The happy brothers

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An eight hour non-airconditioned bus journey brought us to Jodhpur via a succession of look-alike chaotic towns and flat scrublands with very little of interest to see. It has been very hot here in Rajasthan with daily temperatures in the high thirties so the bus journeys are exhausting but it has to be said still better than getting up for work on a rainy April morning in Ireland!

Jodhpur should be labelled the friendly city, such was the welcome we got from its inhabitants. Okay the vast majority of them are little children who endlessly delight in the standard questions, "What is your name and from which country do you come"? We have learned that in bigger cities this is said as a prelude to asking you to visit a shop by the grown ups. Such practices were far less common in Jodhpur.

As we approached our hostel in a narrow twisting street, we passed a workshop and a smiling man looked up as we passed and said "Welcome to Jodhpur" - I tensed myself for the payoff but there was none. A genuine welcome such as we had not experienced in Jaipur. Later we stopped to talk to them and discovered they are brothers working in a space not much bigger than a small office in which there are two large lathes and a cutting machine.

They told us, all the while smiling, that the business had been started by their father who had managed to save enough money from his small metalwork business to buy a lathe on which they still worked today. As they expanded his business they were able to buy two more machines. I commented on how late they were working (it was 21.30 on a Saturday night) and they cheerfully told us they would not finish until 23.00. Their father would work until 2 a.m. in the old days. They produced a small album and showed us a photo of a family group in that same workshop many years before. The two brothers, smiling even then, could have been no more than eight and ten and they pointed out the other members of their family including another brother who ran the guesthouse above the shop and of course their entrepreneur father who had started it all.

The rest of the album had photos of some of the machines they had made some readily identifiable and some more specialist engineering parts but all made with apparent incredible skill and precision. The two brothers had real pride in their work, their family and their city. I felt small, mean and cynical in their presence. I sought them out eagerly each time we passed, anxious to say hello and pass the time of day.

The fort at Jodhpur is awe-inspiring and the delightful children calling hello in the street a real tonic for a jaded traveller but the happy brothers at work in their machine shop deep in the old city waylaying the unsuspecting like us with their charm, good humour and humanity will live with me long after all else has faded. P.

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Comments

[Niamh O Brien]

Oh so Jealous!!!
Hi Guys, Hope both of you are well. Sounds like ye are having a great time. Really enjoyed reading the blogs (I'll have to learn Italian to keep up with ye!!) so keep them coming. Take care!!!