could only sneak a peek from outside. Our final stop in the palace was in the omnipresent handicrafts show room. We listened patiently to the salesman’s blah-blah-blah and walked out with no injuries.

Our next venue was Jaigarh fort.

Jaigarh

This fort must actually be in the same campus as Amber fort. It’s a 4km trek to the fort. The main features of Jaigarh fort was the cannon foundry and the Jaivana, the worlds biggest cannon-on-wheels. It has been used only once as a test fire, has a 22 mile reach. At the entry to the fort we see that the venue is being used for the shooting of a movie. All technicians are foreigners…so it must be an English movie. We walk over to the cannon foundry. The Rajputs of India did not have cannon making ability. But I think they must have learnt this from the Mughals as they were on good terms. Naturally having learnt the technology they would want to assert their superiority and hence the Jaivana. There is not much else in the Jaigarh fort. So we start our trek back. Its time to have lunch. As we walk back we see a restaurant in the Jaigarh fort campus, which had a caption “the cook of the late Maharaja works here”. The restaurant itself looked quite run-down, unimpressive. Still we decide to check it out. We are recommended to taste the biryani as it’s a special recipe of the master chef. So we had really tasty biryani…and very soon the master chef presented himself. And he talked to us for a long while about the likes and dislikes of the late Maharaja. Also he showed us a photo album which had pictures of dignitaries that have dined at the restaurant. We had our picture taken with the master chef. What we liked best about the place was the warmth of the master chef.

We are done with Jaigarh fort. Our next venue is the Jalmahal which we had already seen on the way. But Sudeep wanted to click a few snaps.

We boarded an overcrowded private bus to ‘Badi Chaupar’ which is an important junction in Jaipur. From there we must have walked a bit and then we took a cycle rickshaw to the bus stand. It’s the first time we sat in a cycle rickshaw in Rajasthan. We felt so sorry for the driver we paid him more than the agreed amount. In the bus stand we booked tickets to Agra. The bus would leave at 9:30 AM. We should be in Agra by around 1:30 PM which would leave us with more than enough time to see the Taj Mahal and maybe we could sneak in Red Fort as well.

Agra

The bus from Jaipur did leave at 9:30 AM. But we miscalculated by a very long way. Though the distance is only 200 plus kms, it would take us close to 7 hours to reach Agra. The roads!!!! We were in Agra at only 4:00 PM. We check our bags into the youth hostel where we were booked… and proceed immediately to the Taj Mahal. Next morning we had to leave as early as possible to Delhi. I had to meet a friend who was getting married the following week. More about that later.

Tajmahal

The rickshaw would take us to a certain point only. After that only non-fuelled vehicles can ply. Pollution control to protect the monument. There are battery operated vehicles that ply to Tajmahal. Also there are horsewagons and cycle-rickshaws. Cycle-rickshaws are very cheap and you get a free visit to a handicrafts showroom.

Now honestly I was not that interested in the Tajmahal. It’s a picture I have seen so many times. It must be on of the most photographed monuments in the world. I was more interested in the Red Fort… after all it was home to the Mughals who ruled for a good 300 years. Praveen and Sudeep, however were not interested in the fort at all. They were licking their lips at the prospect of snapping away at the Tajmahal. We take a cycle rickshaw to the monument. Outside there were a large number of guides extending their services, they will help us get our mobile phones and other baggage if any stored safely in the cloak room, get the tickets for us and also get us in without having to stand in the long queue. We declined. Got tickets ourselves, stood in the long queue and were inside in 10 mins. We were a few hundred feet away from one of the greatest monuments on Planet Earth, one of the seven modern wonders…..with only the front gate building shielding us from the Tajmahal. We walk in…I don’t know what I had in my mind at that time….but I know for sure once I got in past the gate and the Taj Mahal was in full view, I was transfixed. I don’t know why….but it made me stare. The sheer beauty of the structure, the symmetry had such an effect I was spell bound. It drove Sudeep to a mad frenzy. He must have clicked a million photographs had he been let loose. I warned him that his photographs may have started to get a little repetitive. The poor fella, with a camera in hand, and an unbelievable beauty in sight… what can he do?

