by Frank Kusy
Part of my misconception of India, I was now coming to realise, lay in the fact that foreign tourists like me only saw a certain ‘type’ of Indian – generally the type who wanted money. The vast majority of Indian people are of course neither insensitive nor grasping.
I had further evidence of this when I joined a cinema queue for an English film this morning. It was a very long queue, and I was standing at the back of it with minimal expectancy of getting a ticket. Suddenly, a smiling Indian youth came up to me and said: “Do you want ticket?” Fully expecting him to be a tout, I snapped back: “And how much is that going to cost me?’ But I had misread the situation completely. He wanted to give me a ticket, not sell me one. As he went away, offended, the ‘house full’ sign went up and I realised that I would now never get in. Going over to the helpful Indian, I apologised for my misunderstanding and he laughed and said he quite understood. Walking on, however, I determined from hereon to always listen to people who came up to me, before passing adverse judgement.
It was while buying some cakes in Wengers, in Connaught Place, that I met up again with Megan, the Scottish girl from Pokhara. Over a delicious iced milk-shake, we exchanged tales of our separate travels, and I invited her to join me next week in Rajasthan.
Further along Connaught Place, we went into McDowell’s Pizza King for lunch. This establishment was celebrating some sort of anniversary. To mark the occasion, it had two guitarists singing woeful renditions of old favourites by Simon and Garfunkel. There was a curious card on our table. It said TRY ONE OF OUR CHICKEN AND EGG RELATIONSHIPS.
Part Five
Revelations in Rajasthan
Many western travellers go to Rajasthan for a rest at some point. One of the quietest states in India, with a relatively low population, it is also one of the friendliest and most attractive. Having now journeyed the length and breadth of this country, I decided the time had finally come to give myself a ‘holiday’ before returning to England.
Teaming up for this excursion with Jenny – who had turned up from Nepal yesterday – I boarded the noon train to Udaipur and joined her in the ladies’ compartment. It was nice and quiet in there – we were the only two occupants.
Things went well until, at 6pm, we came to Rajgarh (just up the line from Jaipur) and then our luck ran out. Firstly, the train developed a fault and stayed put in the station, awaiting repairs. Then our compartment was suddenly invaded by a large family. The parents were quiet enough, but their three boisterous children created havoc. They leapt and cavorted all over the seats, shrieking loudly the whole time. Meanwhile, the parents – making no attempt to curb their wild spirits – just smiled at them indulgently, apparently condoning their attempts to demolish the carriage. There was also a fourth child, a small baby, present. It lay in a small bundle on a seat, sound asleep through all the bedlam. The other children, not liking this non-participation at all, decided to wake it up. One of them began playfully head-butting it on the seat, while the other two shoved entire orange segments into its tiny buttonhole mouth. It wasn’t long before it too started screaming, providing a perfect backdrop to the resumed cacophony of its elder siblings.
I beat a tactical retreat at this point, leaving the stationary train for a brief foray into Rajgarh village. Poor Jenny, suffering from the heat and the children in the compartment, croaked relief as I returned to hand a bag of apples and mandarin oranges through the window. She informed me that we had now been delayed over two hours.
Shortly after the train set off again, at 8.30pm, I was shunted along by the guard to my correct sleeping berth, four carriages down from the ladies’ compartment. I found my ‘reserved’ bunk full of other passengers’ luggage. And they were most reluctant to move it. Only when I indicated that I was likely to be sick all over them unless I was allowed to lie down, did they finally relent and clear the bunk for me.
The lights in the compartment went out. The Indian below began snoring, but that was okay. I was used to that. Everything else was pleasantly quiet, and I prepared to get a good night’s sleep. Suddenly, however, another man arrived and rudely shook the snoring Indian awake. He wanted to talk to him. A loud, spirited conversation sprang up beneath my weary head. I took about ten minutes of this and then, realising that it was likely to go on all night, I told them to put a sock in it. The ‘visiting’ Indian looked up at me in astonishment. He evidently did not think that holding a loud conversation in a compartment full of sleeping people at midnight constituted any sort of nuisance. But he took the hint, and left.
