by Saurav Jha
‘Become an airline pilot in 6 months,’ a spectacular blue billboard announces. The words are spelled out brightly below a neat line of skyward-bound planes that seem to have just taken off from the large smooth forehead of a handsome pilot in white. The model who is the pilot has eerily even teeth.
I take notes.
Mounds of rubble – tyres, car parts, bricks; piles of hay; pockets of green that would look lush if it were a sunny day; huge hoardings for real-estate companies; garbage dumps; golden fields of mustard; industrial sheds; clumps of thorny bushes; one-room shops with lone unlit bulbs hanging in front; houses inside walled compounds which have tiny mud pens with thatched roofs in corners where goats are tied; brick kilns and one-off houses with walls that are entirely advertisements – Vodafone, Konark Cement, Dr X – godly healer of Gupt Rog; jungles of high-tension wires. These appear in different permutations, randomly, casually, in a landscape that is quintessentially modern-day Indian: where rural motifs unchanged for years easily coexist with noisy interventions from city life, neither category watertight and neither striking the Indian eye as incongruous.
Just after the bus crosses Starex International School, a gaudy mansion in the middle of nowhere – a sizeable plot of land although no children are sighted – I finally spot a milestone. Jaipur: 202 kilometres.
Over the last many months we have been reorienting our lives for this grand moment: this is it. The beginning. Yet somehow, I find, in some discomfort, that I am unable to feel the passion that ought to be coursing through me as the moment unfolds. There is only the present. We are in the bus; it is cold; the afternoon and the moment stretch out in front, unspooling like a quiet wintry track running parallel to the dusty grey road. That is all.
The bus winds its way along the road. S sleeps with his mouth open. Clots of truck drivers and khalasis are sitting around wood fires, their rides parked by the highway. I carefully drape my woollen shawl around my head. The young girl in the seat behind us was dropped off at Bikaner House by her parents, along with a hundred instructions in rapid Punjabi on who to talk to, what to eat at the midway stop, how often to call them and how to get to the hostel from the bus stop. She has just begun to open up to the young man sitting next to her. They speak softly. She’s from north Delhi, studies in an engineering college outside Jaipur; he is Rajput, he informs her, from Ganganagar, far away, yes, but no, it’s not a village, no, no, it’s quite a sizeable town really, coming up in a big way, he works in Jaipur, comes to Delhi on tour regularly.
I eavesdrop for a while, wondering if they will exchange numbers.
Then evening comes in a flourish of electric rouge and casts a glow upon the mustard fields; the dry spare quality of the land and its vegetation suddenly softens in the colours of excess, of sunset. There is an aloof loneliness in the landscape at twilight that comes as a sudden stab. A calm cascade of beauty. I poke S awake.
A couple of hours later, we enter Jaipur. Soon, the walls of the old city are visible in the distance, through the rush of heavy traffic moving slowly, the buses and cars and hundreds of two-wheelers. The walls are saffron-orange in the distance, with patterns etched in white.
4
The lobby of Hotel Veer Rajput Palace, deluxe, is dimly lit and manned by two guys in identical green check sweaters, one reedy with a silver ear stud, one portly and balding, also with silver ear stud. The counter stretches like a redoubt around them. On one end is a small television set; it seems as though a righteous-cop film is playing.
By the door is a filthy couch covered in brown velvet. We dump our backpacks on it.
These guys know the rules of bargaining well. They size us up carefully and switch the TV off but say nothing.
‘Do you have rooms available?’ S asks. ‘We want a double room.’
The lighting, the gaze and the cold night whistling outside combine to make this an extremely sexual sentence. For a bit, everyone is quiet.
‘We have good double rooms, attached bathroom, hot water by buckets, room service,’ the portly one recites. ‘We can get you beer too.’
‘Do you want to see one of the rooms upstairs?’ the other asks.
We know this’ll have to do; there is no real choice unless we want to return to the previous hotel with the paan-stained/bloodstained toilets, but it is good form to pretend we want to see the room before negotiating rates. So we nod. He adds helpfully, ‘Don’t worry. You can leave your bags here.’
