The Heat and Dust Project

by Saurav Jha

  Opting out.

  Except, that’s not what we are doing. In any case, we have neither savings to speak of nor a villa in Goa.

  What is it then we are doing?

  It’s a tough one.

  When S returns, eating a sandwich and bearing one for me, I am unpacking feverishly. ‘Thank God I did not listen to you,’ I say, ‘and brought my princess top along.’

  ‘Why?’ he asks. ‘Are we going to dine with royals finally? I didn’t know Mummy knew the Rathores.’

  ‘Well. Not exactly, no. But at least we are going to Harimahal.’

  I pause and narrow my eyes. I can be quite foxy when I choose to. ‘You can have that sandwich,’ I add magnanimously.

  ‘Harimahal?’

  ‘Taj Harimahal. We are going there for dinner. Mummy would have called my aunt, my aunt would have instructed my cousin, and sometimes, it must be said, my mother does indeed ace these chain phone calls.’

  ‘Your cousin R?’

  ‘My cousin R.’

  Two decades ago my cousin R had introduced the novel stream of ‘hotel management’ to the extended family. In a way, he was the pathfinder. Because he did hotel management then, I am doing the opting out now.

  And so, a couple of hours later, we sit by the pool, a flickering candle between us, parsing fish tikkas that come in giant platters from the kitchen along with the chef’s compliments. Afterwards, my cousin R will give us the grand tour of the premises. We will walk through the marbled corridors, my good shoes clicking smartly and then, even better, through the clean clean clean kitchen with fifty people working away diligently, to laundry rooms in the basement from where dumbwaiter-like chutes send clean sheets upstairs. Apparently, the hospitality managers pick out sheets at random to check if they’re spotless. We will have far more fun than might have been possible, I’ll have you know, at some sit-down dinner with royalty.

  Saurav

  According to some schools of thought, the foundation of Jodhpur was the third grand event in the reign of the Rathores, after they left Kanauj and travelled on to Rajputana.

  Jaichand was the last great Rathore ruler of Kanauj. In popular lore, he is invariably cast as the Amrish Puriesque father-in-law to Prithviraj Chauhan, king of Delhi. By all accounts, however, the power and prestige of Kanauj under Jaichand was unparalleled at the time. The glory of Kanauj has been attested to by even the enemies of Kanauj, the Chauhan bards, and later, the Muslim annalists of Ghori’s entourage. However, in ad 1175, the star-crossed swayamvar of the princess of Kanauj, Sanyogita, changed everything. Jaichand had a golden effigy of Prithviraj Chauhan strategically placed in the swayamvar sabha as the ‘poliya’ or porter-of-the-hall. The insult backfired since Chauhan was able to spirit away his beloved Sanyogita from that very hall. Battle ensued between the Rathores and Chauhans, with most of the assembled kings joining issue with Prithviraj Chauhan. Taking advantage of the severe dissension that followed, Mohammad Ghori, who had been kept at bay till then, finally marked a permanent route to India. Delhi fell in 1192 and so did Kanauj, in ad 1193.

  Twenty years or so later, the grandsons of Jaichand, Siahji and Setram, left Kanauj forever and along with two hundred retainers made their way westward. Some say they had intended to visit the shrine at Dwarka as pilgrims but ended up in the desert. Others contend they had merely decided to find a new home elsewhere and re-establish their clan. Under the leadership of Siahji, and through exploits (both valorous and treacherous) the Rathores became rulers of Marwar. The name Marwar itself is a corruption of Maru-war, originally Marusthali or Marusthan, the region of death.

  If Siahji’s re-establishment of the clan should be considered as the first grand event, doubtless the acquisition of Mandore from the Parihars by Prince Chonda might be considered the second grand event in the Rathore timeline. Within 300 years of their arrival in the desert, the Rathore lands were spread across 80,000 square miles, and their numbers had swelled, in spite of continued war and famines, to 500,000. Rao Jodha, grandson of Chonda, was the architect of this glorious third grand event.

