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Published: January 17th 2006
We are currently in Bundi. This is in a little-known corner of Rajasthan. From Udaipur, we travelled northwest through the abandoned fort at Chittogarh and many small towns and narrow roads to Bundi.
Chittorgarh was an unexpected stop. As it was on our way, our driver mentioned we should stop at Chittor is supposedly the best fort in Rajasthan - but aren't they all "the best fort in Rajasthan"? Chittorgarh was the Mewar capitol before the move to Udaipur. The city was sacked by Akbar (Mughal) at last in the 17th century, and the buildings destroyed. The way they do it here, the Rajputs, is that when besieged and it is not likely that they can win the battle, all of the women put on their wedding saris, put their handprints on the wall, and run into the fire in a mass "sati" called a jauhar. They burn themselves to death. Then, their men don orange turbans and charge out of the fort. In that last sacking, something like 16000 Rajput warriors died and 64000 women. At any rate, many buildings remain in ruins. The fort took us an hour to explore, climbing up staircases to rooms where the floors had fallen through and mounting over the walls that formerly separated rooms.
Then we continued on to the Tower of Victory. The Tower of Victory was erected by some maharajah apparently after a time that they won a battle. The tower is many stories high and carved inside and out with images of dancing girls, elephants, gods, and men. The staircases alternate from outside to tiny dark inner staircases, til you reach the top.
Nearby, there is a temple to Shiva and a staircase down to a sacred spring, where the water pours out of a cow's mouth.
Further down the road, you can visit more abandoned palaces, and the poorly restored "Padmini Palace". Padmini was a beautiful Rajput princess who lived in Chittorgarh. The Mughal emperor Alauddin had heard of her beauty and demanded to meet her. Finally, the Rajputs agreed that he could see her - he sat in her castle and saw her image reflected in a pool as she sat in a pavillion in th emiddle of the pool. Struck by her beauty, he demanded her hand in marriage. But the Rajputs declined. So, he took her husband hostage and kept him in his camp, demanding Padmini in return. Padmini, still safe in the fort, came up with a clever plan. As all Rajput women travelled in covered palanquins (keeping
purdah - no man but their husband may see them - even today, some women wear their saris over their face)...she put her four bravest warriors in the palanquin and sent the procession out of the castle. Once the palanquin reached the sultan's camp, the warriors jumped out. Somehow they must not have succeeded however because in the end, Padmini ends up burning herself along with the other wives as again, the Rajputs stormed out of the castle gates to die. At any rate, we were in this palace and I wandered around to the back where a wizened old man in a turban grabbed my hand and pulled me around "showing me the castle" and telling me this same story in three or four English words. He then proceeded to try to touch my thigh, at which I wrenched away from him and told him he was a very bad man. There's more to this story but I don't want to get into it now. Alli & I finally got away from the dirty old man.
Bundi - was advertised as a bucolic quiet town with a brilliant fort and few tourists. Here's how it went.
It took another 5 hours to reach Bundi. When we got there, it was an industrial wasteland. Smokestacks spewed black smoke. We choked on the sulfuric air. The surrounding land had turned to desert and I looked around to see if I could see any 2-headed oxen. We had to stop to ask directions and I was ready to cry - my driver kept insisting we were in Bundi and I couldn't believe this was Bundi. It couldn't be this blackened, ruined, polluted area. Around the mountain we drove and then it appeared, a walled town with a huge fort on a hill, and the industrial park out of sight. But the poison air is still in evidence as a grey haze across the sky.
It was the birthday of Guru Govind Singh and the town was celebrating. As a result, our car couldn't drive the narrow one-lane streets into town. It would have been lovely to attend the festival, but as we were stuck in our car, it seemed that the decision to come to Bundi was ill-fated.
However, when we finally reached Kasera Paradise, the night began to look up. The room was bright and clean, with paintings of elephants and ladies on the walls. The owner's wife greeted us and told us how she had been inspired by female travellers to learn more English and become more confident and this is why she is running the business alongside her husband. The hotel is an old haveli, up a narrow lane butting up against the palace itself. The owner's two servants seem to live in the haveli too, and they also make all the food.