We leave the bags there, not without misgivings. The portly chap, Rajinder, jangles a bunch of keys, small-talks politely, and leads the way into a dim corridor, then to a narrow mosaic stairway with an iron railing on one side. I realize that though the facade is narrow, the building is quite deep inside.
Rooms on the first floor open directly into the foyer. With the doors and windows open, one can see small dismal squares lit under 50-watt CFLs. The occupants of these rooms have spilled onto the landing. They look up as we pass. It is a large party of young men in colourful shirts and white trousers, hair slicked back, chunky watches on wrists. They are milling about the corridor, sitting on the bed, chewing chicken legs, humming loudly in the next room and talking on cell-phones; they seem to multiply before my eyes. There is a girl in a crimson salwar-kameez, tinkling jewellery, golden butterfly clips in her hair, standing outside the first room and talking to one of the white trousers earnestly. Another girl emerges from one of the other rooms, her hair tied in a topknot, her baby-pink salwar-kameez dotted with hundreds of glittery silver sequins. She interrupts the couple urgently, her high-heels clip-clopping. I am transfixed. S returns, and hustles me upstairs.
‘We want a quiet room,’ he tells Rajinder gruffly.
Rajinder reflects for a moment or two on our demand. He says, ‘There is a quiet room in the corner, nice room, Western-style toilet, but it has only just been vacated. You can have it. But it will have to be cleaned first. Why don’t you take a look?’
The room just vacated has seen better days. It is tucked away at the end of a long thin corridor and smells musty. A maroon carpet covers the entire floor, a patina of dust on it. The walls are a tube-lit green.
While S peeks into the bathroom with its cobwebbed but tiled corners and grimy sink, I gingerly push the polyester curtains open. The window is surprisingly beautiful. It is latticed in the traditional style – leading to a dirty slab in front. But still, it is something. One sign of beauty. A good omen.
‘Let’s take this one,’ I tell S, while Rajinder tries to discreetly remove empty bottles of Haywards from under the bed.
‘How much?’ he asks Rajinder.
‘The reception will tell you that, sir,’ Rajinder replies. ‘I’ll get the room cleaned.’
‘Please change the sheets,’ I beg. ‘And the blankets.’
On the way to the reception, we see the white-trousered party who are still milling around, talking on cell-phones, humming loudly and indulging in intrigue with the girls. S smirks. ‘Whose idea was this journey again?’
Down in the reception, there is fierce bargaining.
‘How can you even ask for 375?’ I demand. ‘The room is so dusty. There is no view at all. The bathroom is a nightmare.’
‘Jaipur is dusty city, madam,’ the reedy fellow replies in English. ‘We have power back-up. Other hotels here don’t. Any food you want – Chinese, Indian, Italian, Thai – we serve in your room.’ He waves a dog-eared menu in my face.
‘Last offer 300.’ I make to go.
The guys look glum but do not attempt to stop us.
‘Three hundred fifty? That’s final?’ S settles.
I glower at him. He has given in way too easily.
The reedy guy opens the register. He asks, ‘You have ID proof?’ S nods and hands him his driving licence. I offer my PAN card. ‘After David Headley was caught in a hotel in Pushkar, we are now very strict. Government instructions: no ID, no
room. That’s the new policy.’ He carefully notes down the numbers.
‘What relation are you to each other?’ he now asks. ‘Friends?’
I look away. S replies, ‘She is my wife.’
The guy is disappointed. ‘Full pay in advance. Twenty-four hours check-out.’
As S pays, Rajinder returns and hands me the keys.
Half an hour later, divested of our luggage, we step out, ravenous, into the streets of Jaipur. The night is deserted. Tipsy touts compare notes outside a hotel. The smell of old dust that has clung to the brain dissipates a little as we walk briskly in search of a restaurant. Rupees 500 – (350 + 40). That leaves about 110 rupees for dinner. And minus fifteen for the water bottle, S remembers. Only 95 for dinner. ‘I think we’ll have to keep the water bill separate,’ I negotiate.
The air is nippy; a hint of wetness runs through as though it is raining somewhere close by. We walk on, quicker now to keep warm, pulling our coats closer, dreaming of hot chapatis with slightly blackened patches, shiny with butter.
