by Frank Kusy
Chittorgarh is a massive fortified city with a very famous history. In olden days, whenever it was attacked and saw its position hopeless, all the men would ride out to be slaughtered in one last glorious battle while all the women and children committed suicide. Each time this happened – and there had been three such ‘Jauhars’ of note – almost the entire population of the city had been wiped out. The miracle was that it managed to restock itself each time to ready for the next mass suicide.
Our lightning tour took us up through Chittor’s seven fortified gates, into the modern Fateh Prakash Palace, and then up to the top of the impressive Tower of Victory, with a magnificent view of the whole fort ruins. We then passed round the Mahasati site – a sad, lonely place where many brave wives and concubines joined their husbands on the funeral pyres – and finished up at the lovely Padmini Palace, set in calm, tranquil courtyards and gardens. It was on the pavilion of this palace, so the story goes, that the beautiful princess Padmini stood when the emperor Alu-ud-Din saw her reflection in a mirror and fell in love. He was so infatuated that he destroyed the whole of Chittor to get her. In the end, Padmini decided to cheat him of his prize by killing herself – yet another example of this unhappy people’s remarkable talent for self-destruction.
Leaving Chittorgarh, we came to Ajmer, and caught the short connecting bus to Pushkar, arriving there shortly after dusk. A small oasis of civilisation located on the edge of the Great Thar Desert, this town had been recommended to us by many other travellers as the most pleasant place to stay in all India.
April 19th
From the parapets of the cheap but palatial Pushkar Hotel, I noted this morning that we were staying on the banks of a small inland lake. There was a fine view of the whole town, the small houses and shops glittering marble-white in the reflected light of the rising sign.
Coming down for breakfast, I met Paul, a friend from Kodai, who advised us to seek out the Krishna Restaurant, apparently the best place for food in town. It took us a long time to reach it, however. There were too many distractions. The quiet, friendly streets of Pushkar are absolutely crammed with attractive, colourful shops selling all manner of marvellous clothes, shoes, curios, souvenirs, tapestries, and wall-hangings. With the possible exception of Kathmandu, it is the very best place to meet interesting people and to buy interesting things – though the very worst place to go if one is a poor traveller living on a very tight budget. There is far too much tempting stuff to buy here, and it’s all far too cheap to resist.
By the time we reached Krishna’s for breakfast, it was lunch-time. Within, I discovered my old trekking companion, Joseph, sitting in a corner with a bag of guava pears. It was a very happy reunion, enlivened by the Krishna’s interesting menu. This offered PLAIN SLUICE, MACRONY CHEESE, VEGE SENDVICH and JEM TOST ONE PLATE. It also bore the stern warning: SUGGAR CHAGGE WILL BE EXTRA! The Krishna also had a speaking fridge. It stood in the corner and was plastered with stickers saying things like: WELCOME! and DON’T TOUCH ME! and I AM VERY COLD! It was a real conversation piece.
After a delicious fruit salad curd, followed by a curious porridge made from chapti wheat, I suggested that Jenny have her hair cut. It was getting too long for comfort in this heat. But the Indian barber we found didn’t understand English too well. Instead of cutting just one inch off, as she had requested, he left just one inch on. She now had as much hair as me – i.e. hardly any. But the result suited her well. And as her flowing auburn locks fell to the floor, Megan turned up. She had left the other Scottish girls behind in Jaipur, and had travelled over to join us here in Pushkar.
The heat of the day had now reached fireball intensity. To finance further shopping expeditions, I now sold my Walkman and we returned – part of the way on camel-back – to move all our bags over to the Sarovar Tourist Bungalow, where Joseph was staying. This turned out be the most luxurious (and least expensive) lodgings I had taken in India. My room was a tiny one – in an octagonal castle turret – but the rest of the building, and its facilities, were unsurpassed. Festoons of green plants, gardens of bright-hued trees, lawns of lush grass, beautiful views of the lake, and the awesome mountain backdrop made this the perfect spot in Pushkar in which to wind down and relax. After a few hours of basking in the sun and swimming in the lake’s calm, warm waters, we gave this place our vote for the nearest thing to paradise we’d found in all India.
