Think pink, the grandeur of a bygone era. Think purdah screened palaces and hammam, turban-wearing guards on elephants and camels, stomping their anklets and bells through the streets. Think of the high caloric smell of thick pungent sauces wafting up from bronze bowls of tantalizing meats. Cold dry November winter, the romance of the Rajput kingdom still weave an obsession today.
Be it a well-worn traveller or a tour bus seasoned pro-colonial fan, you can always find your own Disneyland here in the capital of the Rajasthani state. We arrived on an overnight train travel after 16 hours crammed on single "beds" that resembled more a chopping table, but the fun of spending the night with a Sikh family of four, some loud Indian locals that I could not make out which states churned them out, and a wailing baby from the neighbouring berth, chai wallahs running up and down filling up the zoned out looking passengers like us - was in short, priceless.
The station was packed with so many people it was impossible to waddle my way to the toilet without crossing so many mix of travellers, me checking them out and vice versa. The cubicle I used, needless to say, was nothing but a hole filled with unimaginable and unmentionable filth, with little running water to sanitize one's hands. Ah, the highlight of train travels. Anyway, making our way out, I could see cows and goats waiting to snoop down on any unguarded piles of fruits and vegetables. Muscular lads pushed carts of luggages and boxes that were to make their way to their destinations overnight by train. Mothers tugged their children from wandering too far. The bookseller tried to get me to buy the "Top 100 Bollywood Scandals of 2009" by parting with my Rs150. I settled for the local Vogue which happened to kick some real ass!
As I daydreamed away wishing I was born with a headful of those lovely thick locks as all Indian ladies are blessed with, it was soon time to head to our platform. Two donkeys stood looking forlornly at me, I wished I had a fruit for them.
Fastforward, we arrived at Jaipur on a cool morning. Finishing my chai from a terracotta cup, I got my bags out and hopped off the train like an eager bunny, following hubby en route to our car to our stay for the next two nights: Sajjan Niwas, a heritage mansion, or more known as a haveli. Once a building commanding impressive wealth, what many of these haveli would have been sold off to entrepreneurs dabbling into offering tired travellers like us, a tiny slice of the bygone opulence, spiced with the very today's level of traditional Indian hospitality.
There were many photographs showing off past Maharaja on hunts and the very famous, Maharani Gayathri Devi (who unfortunately passed on a few months ago). I was not very impressed given they were mainly rich exhibitions of the well-offs amongst the tiny fraction of the nation, goring down on tigers and panthers with their hunting guns. Maybe I am just that tad against killing animals for fun. Let's not get down that pipe...
I sit here, on my little half an octagon of a sofa by the window, listening to the night's air of dogs barking gleefully into the late hours, music and bangings of drums emanating from near and far. It is election tomorrow and tonight of all nights, the last minute campaigning will drown out the prosperous shows of weddings. Yes, the night before, we slowly fell into our slumber through the consistent beats and hums of old Rajputi songs and firework's bums and bams, culminating to an orgasm of trumpets, blares, shouts and claps. Then it was silence. The city slept, we rested and the Pink City succumbed into the blue misty ebony air of the night.
Between the shoulders of 48 hours, we had a heady mix of the City Palace, Hawa Mahal, Tripoliya Bazaar, Jaigar Fort and the Amber Fort. Many things had to be missed such as the newly acquired (by the Taj Hotel Group) Lake Palace, and the numerous counts of eateries sending off a thick perfume of cumin, coriander and yoghurt to a hungry stomach. I had never seen such a place that felt so much propelled like a stone on a bow from thousands of years ago into our present day. Yet elephants decorated in a myriad of paints, camels bearing the many sizes of singing bells and dogs, cats, turbaned men in pink, electric blue, sea green and women, glorious in their Rajasthani saree glittering in the midday sun, all sharing a small road with beggars, peddlers, rickshaws and bicycles, non-functioning traffic policemen, buses and cars, dazzling shops boring all the best traditional souvenirs from drums to carpets and shawls, shoes with their curled up toes and fruits and bread in all shapes.
