Sutti and sweep in Jodhpur

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After a modest but wholesome breakfast of parantha, curd and pickles we headed directly to the famous Meherangarh fort, an imposing edifice on the city skyline. Feral dogs, which seem as commonplaceas stray cows in this country, bask in the sunshine on the rugged red sandstone near the Jaswant Thada white marble memorial to Jaswant Singh II where we make a brief stop.



The current Maharaja Gaj Singh II, whose investiture at the premature of 4 is well documented, has taken his role as custodian seriously and the result is a well restored complex of Chowks (squares), courtyards and Mahals (palaces,) which function as a comprehensive museum of royal artifacts from palanquins, howdahs, armour, swords and daggers, to cribs, clothing and paintings. Walking through the labyrinth of corridors, staircases and arched doorways yielding surprise vistas through pillared pavilions and across courtyards, one can imagine how women cloistered in the Zenana (Queen’s apartments) never failed to miss a beat where court proceedings were concerned. Unthinkable however, is the custom of Sutti, whereby Maharanis and concubines self-immolated on their husband’s funeral pyre, after leaving their handprint in stone at the city gate.



Rob delighted in the towering and once heavily fortified ramparts and gateways designed on right-angles to foil an elephant charge. This is an incredible feat of mediaeval engineering. The audioguide, spoken in the Queen’s English, taught us as much about the history and traditions of the Rathore clan as it did about the fort itself.



Having taken close to 3 hours to complete all 33 stations on the information trail, it was high time to relieve Govind of his weary wait in the hot dusty car park. We resolved to return to view the Chokelao Bagh (C18th walled garden) in the morning.



We descended to the hubbub of Sardar Marketplace, and feasted on fresh fried samosa from Shai. Their kitchen resembled a military installation and these melt-in the mouth savouries flew off the stall in vast volumes every minute. Finally, a foodstall where Canute-like dustsweepers were not furiously moving debris from one location to another; if it’s not watching cricket, sweeping must be the national pastime.



Thus suitably fortified for the onslaught of requests to “visit my shop”, we dived into the jostling throng of the back-alleys and haggled with varying degrees of success over myriad trinkets and textiles. Rob thinks he has found the universal bazaar formula: halve it and halve it again 😉 Unfortunately that rule of thumb doesn’t apply to MV spices, whose recommendation by Lonely Planet seems to have resulted in fixed price fleecing, but we purchased cold remedies, curry powders and masala cha spices all the same.

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