  Rao Jodha ascended the throne in ad 1459, and upon the advice of an old ascetic decided to shift his capital from Mandore to ‘Bakharchiriya’ or ‘the bird’s nest’, a hill about four miles south. It was then renamed ‘Jodhagir’. It was, of course, a sound suggestion, not merely astrologically but also strategically. The fort would be almost impregnable. The rulers would command excellent views such that on clear sunny days they could glimpse the very edges of their sandy dominions. Jodha’s engineer, however, in his circumvallation, ended up taking over the ascetic’s humble hermitage too. In consequence, it is said, the insulted ascetic cursed the Rathores that the new fort would only have brackish water. This turned out to be so. Many efforts were made by later princes, including the blasting of rocks, but it seems better-quality water was not to be had. Arrangements were then made to pump water up to the garrison from a lake at the bottom of the fort. Fortunately, the lake was propitiously located and since the walls of the fort overlooked it, it is reasonable to assume that it could not be easily cut off by the enemy in case of an attack.

  It is late afternoon. On a day that began very late, after the five-star excesses of the night before, we find ourselves standing by this lake. All morning we had dilly-dallied. D had found a trove of books that tourists had left behind. She had read on the deserted rooftop, ordering not one but two coffees with a desi macaroni. I had caught up on some work over egg sandwiches: an article on the Kaiga nuclear plant that had to be sent off by afternoon.

  It was after three that we finally set out. Owing to the fortuitous location of Cosy Guest House, we found we could cut through the blue lanes of Brahmpur and quickly reach the edges of the fort area and cross the low wall which marks the outer rim. But we are in no hurry today and the waning sun feels warm and pleasant; on the sandstone walls it casts a net of spun gold. We discover that instead of going all the way to the front entrance of Mehrangarh, if we like, we can go round the lake, climb up the cheek of the hill and enter the walled area from little openings among the stones, slipping into what were formerly the stables of the castle. We walk back afterwards and decide to just stroll around on our own. We might as well go to the fort tomorrow, enter from the main gate where tickets are sold.

  The lake is greenish with tree shadows. Every now and then there is a splash. It is invariably a young boy on the other side of the lake. Running on the narrow path between the lake and the dark walls of the fort, the boy vanishes behind the ruins, and the stone he throws disappears underwater. The dimpled lake quivers for a while, each ripple catching a shard of the smashed-up sun. We watch the circles continuously expand and then disappear before the lake comes to silence again.

  16

  Past the low walls marking the outer area of the fort, across the bare sandy fields dotted with boulders, there is a hill with a temple. After Pushkar, we are always looking for hills to conquer. ‘Perhaps that is where the ascetic relocated,’ I reflect, ‘after his hermitage was bulldozed.’ S does not know. Whether or not, the views of the old city are sure to be spectacular.

  The sun is slung low in the sky. Halfway up the stairs – a proper cemented stairway has been built on the hill for the benefit of temple-goers – we find a couple of reed-thin Israeli youths, taking photographs at great speed. ‘Mossad,’ I mutter darkly. I nod at them briefly and march on, climbing briskly until I realize, much to my annoyance, that S has gone right up to one of them, and is saying, ‘Hey! How are you?’ The boy has a ponytail. I retrace my steps. ‘Hey!’ the boy replies, coming closer. He shakes S’s proffered hand. I observe the exact flicker of annoyance that had switched on in my head now light up his companion’s face.

  That’s the thing with S. People know me as the nice one, the chatty one, the neither-take-nor-give-offence one. But truth is, it can be quite the opposite. When we travel, he is the friendly one. Always willin
g to intervene in conversations that circle annoyingly around Indianisms – nobody is as bad as our politicians, nobody is as sold out as our corporates – and then take flight to become, well, quite interesting.