One rule: learn the art of walking away when you haggle and you will still be shock to learn that these smart peddlers can earn a keep / profit by giving you a face that you had shortened them. Sigh.
Next rule: Smiling (for me at least) was not a final "no" answer. Case in point, we walked out of our successful second conquer (only after saying we weren't out for shopping in the first shop and nailed a great Rs300 kill for a huge blue Rajasthani elephant motif drape that hugged a huge wall and a traditional emerald dress for myself, yay!) of two medium-sized table cloths of immeasurable beauty of "Rs320 final? No, oh look darling, there is another shop down there selling the same!" Rs300 (our target price) to a hovering next shop owner asking "Ma'm, now what about my shop?". Sometimes it is no fun to be perceived as a walking ATM.
Another rule: Never let them intimidate you into thinking you knew nothing about "quality". Of course you already know that but I am going to share anyway. We spotted a stunning carpet woven from old heirloom saree which we knew would still give a profit at Rs1500, and these guys were trying to convince us that we were getting a steal with their Rs3600. Much loud voices (I suspected the louder they got, the more they truly believed that they could no. 1 pressured me, and no.2 convinced me that they were telling the truth?) later, we walked out and only 3 paces away, the price came tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty to Rs2000 ("Final Ma'm! My best price!) and 2 more paces, more disapproval nods from me to hubby, and trying to keep myself from bursting out laughing from this fun charade, I tried my best to look utterly displeased - Rs1600. Jackpot.
Final rule: Have fun and do something outrageous. We spent 10 mins and Rs20 to pose for an old German make of a camera (think the silent movies days) for our couple shot. We spoke to an amazing friendly photographer who inherited that machine from his grandfather and it was again, eye opening to see how "shutter speed", "aperture", and "zoom" took on a new description when you operate in the world of non-DSLR or heck, even the modern SLRs. We loved our shot and it was exactly what we both wanted, a traditional photograph of us both but done back in the days of our grandparents. Of course the development phase seeing the guy threw that piece of paper which was supposed to be our photograph into a small bucket of liquid in the style of a waving arm shooting up in the air like a dancing puppet, again, funny, strange and priceless.
I could go on and on but I will only say one thing. I had never got that much "attention" from any other places than Jaipur. Initially I thought it was a liquid dream of serene flowing energy in an exotic city. I was wrong, that was probably just the post effect of 16 hours on a train berth shared with snoring aunties.
Yes, many greeted me with Japanese sayings. I nodded, and then a thousand men and women from nowhere appeared all around me to haggle, sell, provoke, beg. India is a generous lady. You get as much as you give in. Or as little. What I am coming around in my own time to learn is that India is a land of anything. She has the capability to create anything that you can fathom. There is always a way.
Jaipur had me under her spell. It is hard to not like this place although it is not always easy to get acquainted. I guess she picks and chooses, tests and embraces. Maybe Jaipur is not fast to make friends but once you are hers, it's never simple to let go.
I would ask of anyone with the means to see India beyond the richness of a comfortably designed world from the Oberoi, Grand Hyatt and Taj. By all means, these artificially inseminated spin-offs of India's wealth and history of living it up to the hilt could come in useful when you hit your point of saturation, it is still essential to visit the harsher side of India. Then when you are blessed to sit somewhere in between when everything melts in perfectly like a cup of decadent masala chai, you know then, that you have finally found your own piece of that perfect India.
As we leave Jaipur tomorrow into the deserts, I may think that I could be getting closer to that somewhere in the middle of nowhere of perfect love. Although I feel that I am moving further away from who I was, I think again mischievously that whoever I may be, or moving towards, that I think I am perfectly again, where I am supposed to be. So many times I had been blessed in that way, and that my friends, is a marvelous way to go to bed.
Lots of love, from now, on a warm dancing Jaipur night.
