Jaisalmer - the Golden City (31 Dec 2015)

Dedicated to my grandsons Ashwin, Rishi and Rohan

RAJASTHAN CALLING  -  Part 7

Jaisalmer - the Golden City (31 Dec 2015)

Every night, after dinner we chalked out the next day’s plan before retiring to our respective rooms. But after a hectic camel ride, a long sand dune walk, and a swerve-packed drive back to hotel through the sand, everyone was dead tired and swore, ‘we won’t get up before 9 am, come what may’. And so we did.

Varun Bajaj, Poonam and their cute little daughter Avani (of B-202) had independently planned a trip to Rajasthan with a different itinerary. Their first day in Rajasthan was Jaisalmer, coinciding with our penultimate day. That was the only day the three Srishti families would be together. So Gungun and Mannu insisted we do the outing together. Accordingly, we met them at the Jaisalmer fort at 10 in the morning.

In the other cities that we visited, a portion of each fort is occupied by the the descendants of the erstwhile Royal family. But in the Lalgarh Fort in Jaisalmer, about 5000 families reside - the common man variety. Intricate art work is the highlight in all the monuments - even in the present day constructions. The Guide showed us one that was constructed as late as 1993 - but in the same century-old style. The tour of this fort in itself took us more than two hours. 

We were then shown Salam Singh’s haveli that was famous for a wrong reason. Salam Singh was notorious for the atrocities he committed with ladies in the14th century. Earlier, we had gone to a far off village which lay abandoned since his time. Around 84 Brahmin families inhabited the village leading a peaceful life. One day Salam Singh saw one young daughter in her teens visiting the nearby temple. He told her Brahmin father that he would like to marry her when she came of age. The father, mortally afraid of telling a direct ‘No’ to this criminal, conveyed to him he would consult his Brahmin community for this out-of-caste marriage and let him know the next day. That very night all the villagers assembled together, decided and deserted the village en masse. To this day all these houses lay barren, with a temple nearby. This has been the spot for several Bollywood shootings, like Sarfarosh.

The Guide then took us to a popular shop that ran by the name, “National Handloom…” We were given to understand it was a Government undertaking (only to be corrected later by a Government-run shopkeeper in Jaipur that it was not). They sold quilts, Rajasthani dress material, sarees, etc. The ladies ransacked the shop before picking up some items. Despite their best efforts they could not take the figure to Rs 10000/- which qualified them to get the goods despatched to Bangalore free of cost. They missed the target by a narrow margin.

It was now time for lunch. We were told that Desert Bite served good food. As usual it was crowded, but after a while, when a few seats became vacant, the hotel staff re-arranged the tables for the gang to sit together. A sumptuous lunch in the form of Lachha parota, Alu parota, Gobi parota, and matching vegetables followed. 

We drove from there to the lake - Tilon ki Pol, gateway to Gadhisar Lake. Before we could get close to the lake area, the ladies spotted on the sides leading to the lake several ladies in native Rajasthani dress getting photographed. Yes, one could adorn a Rajasthani attire on hire and the shopkeeper would take snaps and deliver within an hour. The ladies and the kids preferred that option to the lake. They were busy the next hour getting dressed and photographed, asking me, ‘Uncle, please take care of our belongings’.

I was looking for some space to sit with bags hanging all over. A boy who was selling wheat dough balls to feed fish in the lake (Rs 10/- per ball), saw my plight, and told me, “Uncle, you please sit down here, I will sell standing.” He was Swaroop, attired in school uniform, studying in 7th standard. His father ran auto rickshaw. “So how many rupees do you take back home?”  “About 300 to Rs 500/-uncle, But today I have sold only for about Rs150/- so far.” There was his friend at ten feet away, also selling the same product. So there was a competition going on between them, fortunately a healthy one. In one instance, Swaroop marketed the product and convinced the buyer. By the time the customer made up his mind, he was already close to the other boy, and other boy promptly sold one. Swaroop was literally in tears, that he did the marketing and his friend bagged the order. The other boy consoled him. But fortunately for Swaroop, minutes later a lady came by and gave him a fifty-rupee note and asked him for dough balls. He gave her just three and looked at her, and she said okay. After she left, I asked him why he didn’t give her five. He said that she was his Chachi. Apparently she had bought it just to encourage Swaroop. 

I asked him what he wanted to become when he grew up. “Uncle, our Pradhan Mantri Shri Modi ji was selling chai in the railway station. So I will not give up hopes easily. But I have not yet made up my mind what I want to become in life.”  As I left the place, I gave him a twenty-rupee note and asked him to keep it, but he insisted I take the dough balls in return. “You feed them to the fish,” I said and joined the group.

Now it was time to catch the evening train. We said good bye to the Bajajs. Avani was very sad to bid farewell to her didis. She clung to them. After thanking profusely our driver Vishnu and tipping him suitably at the station, we got into the train for Jaipur. At midnight a hullabaloo with lights switched on woke us up. We heard a countdown, “7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” and then a loud “Happy New Year”. Yes, the year 2016 had dawned and everyone in the adjoining cubicle, probably traveling as a group, was hugging and wishing one another. We too didn’t want to lag behind, and at the same time didn’t want to give up our quota of sleep. So we wished one another in a somewhat audible voice, still curled warmly under the blanket.

(Next and final: Part 8: Over to Jaipur and onset of home-sickness)