A few minutes later, I heard an odd hissing noise below, and leant over the bunk to investigate. He was back. My nocturnal nemesis was now kneeling below his companion’s bunk, resuming his conversation with him by means of agitated whispers. Oh well, at least I’d tried. I put my earplugs in, and eventually drifted off to sleep.
April 15th
Arriving in Udaipur, we took a cab down the quiet, dusty streets, and booked into the Rang Niwas Palace Hotel, which in better days accommodated the Maharani of Udaipur’s guests. Over a century old, it was still however a marvellous building – set in green gardens full of exotic birds, sculpted bushes and orange-blossomed acacia trees. As we moved in. the lodge’s cocker spaniel was wearing itself out barking at a vagrant cow that had wandered in from the street. Then the cow left and all was quiet.
After a refreshing shower, we walked along to Udaipur’s magnificent City Palace. The views from its turrets and balconies were quite breathtaking, particularly those of the famous Lake Palace below and of the desert mountain range in the far distance. The palace itself was a marvel – jewelled mirrors, ornate mosaics, intricate latticework windows and colourful peacock sculptures. These treasures combined with rich silverwork, beautiful tapestries and awesomely decorated courtyards, to produce a magical effect of opulence and extravagance.
Walking down to Pichola Lake, we then took the popular speedboat ride across to the fabulous Lake Palace, situated in the middle of the landlocked waters. The place, now turned into a hotel for rich tourists (Rs300 per night for a room), had plush carpets, antique t’anka tapestries on the walls, and grandiose chandeliers and brass lamps dripping from the ceilings. Jenny and I rested in the ‘Coffee Room’, watching as flocks of sparrows swept back and forth over our heads and breathing in the sweet smell of honeysuckle emanating from the nearby tea garden. Soon, as the sun set over the metallic-red lake, we took our leave and returned back to land.
We dined this evening at the nearby Roof Garden Cafe, an excellent viewpoint from which to observe the twin royal palaces. At night, both palaces are beautifully illuminated and stand forth like a pair of gem-studded, glittering crowns on the regal brow of the hill opposite.
While we were looking at the Roof Garden’s menu – which offered COD COFFEE and FRUIT SALAD WITH RESINS – a sleek, refined Indian sat down at our table. ‘Call me God,’ he announced, translating his Hindi name, Dev, into English for us. He had seen my Walkman cassette recorder and was interested in buying it. He remembered seeing us in the Lake Palace hotel earlier, for this was where he worked, managing the coffee bar. Aged just 26, Dev was very affluent by Indian standards, managing to support a large family in a big house with three flats, and able to fully indulge his two favourite hobbies – riding powerful motorbikes, and drinking large rum and cokes. All he needed now, he reflected while smoothing his neat pencil moustache, was a rich wife. The rest of the evening he spent staring at Jenny. She looked eminently suitable.
April 16th
Udaipur at this time of year is incredibly hot. The sun beams down like a laser, and animals and humans alike retreat gasping into the shade, and go to sleep. Somehow, Jenny and I roused ourselves to activity. Hiring bicycles, we undertook a sightseeing tour of the city.
Cycling was surprisingly cool. We creaked happily through a number of identical sleeping streets, and arrived at Udaipur’s famous puppet exhibition, the Lok Kala Mandal. Here we were the only guests. The yawning
attendant told us to sit on a carpet and wait for the puppet exhibition. Twenty minutes later, nothing had happened and we rose and left. On the way out, Jenny pointed out a wall photograph of a young native girl in full tribal regalia. The inscription read:
The Adivasi Belle from Gujarat is child-like in her ways. She combines a jazzy blouse with heavy bangling necklaces and intricate bracelets. What does she care for aesthetics? She is a child of the soil!