  There is a formula to these proceedings. On train journeys, for instance, he’ll usually instruct me before getting in, ‘We’ll just keep to ourselves. Right? Right?’ I nod. I carry two books per overnight journey. In case I finish one by the morning or the train is late, I like to keep a backup. So naturally I’m not partial to chattiness. But S? It’s happened every single time. I go to the bathroom, leaving him with his magazine. I return and find him discussing the GDP in detail with the bearded guy. How the China model is not right for us at all, with the Marwari businessman who has returned from Shanghai, all impressed with their development. Or Delhi traffic with Calcutta Aunty in crushed cotton. Once, there were four clerics going to attend an all-India imams’ meet and after non-stop talking for the whole duration of the journey, they invited him to the jamaat. The only non-cleric to be invited apparently. Another time, a wedding planner told him how at the latest posh wedding her company had organized in Istanbul, the groom’s uncle got drunk and peed in the pool. The company had to pay sixty lakh rupees to the upscale hotel as compensation. The groom’s family is absolutely refusing to pay up since it is not in the contract. So now the wedding planners have had to add a new clause to the usual draft contract: the company will not pay compensation in case of guests doing toilet outside toilets.

  Anyway. I am not in the mood to chat. I squint sourly in the sun.

  ‘We met in Pushkar,’ Saurav turns and explains to me finally.

  Oh yes. I now remember.

  ‘Sorry…’ The boy smiles. ‘It took me a moment to recognize you. This is…’

  ‘Your brother?’ S asks, helpfully.

  ‘Clevery custard,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘Who said brothers? People travel with friends, not brothers.’

  Nevertheless, I look up at the other guy. While our friend has his hair neatly pulled back in a ponytail, the brother (?) has a shock of curly hair surrounding his face.

  ‘Whew!’ the guy says. ‘You’re right. We’re twins actually.’

  I am looking at both boys – the other has come forward and now that he has been dragged in, he nods at us civilly. I am still searching. And then, suddenly, my synapses click in. It’s like one of those optical illusions. It’s a castle, it’s a castle, it’s a castle, and then boom! It’s also a face. Once you’ve seen the face, it can never be that confident black-and-white castle any longer. I grasp the likeness.

  Oh yes, oh boy, save the hairstyle, they are identical twins. Peas in a pod.

  By now the brother doesn’t look annoyed any more. He extends his hand and says, ‘Hi. I’m Zvika Hillel. And this is Motty.’

  We begin to introduce ourselves.

  And then we begin to climb together. Suddenly, just like that, we are a group of four. Four travellers. The twins and us. There is such a nice ring to this, I’m now overcompensating for my former lack of enthusiasm.

  Initially, our conversation revolves around the names, carefully enunciated for each other’s benefit. The names are rolled around like unfamiliar wine in foreign mouths. Zvika means deer. Motty is short for Mordechai. ‘Like Mordechai Vanunu?’ S asks. The boys are surprised for a second. I see their eyes narrow. ‘I write on geopolitics,’ S clarifies. ‘And nuclear matters.’

  ‘Ah,’ Zvika says, his face clearing. ‘Like a journalist?’

  ‘Something like that,’ S replies.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Motty says. ‘That’s why I call myself Motty. I don’t want to be like that Mordechai at all.’

  I find myself rolling my eyes furiously. ‘Will someone please enlighten me? Who is this other Mordechai dude?’

  We have ascended the hill. Zvika has a fancy camera and is pointing it this way and that, quite battily. Motty tells me on the side. ‘New camera. There is nothing he is not clicking. In the morning when we walk, there is a truck filled with sand going. Zvika running and running after truck to take photo of sand.’ We laugh, and then the three of us take off our shoes and enter the small temple. Later, S leaves a small offering in the box. The pujari in turn gives us an apple. Then, on second thought, he takes the apple back, finds a knife, cuts it into four quarters and returns the prasad to us. We sit outside and munch and chat. Their travels thus far; ours.

  ‘Mordechai Vanunu was a sort of whistle-blower in the Israeli nuclear programme in the eighties,’ S tells me finally.

  ‘He was a spy, yes,’ Motty adds.

  ‘He was in London, waiting for his story to be fact-checked and published by The Sunday Times, when Mossad executed a classic honey-trap operation on him,’ S finishes.

  Zvika joins us briefly to claim his piece of apple. He asks, ‘So this book thing that you are travelling for? Does it pay? Or you have to have jobs and all?’ I see Motty raising his eyebrows at Zvika; probably to check the plain-speak. ‘I mean,’ Zvika shakes his head apologetically. ‘Since you are married, you have to have jobs. No?’

