The long winding road finally took a rest in the late hours of the day at Bikaner, which became our resting point for the next two nights at a small haveli-like dwelling close to the Laxmi Niwas Palace. The town itself didn't hold much attractive allure saved the Junagarh Fort. At this point in our travels, perhaps I was becoming a bit accepting of the usual mad house of cows and dogs populating main small bumpy roads, sharing the day's passing with its human inhabitants and shouting wallah, blasting horns from trucks bringing goods across the border lines. Also, I was near my saturation and toleration points for forts, particularly dilapidated and uncared for forts bearing significant historic value.
So to be honest, I wasn't an eager bunny to jump on the drive to the fort. But, now I had to vouch that the traditional tribal dances and the sandstone buildings were hypnotic, the food was very good, the rest was much desired, Junagarh Fort restored my confidence in the belief within this continent that there was something worth pursuing for, whether from a tradition, lineage, history or future learning point of view, the royal family of Bikaner deserved credit and acknowledgement for their contribution and incessant work to ensure that what started as a spin-off from the Jodhpur empire that rose to become one of the most pivotal influence amongst the Rajasthani Maharaja Clan's collaboration with the British Empire during World War I (in which His Highness Maharaja Ganga Singh's regiment fought on Western Front) continued to provide as a source of learning for all, near and wide.
Personally I found his armoury collection impressive and the preservation of the palace's quarters that had been entrusted to the Heritage Trust well taken care of. The guides were properly trained to answer a lot of questions and some acted from their own discretion in taking us on a private peek into some stunning rooms, including the Maharani's sleeping and pooja room, adjacent to the bursting zenana and dancing courtyard. Inside, a bounty of miniature carving done hundreds of years ago by the Muslim carvers of the Usta clan still shone bright and colourful today as we stood in corridors of blue, orange, green and white with the military barracks in the far horizon, separated by a cooling English garden for the visual delight of the Maharani, in today's time, two lucky travellers.
Rajasthan is famous for many things, and one of the most desired amalgamation of the Mughal and Rajput cultures is miniature paintings. Highly detailed and poetic, I confessed I had spent many hours with passionate artists from the Brahmin caste in our next destination, Jaisalmer, discussing the finer points and feasting my eyes on their work and collection (and hubby, if you are reading this, I love you for all the pieces we got! Home will never be the same again!). Themes varied but could stretch from the Raas-lila of Lord Khrisna, British period to popular Rajasthani-styled of Dhola-Maroo and animals such as magical birds. My personal enjoyment is based on the fine strokes equivalent to the single hair of a squirrel's tail, formed in symmetrical forms out of the artist's minute brush slowly revealing the tones and shapes of a Sufi portrait or hunting scenes from the desert. Which leads me to the wonderland of the Great Thar Desert - Jaisalmer.
Our drive took five hours from Bikaner as we reached our desert base in Khuri. The night was balmy and we ushered into the night with some refreshments while enjoying sufi hymns sung by the immensely talented villagers. Sitting on mats and balancing our tea and snacks on delicate low tables, our camels bellowed in the darkness outside where the sand was beyond the reach of our lights. The night out on our first camp was about to begin soon after a quick dinner. We had done some late afternoon camel treks in Bikaner and the sandy plains nearby our base, but nothing could come close to our excitement despite our exhaustion from the long travels that we would (finally!) be making a move out in the darkness on a cart and our guide. The moon was only a third quarter of its potential but the night was still and we adjusted to the dark. Not much could be seen compared to the mice, deers, cows and foxes during the daytime. But our ears sharpened by the distant howls of village dogs and rolling grass balls and the odd fart and belch from our camel. That night was short but simple, we built a fire and lazed away into our sleep.
Next morning, after a bare breakfast we headed out with our guides from a nearby village for another longer trek deeper into Khuri. One of the guides who spoke excellent English despite not receiving any education and was illiterate, Devraji Singh from the Dhoba district delighted us with his desert survival skills (we even stole a few tips on cooking while he and his mates made lunch underneath a giant Neem tree) and shared tea and stories. On our way, we passed by his village. My first thought was that these people lived in a completely different type of poverty - their village looked like a drawing from a medieval history book. Many children ran out to greet us in their broken tout lines for Rupee, chocolate or pens. They were extremely aggressive, a worrying sign that the act to get them to start going back to school since five years ago wasn't really working effectively. We used to be able to visit a lot more of such villages but past tourists had (out of compassion given the benefit of the doubt) handed out many provisions and spoilt the natural way of life - helping around the house and going to school - the children learned that it was "easier" to just go where the peculiar looking tourists were and they would "get presents". To be fair, Devraji shared too that the teachers at the schools nearby were ill equipped and sometimes missed attendance more than their students. It was a gloomy growth of a road that just would only contribute to the vicious cycle of poverty here. Yet, I felt that these people reacted perhaps differently to the ideals of our comfortable world; such as hope and frustration, amazement and wonder, determination and belief, very differently from the many poor migrants I saw in Delhi. Each suffered the burden of keeping mouths fed and land watered, homes intact and boundaries protected. It probably didn't matter if you lived on a parched land that had seen little water for the past two years and worried about saving up during the ferocious summer, or pitched a tent on a dusty down town dirty roundabout island, drinking out of tepid water drains. These people showed a kind of tenacity that exuded a sense of direction of where they should be heading at the beginning of the day and at the end of it.