Behind the gardens of Sahelion ki Bari, we later came across Udaipur’s ‘Science Museum’. The most recent scientific advance depicted here was model showing how electricity was invented. Elsewhere, there was a collection of the most bizarre exhibits – some old skulls in a corner, a damaged stuffed bat (with a fox’s head) hanging off the wall, and a vast number of small animals and reptiles crammed into pint-size milk bottles. Then we came two large glass cages. The first contained a life-size model of a naked woman, with detachable breasts and a detachable face. Behind the face lurked some sort of green cancerous fungi sprouting all over the surface of the brain. In the second case stood a skeleton wearing a green and white sari. It had a broken arm, which hung limply at its side, and its lifeless skull gave us a macabre, empty grin. We concluded that it was either an ex-founder member, or the museum’s original ticket lady still waiting for her pension.
Reaching Fateh Sagar Lake, we took a small boat over to the Nehru Park, a beautifully landscaped garden island full of bright maroon, orange and green flowers and foliage. The small restaurant here served only ice-creams and drinks. We had a lot of difficulty with the ice-creams. A flock of hungry sparrows settled all around us waiting for leftovers. It was just like a scene out of The Birds.
Our final call, the Jagdish Temple, was too much for Jenny. The heat finally overpowered her, and she lay panting at the bottom, unable to get up the steps. I climbed up alone and found a group of Rajasthani women – dressed in traditional bright, flowing robes – seated within the cool interior, singing religious songs. They were accompanied by a skilled tabla-drum player, and the songs were both tuneful and atmospheric. Shortly after I had sat down to listen, a doddering old man dressed in a little white dhoti appeared and began performing a shuffling dance to the music. His hands moved to and fro restlessly as he tottered about, suggesting the spirited motion his feet would have liked to achieve had they not been so unsteady. Suddenly, the song changed and the women launched into an altogether more frenetic number. At which point, the old dotard stopped in mid-shuffle, and shambled slowly off the floor looking affronted.
After handing in my shoes at the entrance, I was compelled to view the temple itself at high speed, for the ground was now white-hot from the sun and sizzled the soles of my feet whenever I paused to look at anything.
Having returned to the Rang Niwas, I tucked into a huge plate of grapes, apples, bananas, mangos, chikus (a bit like dates) and mandarin orange segments, while chatting to one of the hotel’s owners. This was a young fresh-faced Hindu called Bahti. He had a wistful, resigned expression, particularly when talking about women and sex. Twenty-two years old, he was unhappy that caste and religious restrictions made it impossible for him to make friends with the opposite sex. The first woman he would know on an intimate basis, he confided, would be the wife ‘chosen’ for him by his mother. He had seen the woman to whom he was betrothed only twice to date, and disliked her intensely. I asked Bahti when his marriage would take place. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he sighed dismally. ‘My mother will take care of that. I’ll be the very last person to know.’
Finishing our supper at the air-conditioned Berry’s Restaurant in Chetak Circle, we emerged into the dark street and saw a large sign saying: ‘English and Udaipur Wines’. Fancy finding a wine shop in India, we thought, and approached it eagerly to make a purchase. I gave the proprietor an expectant smile, and asked to see his selection of wines. He looked up and replied: ‘Wine? Oh, I am sorry, but we do not have any wine just at present.’
‘No wine?’ I echoed flatly, then insisted: ‘But you’re a wine shop – it says so on your sign!’ The man gave me an apologetic look. ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied. ‘We are most certainly a wine shop. But we are not selling wine. Here, when people ask for wine, they are thinking of buying whisky or rum. Not wine.’
April 17th
After gorging ourselves on mangos, we moved out by bicycle in search of the infamous Pratap Country Inn, a hotel with such a bad reputation that it simply begged a visit. According to Bahti, it was run by a middle-aged relative of his who lured susceptible western women into his lecherous embraces by giving them free dips in his mud-hole swimming pool and free horse-riding lessons in his ramshackle stables afterwards.
We set out at 10.30am. By noon, we were hopelessly lost. And my bicycle had developed a flat back tyre. I left it in a repair shop we found in the middle of nowhere, and sat down with Jenny in the shade over a cup of tea. The bicycle-repair man came over to give me an offer I couldn’t refuse: the bike needed a new valve fitted and this would cost me twenty rupees. He had made sure I couldn’t refuse by removing the old valve, making an inexpensive temporary repair impossible. Piqued, I told him I couldn’t afford the new valve, and wobbled off again with the flat tyre.