We only exerted ourselves once more today – to steer Megan off to the barbers to get her hair cut too. She also emerged practically bald. Otherwise, all we found to do in Pushkar was swim, sunbathe, go shopping, and drink ice-cold Limcas and lemon sodas.
April 20th
Before it became too hot, we took an early morning trek across the rolling dunes of the desert and up to a nearby hilltop temple.
Once out of Pushkar town, the desert sands stretched before us into infinity. We crossed them in silence and came half an hour later to the foot of a giant stone causeway, some thousand feet high, which led up to the temple. Reaching the top – a hot, sweaty climb – we entered the tiny shrine to find a refreshing cup of mint tea waiting for us. It was served by an Australian girl who, dressed in native garb and fluent in Hindi, was being allowed to attend the temple. She told us that it was some two thousand years old, and had been erected in honour of the god Brahma’s first wife, Savitri.
The views were quite superb. Below us, Pushkar and its lake glistened like a bright blue tear in the eye of the surrounding desert. Barren plains and mountains lay north and south of the town, while to the rear a speck-size mule train was ambling off into miles upon miles of arid, undulating sands. We spent an hour here, then returned back down before the sun became too intense for walking.
Going back into town, we stopped off at the pink-domed Brahma Temple, apparently the only temple in all India built specifically for the god Brahma. Which we found odd, since Brahma is the central figure (Creator) in Indian mythology. The temple itself was the cleanest, quietest and most attractive we had ever come across. And all the local people paying their devotions here were extremely welcoming.
The rest of the day was spent in spending too much money. Everywhere we walked, our pockets emptied to purchase embroidered waistcoats, silk trousers, mirror-inlaid bags and all manner of baubles, bangles and beads. Our final expense of the day, however, was the most interesting – having our photograph taken by a grizzled old Indian owning an antique Victorian box-camera. It took a whole hour for him to set up his equipment and to produce a satisfactory negative. As we waited, sitting on a low bench at the roadside, our gaze shifted between the two donkeys that had begun to copulate in the middle of the street and the small girl with eight toes on her left foot who had come to supervise proceedings. The photo, when it was finally produced, was remarkable. It had the tinted, vignetted look of a picture taken last century!
Pushkar struck us at the cleanest, most relaxed place in India any of us had yet visited. It wasn’t noisy, overpopulated, stressful or anything like as dirty as most other towns or cities. The only hubbub came from the odd pack of wild dogs, the occasional shriek of a peacock and the wild chattering of temple moneys. As for the human population, they were generally sound asleep.
April 21st
Before paying our farewells to Pushkar, we made a short tour of the holy ghats lining the banks of the lake. These were charming places, with a relaxed and friendly approach to visiting tourists. Only one ghat gave us problems: the girls were instructed to make puja (devotion) to the god of the lake. They were seated on the steps of the ghat, with their feet immersed in the water, and their cupped hands were filled with flower petals, rice and coloured powder. After casting this offering into the water, they were given a dried husk of coconut each to recite the ‘Brahma Puja’ over. This prayer, which the priests expected Megan and Jenny to repeat parrot-fashion after them had a brain-washing begging routine built into it. Thus, in between various regular prayers to Brahma, there would appear the curious instruction
: ‘You-give-me-twenty-one-rupees-one-hundred-and-one-rupees-no-matter-what-you-give.’ When the girls only gave the priests the time of day and no rupees at all, there were angry scowls and muttered curses all round. Even here in Pushkar, we were saddened to note, religion and money went very much hand in hand.
We went down the high street towards the Krishna Restaurant through a barrage of friendly one-liners from local people. None of these passing comments – which ranged from old favourites like ‘Good rate dollars’ and ‘You are coming from? to new curiosities like ‘First time Pushkar?’ and ‘Fruit Porridge’ – seemed to require any reply. People made them, then went on their way. Rajiv, the affable manager of the Krishna, had a lot more to say for himself. He was a 25-year old Brahmin, very concerned about his ever getting married. Not only could he not afford to keep a wife and her entire family in his house, but even if he had one, he would hardly get to see her since he had to work 14 hours a day to look after the restaurant. All this, however, was not the main problem. The main problem was that he had an elder brother. And his caste required that all the children in a family marry ‘in sequence’ – eldest first. The only way that a younger sibling could jump the queue was when elder brothers and sisters had mental or physical infirmities which made their own marriage unlikely. Rajiv’s elder brother, however, was in perfect health. And he had no intention of getting married. Which meant that Rajiv could expect to remain a bachelor for many years, perhaps the rest of his life.
