What's for desert?

Rajasthan - Ajmer, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Pushkar - 1 Sep '01

Text: Murali K Menon
Photos: Murali K Menon

It was well past two in the afternoon when the lime green Rajasthan State Transport Corporation bus stopped a little away from Ajmer’s red brick railway station. It was neither faith nor devotion that had made me leave the comparatively cooler confines of Pushkar for this congested town with its rabidly violent traffic.

But to the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti they all came – Akbar walked all the way from Agra, Allaudin Khilji and Jehangir had also come calling and Pervez Musharraf was supposed to be here. And so it was just plain curiosity that drove me to the dargah of a saint who travelled to India, hopping across Isfahan, Ghazni and Lahore before settling down in the heart of Rajasthan and established the Chisthiya order a thousand years ago. His teachings were a mixture of the highly orthodox to the rather progressive; sample this – ‘Charity is better than saying a prayer a thousand times’ (okay by me) or ‘It is a sin not to tremble at the mention of God’ (hello).

“Don’t trust the rickshawallahs here. They’ll cheat anybody who goes to the Ajmer Sharif. After all, what else is there in Ajmer?” the person sitting next to me in the bus had said. I was glad I’d left my Tata Safari 4x4 back in Puskhar, as the rickshaw inched towards the dargah, finally stopping near a lane that, I soon found out, lead to a labyrinth of alleys.

Devotion and filth go hand in hand, I thought, while making my way through the maze, fringed on either side with butcher shops, saloons, sweetmeat stalls, and little hotels. A putrid stench emanated from the drains that flowed nearby as I walked along with the rest of faithfuls wearing caps of the most intricate work, all on their way to the tomb. The dargah itself was awash in colour, in reds and greens, and a thousand white-robed devotees were on their knees facing Mecca as I entered through Shahjahan’s marble gateway.

“This is nothing,” said a hotel owner as I sipped tea. Ajmer, according to him, is the place everyone should be when the urs (an annual festival) happens. The only thing that perhaps moved me was the Khwaja’s grave covered by a gold railing gifted by Shah Jahan. A simple mound of earth that makes people across the world engulf Ajmer during the urs, when the town is filled with both dervishes and the devout, and the faith on display is excellent film material. But as I made my way back

I couldn’t help but think of the muck this congested city would generate. Sometimes, agnosticism lends one an altogether different, if slightly abstract, perspective of religion.

The last couple of days had been hectic as I crisscrossed the state which, on a map, looks like a irregular rhombus bisected by the Aravallis. I landed in Jaipur to find that my Safari was yet to arrive from Mumbai, which prompted me to board the Marudhar Express to Jodhpur.

It hadn’t rained in Rajasthan for nearly three years, said one of my co-passengers, a construction engineer in Jodhpur, while another told me that the Agarwal Guest House was a good place to stay provided I belonged to the same caste.

Jodhpur finally came at night and the only thing prominently visible was the dome of the Umaid Bhavan Palace, where I was to stay on account of journalistic privilege. The next two days compensated for all the days I’d backpacked across the country. The largest palace in the country, this Indo-Saracenic sandstone structure, completed in 1943, first stuns you by its sheer size, and then just as you’re recovering soothes with the intircately carved windows and the balustrades and pillars.

I slept at night under a gold-bordered painting of the all the kings of Jodhpur, right from the founder Rao Jodha to the last king, Sumer Singh, and woke up in the morning to a fantastic view of the Mehrangarh fort. Over breakfast at the palace built as a drought relief measure, an octagenarian associate of the royal family fed me on the legends, the former king’s Lockheeds, and spoke longingly about an age of French chiffons, ballroom dances and polo.

Take away its palaces and forts and Jodhpur is an average urban Indian town, with only a dentist sitting with his pliers attracting my attention as I walked around the Sardarkot market.

An acquaintance with the prince of Jodhpur meant that I was treated like royalty on my visit to the Mehrangarh fort, with its stunning stained glass windows, havelis and zenanas. “Six and a half feet, 170 kilos,” said my Rajasthani guide who spoke a multitude of languages, pointing to a green-grey suit of armour. The same king apparently had a harem of around 30 women, he said, leading me up the ramparts towards the cannons that overlooked the little dusty grey town.

I arrived at Jaipur the next morning and since the Tata Safari was still on its way, I went around the touristy city on a cycle rickshaw piloted by Maun Singh, a Sindhi whose forefathers jettisoned the surname to merge with the local populace.

Contrary to his name, Maun Singh talked a lot as he showed me around the city of autumnal sunset (according to a coffee table book which I browsed through at a book store, Jaipur isn’t actually pink; the city was adorned with a a slightly darker shade for the Prince of Wales’ visit in 1876 and it’s stayed on ever since).

While its architectural splendour is obvious, the nicest thing I liked about Jaipur was a little black and white Remington shop at a junction. My Tata Safari having finally made its appearance, in the afternoon while a French group of tourists ogled at the Hawa Mahal and a Japanese viewed Jaipur through his camcorder, I was blazing a dusty trail towards Pushkar, 145 km away, past marble town Makrana and Kishangarh famed for its miniature paintings.

