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Published: March 7th 2017
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As we were in Jaipur for four nights this blog will only deal with some of the highlights as there were too many experiences to describe adequately. Jaipur is known as the Pink City. This began in 1876 when Maharaja Ram Singh decreed that the old city be painted pink, a colour of welcome for the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). Today the pink is more of a terracotta colour. Is this where the saying 'paint the town red' came from but the morning after it didn't live up to expectations and was just pink.
North of the city is the original city of Amer and on the way there we saw milk wallahs, riding motorbikes with milk cans perched on the sides. Umesh, our guide said they were the middle men and that all the milk would be sold by 11.00am. Unpasteurised milk is much cheaper to buy so people boil it at home. We also saw day labourers in one street but these were different in that the men were cooks who were available for hire to cook for family functions. Later we saw another group who were available for hire as cleaners or gardeners. Men
being shaved by the roadside barely draws our attention now.
Amer fort/ palace is impressive. It dominates a hill and commands a strong defensive position from any marauders. We decided to walk up to the palace rather than take an elephant ride but when we entered through the Moon Gate into an enormous parade ground we saw the elephants richly caparisoned and painted with floral designs bringing the arriving tourists from down below.
The former Maharajah’s apartments in the palace are reached via the ornately decorated Ganesh Gate. The ornate paintings on the gate are actually inlaid jasper, malachite and cornelian. Through the gate is the Jai Mandir, a hall distinguished by its inlaid panels and multi-mirrored ceiling. The crystalline effect is stunning if a little garish but when it is remembered that these mirrors reflected the light of candles on the floor its true effect can be appreciated. The mirrors are concave in shape and backed with mica to enhance the effect.
After lunch we caught a rickshaw to explore the City Palace and museum. The highlight was the main hall where the ruler received important people. The walls were adorned with portraits of successive rulers
and Umesh explained a little about each one and their contribution to Jaipur. One interesting ruler was the painting of Sawei Madho Singh I, who was said to two metres tall and weighed 250Kg. Later we saw some of his clothing. You could make a circus tent from it- well almost. Another interesting feature in the Diwan-I-Am were two large silver jars, the largest of their type in the world. One of the maharajahs was visiting London and wanted to take these two jars filled with drinking water from the source of the Ganges. They were made from 14,000 silver coins and weighed 340 kilograms and took two years to make. If you are going to show the British how important you are then bring your own water. Top that!
From the palace we walked to the amazing Jantar Mantar, an astronomical and astrological observatory built by Jai Singh in 1728. This apparently strange collection of sculptures was designed to measure the heavens. The observatory included two sundials one with a degree of accuracy to 20 seconds and the other to 2 seconds. The latter is the largest sundial in the world. Each day the trustees put up the
adjustments (+ or-) that need to be made to the time registered by the sundial to get the correct time. It is spot on.
Just as we were ready to depart the heavens opened up with hail and thunder so we caught a rickshaw. Umesh directed the driver to take us down back alleys so we could see ‘true India’ and while a definition of true India would prove somewhat problematic we certainly saw much to open our eyes. With the gutters- what gutters- running and making the accumulated rubbish stink even more we wended our way down alleys where tailors were at work in small shops but the biggest surprise was to see the number of artists carving marble statues and garden ornaments. No face masks, no ear muffs just a cloud of fine marble dust and the whirring of power tools.
Every guide seems to be a philosopher and we learn a little bit more from each. Umesh taught us that Ganesh was the god of five essential life goals- health, money, love, children and friends. A person needs nothing more. Pretty hard to argue with that.
We discussed with Umesh the caste system which
while he acknowledged was illegal was still in play particularly in the country. He told us he belongs to a sub group of the Brahmin caste. One of his sons fell in love with a girl from one of the lowest castes and Umesh told him he could marry for love but if he did his family would disown him. He suggested to his son to see her twice a week, once a week, once every two weeks, thus distancing himself until the relationship was over. The son eventually married a girl of his parents choosing and has been married for ten years. We were somewhat surprised by this.
After lunch we headed to Elephantiasic. We were a little dubious about this experience but as it turned out it was a real highlight. We were first introduced to Laxmi, a 27 year old female elephant. The head handler showed us how to pat the elephant and the importance of making eye contact. Then we were taught how to combine dried cornstalks and Lucerne into bite sized mouthfuls and call out ‘lei’ which was a signal to her to reach out with her trunk to grab the food. We were
to learn that Indian elephants have distinctive skin markings and each elephant has a distinguishing ear shape and pattern. All the elephants were rescued from circuses so there is no though of returning them to the wild. We were able to decorate the side of Laxmi with a traditional pattern. Decorating elephants is peculiar to Rajasthan. Next we gave her a long drink (she can take in 4 litres of water each time in her trunk) and then washed her removing the wonderful pattern from her flanks. Our artistry lasted all of 15 minutes. She took great delight in filling her trunk with water and then spraying it all over her sides and back and us. We also learnt that soon elephants will not be used at Amer Fort as the wooden box sits on the ribs of ribs of the elephant an is very painful.
The next day I went for a walk after breakfast and in a side street saw an elderly man exit a gate from a rather clean compound carrying a rubbish bin which he proceeded to empty into the street. It sort of gave new meaning to the phrase, ‘not in my backyard’.
Rakesh picked us up at 11.30 and drove us into the old city. There was the usual hustle and bustle but this time we noticed many teenagers in school uniforms in the street. It turned out they had all been sitting exams this morning and were certainly acting as in a happy mood. In telling Rakesh of my walk yesterday I mentioned how I had seen Lassi Wallahs. He promptly found a wallah and bought us a drink of lassi each. It came in clay pots which he informed us are disposable. It’s a curd based drink and tasted really good.
One sight that we need Rakesh to interpret was pushcarts loaded with rolls of coiled rope. He explained that poorer people use the rope to ‘restring’ their beds. We then walked in the old city through Chandpol Bazaar to sightsee and shop on the way to our hotel. Woolworths and Coles will never make inroads into this part of the world as it is obvious people prefer to shop where they know exactly which part of the bazaar sells which items. Strolling along the narrow elevated footpath (you can’t possibly walk fast) we took in the smells, the brightly coloured dyes, the huge variety of nuts, lentils, vegetables and a few items we were clueless about.
Agra and the Taj Mahal is our next stop.
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