Just like the cows here in the desert knew when and where to head home, Devraji took us onto a different route that snaked through the sandy dunes dotted by thick thorny bushes and the odd rubble patch. My camel, Disco, danced pretty well amongst the pack. I took to learning the ropes literally and drove my camel, trying my best to steer away from the trees that looked suspiciously close to what the locals called "desert beans" (I've learned that at times, at odd, the best reply you get would be a "desert" in front of anything. For example, a "desert fox", a "desert deer", a "desert people"... you get the idea. Extremely frustrating as I was no Darwin) that bore long stringy pine needles of yummy green nutrition that Disco seemed to favour. He was cheeky, I had learned to nudged him to get him to run a bit and after a few miserable attempts at speed, he slowed and edged towards his breakfast again. I found the trick (much later after lunch) was to change our route's direction to get Disco into thinking that we were heading back home and that's when he charged up the dunes.
We stopped by a deserted mudhouse, popularly built in the desert for its resilience against such harsh environment, to draw water from a salty well. A village boy came by with a baby goat that was barely a day old. It had wandered off and lost its mum. I held it in my arms for a while and pondered on the hard truth of life here. The locals accepted it as it was but I, to be honest, was still struggling. I could not wrap my head around the fact that the kid could had been attacked by desert foxes yet it would be completely "the way of life here", if it survived without its mother's milk, it would had to learn to survive purely by instinct.
I was dumbfounded.
As vultures circled above us, we moved on towards the dying rays of the day. The temperature plummeted drastically as we built camp. That night, we ate another simple vegetarian dinner, peppered by sand from the Great Thar. Devraji scared me with lots of stories of sati practice, djinn and old tribal tradition that modern day Hinduism existed harmoniously along in a mish mash of spells, festivals, and clan customs. That night we slept under a million stars as the shy moon hid away late into the night. I had to get up in the middle of the darkness to head down to the dunes for a quick relief, I had never been that scared before - not because of the al fresco bathroom experience, but of desert djinns carrying me away into the night and never letting me to return!
The final day we made our way back and I was thrilled with my experience, although (as it had been happening every time this come up: good byes) I felt a mix of sadness and disbelief that I may never return or see Devraji again. His sun ravaged skin, bright Rajasthani flower earrings on both sides, his proud warrior moustache that he twitched pointedly every time I asked him to pose for me, how he shared that God took his first three sons away at a young age only to "return" them to him with another three sons, how the desert gypsies were the hardiest people here (a pregnant gypsy woman delivered one night in his village, only to continue the long walk out into the desert the next morning, stories of their children sleeping out on the sandy dunes in winter were not unheard of), and of his aspirations to start his own camel trekking business one day. He was so much younger than his appearance. I felt again a deep sense of regret that he didn't have the privilege of education as he parroted so many things and languages from interacting with travellers. I think my guilt will always be here, but I also realised that what people like Devraji didn't need was my empathy. They need a growing demand for camel treks, they need work, they need empowerment. They didn't need handouts.
Just as how the saying went "dialects, cuisine, water, and turbans in Rajasthan change every twelve miles" I deemed that Devraji and the Dhoba district people may hold up different traditions and survival skills from another village many a gust of wind away, but as our drive coursed through the long straight road peppered by mirage rising in an even wave, I think I may had drifted away into the egg shell beige of the sand, rocks, and dried up trees that kept many secrets that I probably would not understand or know in my lifetime. But I saw with my own eyes, beautiful bright ghagra-odhnis worn by the women added a stunning punctuation to the landscape as the different turban colours bobbed up and down the roads as men headed out their business, told by the colour selection such as pink for marriage, yellow for a spring that was to come, red for shepherding.
As we relaxed on our roof top haveli stay for the night in front of the Jaisalmer Fort, cooling down from a day's fulfilment of art appreciation and dodging aggressive touts, I tried to put together a hazy puzzle of our learnings out in the desert at Khuri to now, the biggest but perhaps also the most threatened inhabited fort in the world. Maybe India had made me a melodrama but I could not help but think about the women in their odhani and silver jewellery. Not all looked like what you see on glossy travel books on this region. Many wore what I would say was their utility odhani, layered by dust compiled from a hard laborious exertion of collection wood, chopping trees, digging out sand pits and watering their plots. Many had children helping, with their offspring running around in baggy pre-loved clothes, and goats and donkeys herding towards salty water holes. It never ceased to amaze me that they kept to their traditional roles and also earned a living outside with full purdah-like ensemble. Essentially, the women here, just like many elsewhere in India, were working two full time jobs, although many were under appreciated for their role as mother and wife at home and many men didn't recognise it as a legitimate job. Yes, the men shared the same hot sun boring down on their backs as they worked in the stone quarry, but as the men cut, the women had to walk with small dish pots carrying those heavy ingots exchangeable for a meagre return, with only a small kneaded cloth to cushion her head. Think this, multiply by sunrise to sunset, then extrapolate to months and years. Think this and think that the women actually would be lucky to get to earn, although at half what a man would receive. Life still goes on here, I suppose, despite whatever my own misgivings on the lack of fusing the duality of a woman and a man's role in such environments.
The colourful shawl also demarcated the married and not. Hence, a married woman could only reveal her face to her husband. Even though it was less severe compared to Islamic extremist-driven countries, these women still had to carry about their hard labour outside of their house with the shawl drawn over their faces. Initially I thought it was for sun protection, but everywhere I looked, many covered and saw their daily worlds in hues of shocking pink, electric blue, spinach green and whatever colour may fall on their chosen garment of the day. It never was a pain for them. It was just again, how it had been for their grandmothers and mothers, and it would be for their daughters and nieces.
From Jaipur to Bikaner and now Jaisalmer, Rajasthan continued to shock and amuse, titillate and drown you in a spellbinding journey into what rocks the core of a human, delights the heart and toughens the soul. As we made our way to the imposing Meherangarh Fort of Jodhpur, I rest to continue another day of this amazing discovery of life and in a mysterious way at times, my own strengths and weaknesses.