Saurav
I wake up to the feel of rain in my bones. I cough and stir. There is dust in my throat. The chinks of light filtering in through the window remind me where I am: Veer Rajput Palace. At that I come round fully. I have not slept well. But that is nothing new. I stretch my arms and reach for my jacket. Distinctly odd, but it seems the dust on the carpet has somehow managed to rise upwards in the night, leaving dots on the sheets. I look around for a bottle of water.
Walking to the window, I push it open. A wet breeze drifts in. It is drizzling outside.
Our room is at the back of the building. It overlooks a block of modest houses with flat roofs. A short way across, through one or two trees glistening in the rain, one can see evidence of construction work. Several houses sport brown sackcloth hung from scaffoldings and a general collection of oddments: bricks, bamboos, cans of cement. New floors are being added, perhaps to rent out more rooms by the hour.
Very close by, though I cannot see it, stretch the saffron-pink walls of the old city, capital of Dhundhar.
The British insisted on referring to the principalities of Rajputana by the names of their respective capitals rather than the names of the historical regions under their sway. Thus Marwar was designated Jodhpur; Mewar was always Udaipur; hardly anybody knew that Bundi or Kota were used indiscriminately to refer to the region that is Haravati. So what was essentially Dhundhar was always called Amber (or Aamer) and later, after Sawai Jai Singh II established his glamorous new capital, simply Jaipur.
Historically, Dhundhar was the seat of the Kachhwaha Rajputs, a clan that claims descent from Kush, the younger son of Rama of Ayodhya. Their posh lineage notwithstanding, the story of how the Kachhwahas acquired the lands of Amber is one of betrayal.
It is believed by some that the descendants of Kush migrated from Rama’s kingdom, Koshala, to what is now Rohtas in modern-day Bihar, and established a kingdom by the river Son. (The descendants of Lav apparently founded Lahore.) After a lapse of several generations, the legendary Raja Nal – hero of Kalidasa’s eponymous play and lover of Damayanti, the princess of Vidarbha – migrated westward and established the kingdom of Narwar around AD 295. The thirty-third scion after Raja Nal was one Sora Singh whose son Dhola Rae – also called Dulhe Raja – established Dhundhar.
According to legend, when this Sora Singh died, his brother usurped the kingdom, divesting the infant Dhola Rae of his rightful inheritance. Dhola Rae’s mother managed to escape, dressed as a commoner, her son hidden in a basket. She walked a long way, and finally, just outside the town of Khoganw, the capital of the Meenas, decided to take rest. She kept her precious basket on the ground and began to forage for berries. When she returned after a while, she found a serpent poised over the basket, its hood flashing in the sun.
Her shrieks for help attracted a travelling pandit who allayed her fears with great eloquence, insisting that she ought to celebrate, for this was a sign indicative of greatness to come. (The motif of a serpent identifying the heir is of course a recurrent one. Centuries later, Sangram Singh or Rana Sanga, then in exile, was similarly revealed by a cobra. But that is a different story.)
Dhola Rae’s mother was not in a celebratory mood. She complained to the pandit that in her current state of hunger and thirst, not to mention homelessness, she could hardly harbour any fantasy of future glory for her infant. Chastened, the pandit gave her some useful advice. He urged her to go to the town of Khoganw, ruled by the Meenas, where, he was confident, her needs would be met.
The Meenas, incidentally, were an ancient race who claimed descent from the Matsya avatar of Vishnu; according to legends, they were fisherfolk who later became kings and founded the kingdom that has been identified through ancient history as Matsya. The capital of Matsya was Viratnagar (corresponding to Bairat in modern Rajasthan), and its most famous king was Virata, ally of the Pandavas and father-in-law to Abhimanyu, Arjun’s favourite son.
In Khoganw, the former queen sought menial employment at the home of the Meena chieftain. One afternoon, a few days or weeks or months later, she was asked to prepare dinner by the Meena Rani. When the Meena Raja tasted the delicious dishes she’d cooked, a repast he deemed far superior to the usual fare, he invited her to an audience. The queen took this opportunity to reveal her antecedents.