The moment we left Pushkar, our troubles started. Out of this oasis paradise, we were quickly thrown back into ‘real India’ again. Even getting out of the hotel was a problem. I deducted ten rupees from my bill in respect of the dhobi-wallah having dyed all my clothes purple, but the manager became awkward and had his entire staff bar the door to my exit. Rather than return home a cripple, I paid the ten rupees.
A pleasant roof-top journey on the bus back to Ajmer was followed by an arduous two hours touring round every photographic shop trying to get a sensible price for my camera. I was now low again on funds, and had to sell it. The camera eventually went for Rs800 (£20) but by this time it was far too late make Agra tonight. We decided to spend the night in Jaipur instead.
The road to Jaipur was littered with wrecked vehicles – battle-scarred victims of recent crashes – and our journey was repeatedly delayed as the roads were being cleared to allow us passage. Two crash scenes were particularly harrowing, with the offending driver of both smash-ups being set upon and beaten to a bloody pulp by the passengers of the other vehicles.
We booked into a troublesome lodge in Jaipur called the Hotel Golden. This tried to charge us a hundred-rupee ‘deposit’ (five times the room rent!) and gave us rooms in which all the door locks fell off. But this wasn’t the worst of it. The hotel’s main problem was cockroaches. It was absolutely crawling with them. I came back to my room this evening after a wholesome meal of thali to a full-scale conflict with the insect kingdom. It started when I switched on my light and noticed that the full packet of ‘Coconut Crunchies’ I had left on my table now contained just two biscuits. An army of ants, forming a neat black line from the wash-hand basin to the table, had eaten the rest. But they hadn’t done it alone. I picked up the biscuit packet, and three giant cockroaches scuttled out. I picked up the table, and scores more dropped off the bottom of it. Before I knew it, the whole room was alive with scurrying roaches. They moved devilishly fast, and had iron-hard shells. Consequently, it took me a long hour to root them all out. Then I went over to Megan and Jenny’s room to warn them against leaving any food out for insects. But they weren’t interested. They had something much worse than cockroaches to worry about. A large black rat had just run out from under Megan’s bed and was now roaming around in the room’s squat-toilet. A very uneasy night followed.
April 22nd
Our only pleasant memory of Jaipur was its ice-cream, which was delicious. A traveller over breakfast told us we should have been here during the ‘marriage season’ recently, for then the city was far more colourful and friendly. He told us that every Indian in town had rushed to get married this spring after hearing that it was an astrologically auspicious time. Every marriage had been celebrated by a big procession down the high streets. The contrast between rich and poor marriages, our friend told us, was very marked. Wedding processions for the rich had plush carriages, white horses, and guests following on, holding neon-lit tubes. The poor, however, had no such finery. All they had was a tractor. And an auto-rickshaw. The rickshaw went on ahead, with a few streamers flying from it, while the guests and the gifts chugged up the road behind it on an old tractor.
Taking the bus on to Agra, I found myself sharing a seat with a portly Indian in white Congress Party dress. He was an incurable fidget. He had a bag at his feet with a Russian-made toy truck which he was itching to play with. Every minute or so, his hands would dip helplessly into the bag to spin the truck’s wheels or to stroke its glossy paint.
Agra was again a scene of much hassle from rickshaw drivers, beggars and unemployed Indians wanting to change our dollars or to earn commissions by guiding us to cheap lodgings. Wishing to see the Taj Mahal unhampered by luggage, we left all our bags in a single cheap hotel room. The owner of this lodge insisted that I take a look at his ‘garden’, saying it would be of great interest to me. It turned out to be a small field at the back of the lodge, packed to capacity with cannabis plants.