We never reached the Pratap Country Inn. Somehow, we ended up at the Maharajah of Udaipur’s hunting lodge at the Hotel Shikarbadi. The only life we had seen for miles was a pondful of static water-buffalo. As we passed up to the hotel, however, a host of large white monkeys with wise, black faces darted out to greet us. So did the hotel’s strange doorman, an elderly Indian who rushed towards us in a flowing scarlet dress-coat, flourishing a long, deadly scimitar. He dismissed our show of alarm, and directed us to the restaurant for drinks. Relaxing here in cool, shaded green wicker chairs, we asked the waiter if we could possibly use the hotel’s swimming pool, for the heat had dried us to a crisp. He said he didn’t know, but would find out from the manger. The manager’s office was just round the corner, but the waiter probably decided the walk was too arduous. He preferred to use the telephone. It took him twenty minutes to get through. He spoke to the manager, and then returned to tell us that yes, we could use the pool, but it would cost us twenty rupees each. A short, hurried consultation, followed by a pooling of resources, and we agreed to pay the required fee.
The Shikarbadi had an excellent swimming pool. It had luxury tiling, was ideally positioned to catch the best of the sun, and was surrounded by reclining couches in which to get the perfect tan. The only thing it didn’t have, however, was water. We reached the edge of the pool to find it quite empty.
Somehow, despite the bicycle’s flat tyre, I negotiated the five kilometres back to Udaipur without incident. And there were some charming sights along the way, particularly of the brightly-attired Rajasthani women – their robes of yellow, green, red and orange billowing behind them as they passed by (often singing) with panniers of food or bales of hay balanced on their heads. Later, we saw an overheated elephant with a load of pots and pans on its back, standing in a ditch, cooling off in the shade of some trees with its sleeping master. Not so lucky was the heat-maddened bull which ran amok down the street as we approached the City Palace. It was so crazed, it nearly butted Jenny off her bicycle.
Back at the Roof Garden Cafe, ‘God’ turned up again. His urbane veneer of sophistication was slipping tonight. He confessed that for all his money, his good job and house, and his rich friends, he felt something lacking. He didn’t know what. To stop himself thinking about it, he asked the waiter to put on his favourite record. It was a mournful soul number which, when slurred out of the restaurant’s decrepit tape machine, crept long at a funereal pace. It opened with the ominous statement: ‘This...is...the...saddest...day...of...my...life’, and it depressed us enormously.
But Dev loved it. He said it put him in mind of a beautiful woman he had once loved who had spurned him for someone with more money. And again, he gave Jenny his undivided attention all evening.
April 18
th
We only just caught the early bus out to Chittorgarh this morning. One second, the driver was leisurely consuming a sticky jellaby (sweetmeat) and sipping a cup of tea; the next, he had leapt into his small cockpit and roared the bus out of the stand. Which was rather unfortunate for Jenny, who had just sauntered off to buy us some breakfast. By the time she returned a minute later, carefully carrying two cups of cha and a bunch of bananas, the bus-rank was empty. She looked thunderstruck. It was only with difficulty that I persuaded the impetuous driver to reverse back up and collect her.
But the whole of the rest of the journey went like this. No sooner had the bus stopped, than the driver was off out of his seat to get his cup of tea, and we didn’t see hide or hair of him until, when we least expected it, he was magically back in his seat and raring to go again. It was a nerve-racking experience. The first couple of stops, we disembarked to get some tea ourselves, but no sooner had we queued up and purchased it than the driver had rematerialised in the bus, his teeth bared in a manic grin, and we had to abandon our drinks untouched and race back to the bus again before it skidded off without us.
Apart from that, the four-and-a-half hour journey was smooth and pleasant. We came into Chittorgarh relaxed, and with our plan of action ready. We had just two hours spare before our next bus left at 3pm for Ajmer. Moving into high gear we hired a rickshaw and told the driver to take us round Chittor’s main attractions as quickly as possible.