After hearing the queen’s tragic narrative, the Meena Raja immediately adopted her as his sister and the boy as his nephew. Thus, Dhola Rae was brought up an equal among the Meenas, and when he came of age, at fourteen, he was sent to Delhi as a representative of the Meena chief, carrying Khoganw’s tribute.
In his five years in Delhi, however, egged on by his Rajput friends and cousins, Dhola Rae was seized with the idea of usurping the kingdom of the Meena Raja. Aided in the conspiracy by the Meena bard, Dhola Rae returned to Khoganw. On the occasion of Diwali, when it was customary for all the men to take a dip in the tank together and offer obeisance to ancestors, Dhola, along with his Rajput cohorts from Delhi, attacked his foster-brothers and swiftly filled the tank with dead bodies.
The first thing he did when he took possession of Khoganw was to put the treacherous bard to death. Since he’d been disloyal to the Meena Raja, why should Dhola believe he would be loyal to him?
The Meenas, though, were a doughty lot. The Meena Raja of Nain, for example, had been eulogized with the verse ‘Bawan kot chhappan darwaja, Meena mard, Nain ka Raja’. They nourished the enmity and continued guerrilla attacks against the Rajputs over the following centuries, hoping to win back their lands someday. The British, in a bid to cement their alliance with the Rajputs, eventually labelled the Meenas a criminal tribe. This appellation was only removed after Independence.
Many generations later, Dhola Rae’s descendant, Sawai Jai Singh II, laid the foundation of Jaipur on 18 November 1727, under the guidance of auspicious stars and his architecture consultant from Bengal, Vidyadhar Bhattacharya.
This is not the first time I’ve come to Jaipur – D and I’d been here once before, our first holiday together, many years ago. It was not the happiest of trips. We were impecunious and still in the university. Intense bursts of anxiety about the future had quickly devoured our brief spells of bliss on that occasion and we’d distracted ourselves with brief bursts of sightseeing. D had taken many photos in Jantar Mantar with her five-hundred-rupee camera bought for the occasion. The Hawa Mahal, Nahargarh, the spectacular fort at Jaigarh. My young wife, I’d thought, every time I looked at her. And it was unsettling. But we always meant to come back. And here we are, thanks to a chain of bizarre decisions, in Jaipur, as poor as we were then, though older and fancy-free, beginning the journey that we like to imagine will refashion us. Refashion, renew, revolt. Funny how hopeful words begin the same way. D has always been a romantic. And it appears now that beneath the clipped jargon of energy economics and geopolitics – the things I analyse for a living – I have been as mu
ch of a romantic too.
Or insane. And like all insane ventures, this one too was born in a moment of false lucidity, infused with tremendous hope and bolstered by theory. The larger picture would put our minor moments in perspective. It is exactly what we need.
Over the last few months, we’ve taken turns reassuring each other. This is the right thing to do.
D is sleeping on her stomach peacefully, unaffected by dust or grime, curled into a ball in the cold. But it is important we begin our day – sally forth into Jaipur early on. In the late afternoon, we can board a bus to Pushkar which is around 130 kilometres away. I am not too enthused at the prospect of another night in Veer Rajput Palace. In any case, we’d decided to keep moving forward continuously, at rumbling speed.
The rain has now become insistent and drums on the dirty slab in front of our window. It is then that I think of D’s elaborate list. It had, unfortunately, not included an umbrella.
5
Jaipur is shiny after the rain. Clouds with promising black bellies are still swirling in the sky but the drizzle has tapered off. As we walk, skirting puddles, we are still arguing about S’s unilateral decision to travel onward. The decision has been taken though; I have even made a couple of calls to budget hotels in Pushkar. But I am not happy.
‘The entire point of this journey is to keep moving,’ S says, as I canter to keep up with him, ‘keep travelling, at a hurtling pace. How else do you propose to travel across thousands of kilometres in a hundred days?’
Yes, that indeed was the vague proposition we had agreed on at the outset. Around India in a hundred days. That sort of thing. Not much else. That, and the budget of course. We’d stick to 500 rupees a day for bed and board. (Water was put on the watch list. No decision had been taken on it.)