A little nugget from the same coffee table book had told me a lot about the turbans in Rajasthan. I spent a large part of the drive through an arid landscape observing the different ways in which men wrapped their turbans around; an indicator to their community and the region to which they belonged. The no-frills vegetation and the crisp fried golden haze that settles on much of Rajasthan is compensated by women’s blinding scarlets and yellows, accompanied by the glare of trinkets on the throat, hands and ankles. Follow the NH8 past Pushkar and the route leads to Naguar, Jodhpur, Ossian, Pokhran and finally, Jaisalmer. For a moment I was tempted to attempt the same, but then turned the Safari off the highway into the Pushkar bypass, a narrow stretch of winding road bordered by the Nag Pahar, the Snake Mountain.

Pushkar happens to be another of those places offering a wet ticket to salvation and the Brahma temple where I was now was the only one of its kind in the entire world. And it justifiably reminded of Varanasi, as I walked through the little lanes towards the Pushkar lake.

“You should go Sunset Point now, and you can watch Sunny, my brother, in action,” said the cigarette seller outside my hotel. Pasted on all sides of his little stall were his brother’s snaps which displayed his skills at an Israeli game called Poi and urged careless, jaded men like me to learn the art, which, apart from a million other benefits, also improved one’s concentration.

All the rage in Pushkar the time when I went there, Poi looked to be a version of the hula-hoop except that it involves a little sheet of luminous cloth twirling around the body. I didn’t catch Sunny that day and by the time I arrived at the lake, the desert sun was just about to go down.

Sunset Point on the lake was filled with tourists, all eyes towards the setting sun. I sat down on the steps leading to the lake and watched a couple of palmists do brisk business with a group of Germans. Another couple patronised a sarangi player with a proud moustache and I soon moved into the cushioned choir chairs of the Sunset Cafe. “No, Wales is Wales,” emphasised a woman next to me when a localite confused the little isle with England and assumed she was from there.

As dusk fell on the lake fringed by rows of little white houses, a couple of Australians with a didgeridoo(a huge aborginal wind instrument), an American with a bongo and a local tabla player jammed on the banks; the extempore, off-beat percussion interrupted by clinking glasses of iced tea and Coke. I could hear them play late into the night as I stood on the balcony of my room facing the Nag Pahar.

The next day I went to Shiva Camel Safari and asked the proprietor, Gopi, whether he would accompany me into the sandy flats that lay outside Pushkar. He had no problems. “You should have come at the time of the camel fair. That’s when one should see Pushkar,” he told me, and agreed to come along for a fee of Rs 100.

In the evening, just as the numerous temples were ablaze with decorations and as pujas and bhajans rent the air, Gopi accompanied me into the desert. The 4x4 Safari, its mighty turbodiesel bellowing, clambered up over three-storey-high sand dunes, all the while rumbling into a vast emptiness punctuated with clumps of new born vegetation. The desert reluctantly slipped under the wheels of the Safari, sucked it in at times, which made my huge vehicle cry out like a trapped elephant. Flick to 4Low mode on the Borg Warner and the Safari rose from the sands, happy to escape from the dry confines.

I could feel the desert in my throat as we had tea later at a village stall. Gopi told me that if the rains didn’t come this year, the coming summer would be a very bad experience, and I chastised myself for getting irritated by the desert’s green tinge that nearly spoilt my perfect desert shot.

Late that night, a steady breeze from the west blew across the region cooling my musty room. I fancied it to be from Jaisalmer, the very heart of the Thar, and promised myself to one day follow the desert until it turned to sea.

The journey

Jodhpur is 300 km from Jaipur and the roads are apparently more conducive to driving. But as with every state in India, there is an inordinate amount of truck traffic, which interrupts the joy of pedal-to-metal conversation. A number of small little towns and roadside stalls abound and that’ll take care of bottled water, snacks, et al.

The road to Pushkar and Ajmer on the NH8 is an apology, with potholes breeding like rabbits and state buses and truckies overtaking each other with gay abandon. Pushkar and Ajmer, like all little towns, are congested and it’s best to park your vehicle at your hotel and either walk it or travel by bus.

The inn thing
A large number of hotels can be found in Jodhpur but if you intend to live it up, head straight for the Umaid Bhavan Palace. Tel: 0091-291-510101. E-mail: upb@ndf.vsnl.net.in

Pushkar boasts of a lot of little, cheap places offering nice rooms and food. Especially recommended is the RTDC Hotel Sarovar. A part of this hotel was once a small palace. Other hotels include the V K Palace and the high-end Pushkar Palace. Should you be going at the time of the Pushkar fair, remember to book your rooms in advance as the rates spiral skywards. Since Ajmer is just around 11 km from Pushkar, it is always better to stay in the quiet confines of Pushkar.