To repeat an old story, the Taj Mahal is a symbol of love, built by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan for his love Mumtaz. Later after Mumtaz’s death, it became her tomb. Shahjahan’s tomb is also at the same venue. Access is denied now. Photography is banned inside the monument. And there is no illumination inside and outside the building.

We waited until the sun went down and the moon was visible. Tajmahal in moonlight!!!! I am not an emotional person by nature…but heres my advice. All couples in love should experience the view of the Tajmahal, the greatest monument of love in the world, at midnight on a full moon night. It would be an unforgettable event.

We go back to the youth hostel after dinner. The dormitory looked pretty much like a college hostel. We quickly go off to sleep. Next morning we are back at the Taj mahal…The earlier day the light was not that good for photography and we were not able to see the inside of the monument owing to poor light.

Red Fort

I have reorganized my plans and it would be just enough if we reached Delhi at 2:00-2:30. Delhi is only around 3-3-1/2 hours away. So if we left at 11:00 it would be more than enough. It was only 9:00 and a quick tour of the Red Fort is easily workable. Sudeep is hungry this time and least interested in the fort. He had to relent to Praveen’s and my wishes. He refused to click any snaps until we were inside the fort. When the guide started telling us stories about the Mughals it got him charged and he started taking snaps. The Red Fort is the place from where the Mughals, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb ruled over North Idia. It has 70 feet high walls and is surrounded by moat. The main gate is called Amer Singh gate named in honour of the Rajput. The fort was built by Akbar and was made of red stone. Shah Jahan changed some structures inside with marble… he was a marble lover. No surprise really. There was the usual Rani mahal , house of lords where the Navratan (nine jewels) would have assembled. There was the house of commons. There was the room where Aurangzeb held his father Shahjahan prisoner. There was a balcony which offered a good view of the Tajmahal. After Mumtaz’s death Shahjahan would spend most of his time in this balcony. One unrelated but interesting detail was Akbar had 1000 women in hi s harem. We have always seen Akbar as a great war hero, never thought there was an amorous side to the great emperor.

The Red Fort brought the curtains down on our great tour of the north. All that remained was to go to Delhi, meet my friend, and then get on the train back to Bangalore.

It was around 11:00 when the rickshaw-wallah took us to the bus stand. We learned that bus would take 4-1/2 hours to reach Delhi. Yet another miscalculation. It would be 4:00 by the time we reached Delhi. Anyway we had no choice. We got on the bus. The driver drove like a maniac and we were in Delhi before 4:00 PM. The bus dropped us at the wrong railway station, by Hazrat Nizamuddin. Our train was from New Delhi station. I call up Nishant(my friend who’s getting married next week). Incidentally he is somewhere nearby shopping for sweets. Good, we had to shop for sweets as well. He comes and picks us up from there. I meet my friend after a year. Later he takes us to his house. We would have dinner at his place at the loving insistence of his mom. So with dinner settled, my best wishes for a happy married life deposited with Nishant, we are ready to resume our journey back to Bangalore. We are in Delhi railway station well in time.

We get on the train. Our neighbours are a young lady with a baby, her brother. They were Jains. There is an oldish man, who was a Sai Baba devotee on his way to Puttaparthi. And there was a quiet youngster. Our Jain neighbours were the over-cautious kinds…they secured every piece of luggage they carried with a chain. We arrived in Bangalore only a ½ hour late…at around 2:00 PM in the afternoon.

And that brought us to the close of a truly memorable vacation…

I will remember Rajasthan for its weather( was not hot like I expected), the Rajasthan of beautiful Jain Temples, the Rajasthan of magnificient lakes and lake palaces, the Rajasthan of great Rajput kings, the Rajasthan of vast battlefields where many heroic battles were won and lost, the Rajasthan of mass funeral pyres, the Rajasthan of great forts and fortresses, the Rajasthan of melodious folk music, the Rajasthan of legendary love stories of Dhola-Maaru and Mahendra-Moomal, the Rajasthan of camels and camel fairs, the Rajasthan of the great sand dunes from where the Sun rose majestically, Rajasthan I have visited only once but will take along with me forever!!

Signing off.

Goodbye!!

Rajiv Mohan

Email : rrajivv@gmail.com