Taking rickshaws to the Taj, we dropped off at Joney’s Place, a restaurant much recommended by travellers. It is owned by a happy young Indian (Joney) who combines a real interest in Westerners with service of very fine food. After welcoming us to his establishment, he asked us to sign his ‘guest book’ which was full of tributes (often humorous) from satisfied customers, and then he gave us his YUM YUM MEENU. This contained a ‘big breakfast’ of PORICLG and CORNFX, ONE POID EGG, and YOGURT PANKAGE. Joney was particularly keen that we try his STAFFED POT (stuffed potatoes) and VEG BOMB (?). So we did. They were excellent.
We came into the Taj by the quiet South Gate. By the entrance, a small Limca stand was advertising its wares: ‘LOOK HERE’, said its sign. ‘MAY I EXCUSE YOU FOR VERY ICE-COLD DRINK OF FREEZ?’
My second tour round the Taj Mahal was altogether more satisfying than the first one. Primarily, because the intense heat was now on the decline, and the blinding-white light playing on the marble monument had been replaced by a warm, orange-cream glow which rested very easy on the eye. Seated on the green lawns, we again marvelled at the ageless quality of this structure. It hardly seemed the work of human hands. Which is probably what its architect, the cruel Shah Jahan wanted people to think and why he (apparently) had the hands chopped off all the principal sculptors, lest they duplicated their remarkable achievement.
We were so taken with the Taj that we hopped on the 6.45pm train back to New Delhi only just before it pulled out of the station. This was the famous ‘Taj Express’ – the nearest thing to luxury travel for ordinary passengers that India can provide. Not only was there no crowding and lots of room but it was very well air-conditioned and very clean. Best of all, in view of the aching calluses on our backsides, it had well-padded seats. There was even a drinks service available – a man moving up and down the train selling ice-cold bottles of some fizzy drink called ‘Tingler’.
Back in Delhi at 10pm, we returned to the Hotel Queen. Only to find it half demolished! It was in the process of being radically ‘redecorated’. We had to share the one room left vacant between the three of us. And as we moved in, the hammers and mallets went back to work outside. Would our room be still standing when we woke in the morning? Or would it be just a heap of rubble like the others, with us buried under it?
April 23rd
Most of this day was spent queuing up for cinema tickets. Delhi was going wild about the arrival of Shiva Ka Insaaf, India’s first 3-D movie, and we decided to see what all the fuss was about. It was a fateful decision. The size of the seething ti
cket queue outside the Sheila cinema was formidable. And the ticket window was regularly infiltrated by people who could not be bothered to queue up, or by touts buying blocks of tickets to sell on the streets at inflated prices. Every so often a policeman would appear with a heavy lathi club to drive these interlopers off, but even when beaten soundly over the head they got up smiling and began pushing in again.
I got in at the back of the queue at 10am. By the time I had reached the front, it was noon. And just as I was about to hand my money through the forest of other hands pressed in the ticket window, it mysteriously closed ‘for lunch’. Poor Megan, sizzling away on the white-hot pavements, nearly burst into tears at this point. To retrieve the situation, I tracked down the cinema manager and he promised to have three tickets waiting for us at 3pm.So we went away and came back again at 3pm, and asked for our tickets. But they weren’t there. The manger had forgotten. I ground my teeth, and prepared to rejoin the milling scrum of people ‘queuing’ round the ticket window. Suddenly, the situation was saved. A helpful Indian, seeing our predicament, jumped the entire queue for us and procured us three tickets. He did it simply out of the kindness of his heart. And he did it in two minutes flat.
The last event of the day was a musical entertainment outside the Metropolis Restaurant. A tabla-drum player, accompanied by a flautist and squeezebox player, was hammering out a frenetic, hypnotic rhythm in the road, with members of the large, pressing audience being invited to dance to the beat. One local boy promptly did such a good impersonation of a whirling dervish that some appreciative observer stuck a filthy two-rupee note in his open mouth. The clean-cut youth didn’t like this at all. He stopped dancing, spat the money out, wiped his mouth, and strode off looking mortified.