  ‘We had full-time jobs,’ I say. ‘But we’ve quit those now. To travel. We did get a small advance for the book. But then, we plan to travel on a tight budget.’

  ‘Nowadays it’s freelance work that brings in the money,’ S adds. ‘Much less money than the jobs.’

  ‘Ah, yes…’ Motty and Zvika nod their heads vehemently. ‘Freelance, we know,’ Zvika says. ‘Is good. No boss. Sometimes, there is no work. Sometimes, lots of work.’ We laugh. Motty adds, ‘You see, our father is a tour guide. We know all about freelance!’

  ‘Which part of Israel are you guys from?’ It’s my turn to ask.

  ‘Holon.’

  ‘So are you Sephardis?’ S asks, in his characteristic manner of raking up strange anthropological questions out of nowhere, rudeness be damned.

  ‘Yes.’ The twins nod in unison. ‘Actually,’ Motty says, pointing to his prominent nose, ‘you know what this is? It is a classic Baghdadi nose.’

  Jews are ethnically divided into three broad categories: the Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and Sephardi. The Ashkenazi come from central Europe, comprising a large Yiddish-speaking component, and are genetically similar to Europeans of that area. Ashkenaz, after all, is the name in medieval Hebrew for what is now Germany.

  The ‘Mizrahi’ or the ‘eastern’ are native Jews of West Asia and North Africa who have a lot in common with their Arab neighbours. As do the Sephardi, whose name seems to suggest an origin in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) since ‘Sefarad’ is medieval Hebrew for Hispania. But Sephardis have not migrated to Israel directly from Spain. After being expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century during the culmination of Reconquista, many migrated to Baghdad where they came to speak a dialect of Arabic strongly inflected with Hebrew elements. Hence the name ‘Baghdadi Jew’. A key identifying marker being a certain prominence of the nose that some Muslims and Christians of Baghdad also sport. Although seemingly culturally assimilated, the Baghdadi Jews witnessed persecution when the Ottoman Empire held sway over what is modern-day Iraq. This led to waves of Baghdadi Jews emigrating to India, which in time gave rise to some very eminent families such as the House of Sassoon. India’s Baghdadi Jews have also provided famous film personalities such as the actor Nadira. Once the state of Israel was created, Baghdadis, from wherever they might be, mostly moved to Israel.

  As Sephardi Jews, initially their father’s generation had faced discrimination from the Ashkenazi majority. However, Zvika adds hastily, ‘Now things have changed. There is no discrimination any more.’

  ‘You guys don’t look that different from my Lebanese friends in JNU,’ S says.

  ‘Yes, yes…’ Zvika smiles. ‘We are cousins after all. Arabs and Jews! In Israel, there is always competition about whose shops make better hummus. Actually,’ he lowers his voice conspiratorially, ‘the A
rab shops do.’

  Cousins eating the same sort of food; an important point some would say. Unfortunately the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac disagree deeply on this point: we leave S and Motty to such reflections. They speak in low voices out of deference to the pujari who has begun the evening worship. The light is rosy and strangely fragrant. Zvika leaps up again. He shows me how to adjust the lens of my camera, and I too manage to get some beautiful photographs in the bargain. We balance on the edge of the platform. Then Zvika takes off his shoes and climbs down to a ledge, where he takes pictures from precarious angles. The huge orange sun bobs at the edge of the sky, about to fall off, and in the altered light, the blue houses of the old city seem like crazy china scattered in a generous arc.

  S and Motty signal to us that they will descend, and we should follow. I wait for Zvika. He ties his shoelaces. Then he points to blue specks in the distance, the houses enfolded in the velvety dusk. ‘You know, Dippy, our father is a tour guide. He has taken so many people on tours across Israel. But he has never travelled abroad. Our mother once went on a trip to Europe. But not our father. He has never stepped out of Israel.’

  17

  According to the shastras, if you walk three steps alongside someone, you become his friend. And here we are, climbing up and down hills together. The matter of friendship was a foregone conclusion.