We bid our driver a good night and went to sleep on the hard beds, barely an inch of padding between us and the wood. I cried because I became so homesick. India has been wonderful, but it has also been very tough. Every hotel is a tossup = not knowing if the lights will work (usually some of the time), if the shower will be hot and plentiful (sometimes), and if the beds will be hard (always). Outside, the loud beeps as rickshaws nad motorcycles whip past one's ankles makes it difficult to enjoy walking in town. And even in the countryside, the trash and the crap (literally) everywhere means you have to look where you step and never really let down your guard. Also, you get sick of Indian food after two weeks of it. So, it is hard sometimes even with all the wonderful stuff and last night, I just wanted to be home with our friends, in a place I understood. I cried a little bit.
But every day is a new day and brings new wonders. We walked up to the palace, which really does look like it was built by goblins as Kipling said. The palace is completely rundown, though the aging bachelor of a Maharaja still lives in it. Some sections have beautiful paintings on the walls, but most of it is crumbling, dusty, ruined. If you walk a long ways on a broken stone road, you will come to Taragarh (Star Fort). You duck through a narrow gate-within-a-gate and you are within its walls. A banyan tree grows high and wide above the path, inhabited by a kingdom of monkeys. Rhesus monkeys with the red asses swing lazily on the vines that hang from the trees branches, chewing on leaves while they stare at us, the intruders. The monkeys drink out of the brackish water in the fort's stepwells, and they groom themselves in its courtyards. This fort belongs to them now and is no longer a human dwelling.
Along with an English family that appeared on the path, we explored the fort. There was no path or arrangement to this - it was a matter of finding broken stairs and seeing where they went, running across the ramparts, staying close to the edge where floors had fallen through. There were paintings here too, and all of the paintings of kings had been burned off, defaced, and written on.
In my fantasy, the old bachelor Maharaja is a madman, and is now kept in his part of the falling-down palace as a near prisoner. Or perhaps, he was a dracula, feeding on the local people from his palace above the city and now that he has become old and weak, the people deface his palace and his memory. So many things you can imagine from these stone ramparts, with trees bursting through courtyards, and monkeys running along the walls...looking down at another broken palace.
After the palace, we stopped at Katkoun Haveli for lunch, the only restaurant in town that was serving. Every traveller seemed to show up there. The food did take a long time - about 2 hours - but it was quality and made fresh. I could hear them chopping the tomatos and garlic.
Then we walked into the town, through the busy bazaar that was much larger than I imagined. We ran into a "lecturer" - apparently of PE - and his friend the Hindi lecturer - who could barely speak a word of English. They insisted on escorting us to Raniji-ki-Baori, one of the most beautiful stepwells in India. Unfortunately it is blocked off and you can't really get a look at it. Bundi has 56 stepwells, and some have just become garbage pits. This one is lovely but surrounded by a busy, dusty bazaar and at this point, the men were pressng their advantage, insisting that we join them for dinner. It was near impossible to decline, so we agreed and then got away as quickly as possible.
We also saw a large lake, and walked through the outskirts of town to the tune of "hello hello hello" as every child tried out his English and ran to us to shake our hands and ask for a pen. Some kids up on a hilltop house were yelling and jumping up and down - "hello". And every person that drove by or sat in his store entryway would say "hello". It's rather like being a movie star. My mouth is tired of saying "hello" and "namaste" but I always respond because I want to be friendly and keep the people here friendly.
There is only one person here that gave me a truly bad feeling. It is the auto-rickshaw driver that tried to hit us. The first time, he tried to hit us from behind, so we assumed it must have been a mistake. The second time, he came right at me, laughing loudly and hysterically, and came within inches of me before turning his rickshaw. I admit, I finally got mad and turned around and gave him the finger. Not that he could see, as rickshaws do not have a back window.
Next is Rathambore National Park, for tigers, then Jaipur then Agra. Finally Delhi - and then we will have completed the Golden Triangle and so much more.
Also, this is very sad, but Alli does not like India very much at all. She's hanging on by a thread, sustained only by the fact that I am enjoying myself.
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Mom
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Missing you
It sounds so exotic but scary so read your adventures and misadventures. I am sure that the rest of the trip will be much better than Bundi. Love both of you and can't wait to hear more when you are home.