The Heat and Dust Project

by Saurav Jha

  Saurav

  ‘I will speak to you afterwards,’ is what Mr Mahender Joshi had said. ‘At dusk I climb up to the Chamunda temple next to the fort.’ We nodded because we knew the temple. ‘Every evening, I go there without fail.’

  We wait for him in the deserted rooftop cafe. D reads. There is a French couple in the corner. The girl snoozes on the swing, her legs tucked under a patchwork cloak. The guy smokes softly; grey rings surround his head. All day, we have walked. Making our way through litter and friendly old people, past a solemn procession of donkeys carrying baskets followed by angry dogs howling in their wake, old Jodhpur with its pleasant swathes of sunlight on streets and houses, and later, on the sandstone walls of Mehrangarh. Golden parallelograms through which we passed as grey shadows.

  We entered the fort from the main gate this time, and inside, D had spun around the grand spaces, the large open courtyards and gigantic corridors, rapturous over the columns and arches, everything in royal proportions. A couple of musicians in traditional garb were singing in a corner of a courtyard. In the museum, we marvelled at the weaponry – shields and daggers, guptis, matchlocks, helmets. The elaborate howdahs for kings and paalkis for queens. There was a carved wooden palanquin with pink and gold silk covers and a European-style carriage-shaped palanquin, again wooden, with tin plates and peacocks on either side. The most intriguing was a very English phone-booth-style paalki, upholstered in severe Victorian fabric.

  Walking around the display were these Japanese tourists. They held in one hand their fancy cameras. In the other, they held aloft the relevant pages of Lonely Planet India (in Japanese) in a spiral-bound folder, each page laminated. Phew! They must have sat in their homes, packing for the trip, and systematically pulled apart their fat Lonely Planets to arrive at these convenient slices. At midday, we found ourselves veering from the museum area to a large terrace. Rao Jodha must have seen the bluish edges of his dominions from here. It was noisy and full of tourists. I observed the specific happiness of ample Indian grandmothers when their rosy grandchildren, perched on the slim jean-clad hips of their NRI mothers, called out to them in accented Hindi. Their faces brightened.

  And then the spectacular views darkened in my head and the light began to dim. We sat downstairs, exhausted. There was a museum shop where thousands of tourists were jostling and jabbering, many more tourists than had been at the museum. D averted her eyes and began to scribble in her notebook. A guard came and sat next to us. ‘You don’t want to shop?’ he asked us. ‘You should shop.’ I ended up talking to him about the project. I am always garrulous when I’m hungry. ‘Good, good,’ the guard told me, ‘I like people who write. In my village, we have this proverb: jahaan na pahunche ravi, wahaan pahunche kavi.’ (The poet reaches those places where even the sun forgets to visit.)

  ‘Coffee or tea?’ asks Mr Joshi, striding to our table. He is wearing a navy-blue sweater and a woollen cap. His beard glistens. He is a stocky man. He takes off his cap and sits down. He is followed by a young lackey who is despatched with our requests, tea and coffee, and milk for him. He has just returned from the temple and has a prominent red tilak on his forehead. While his brother has an uncertain aspirational whiff about him, that scent of wanting to go places and get ahead, not so Mahender Joshi. He’s very contained in his deportment. One might conclude that, all said, he is a happy man. On our comings and goings, we have spotted Mr Joshi’s wife in bright saris, and his charming little girl flitting about the house. In their presence, amid his guests, Mahender Joshi becomes slightly shy – they have that kind of beauty – and therefore a tad brusque. We tell him about our sojourn to the fort. He tells us that unlike most of the other forts in Rajasthan, Mehrangarh is still administered by a trust controlled by the Rathore royals. Most scions of princely states had not believed it possible that after Independence the Indian government would actually take over their forts and titles, and so had been caught napping when that came to pass. The Rathore king had quickly felt the political pulse. He had formulated a private trust to administer the fort well in time and the arrangement continues.

  ‘They are a bit like banias,’ Mr Joshi says. ‘Rather than like kshatriyas. They understand business well. They run the trust effectively. The hotels too. I mean, you know Umaid Bhawan is very popular for foreign weddings.’

  The drinks arrive. Mr Joshi now warms up and begins to tell us his story.

  Brahmpuri of old Jodhpur is a Brahmin cluster, and Joshi’s ancestors, like several of their neighbours, had been retainer priests in the fort. Some say that there is a secret tunnel that connects the fort to Navchokiya Road. In case of attacks or exigencies or coups, the royal heir might have had to be smuggled away with the family deity and hidden. Ten-odd generations ago, the Joshis settled on this plot of land – what is now Cosy Guest House. The family still has a copper plate – a taamra patra – that recognizes the gift. Mr Joshi lowers his voice to tell us that he keeps the taamra patra in a bank locker.

  Mahender’s father was a learned man, a professor at the local college. But as for him, he tells us apologetically, his heart had never been in studies. He dropped out of college and started doing freelance work – sometimes in hotels, but mostly as a tourist guide. For two years he even worked as an assistant to the maharani of Jaisalmer. But he had always wanted to be self-employed. The economic liberalization of the 1990s, when the inflow of Western tourists to India increased manifold, marked a turning point in Mr Joshi’s life.

  The goras discovered Jodhpur – and how. They began to trickle in, in a steady stream, the rich zeroing in on Umaid Bhawan and other converted havelis, while others would hunt for local hotels and sigh at the blue lanes and the old fort. Mr Joshi made friends with this one angrez, a real angrez, that is, from Britain. He was a friendly guy, and he found Mahender entertaining. He invited Mahender to his room one day, just to chat and have chai. He was staying in a hotel the goras favoured for its proximity to the fort. (Mr Joshi can tell us the name of the hotel, of course, it’s still there, but he’s a good man and would rather not.) So that afternoon, he arrived to meet his angrez friend. He parked his bicycle and went past the reception to the stairs. ‘Oy, oy,’ the owner shouted. ‘Where the hell do you think you are going?’ Mr Joshi was wrong-footed for a while. The hotel owner knew him well enough. He came back to the reception and said that he was going to room no. so-and-so to meet, let’s say, Scott. ‘Meet Scott!’ the owner mimicked. ‘Who do you think you are?’ Mr Joshi still did not lose his cool. ‘Arre bhai, I am lying or what? Scott asked me to come and meet him in the room at three o’clock.’ The owner looked at his cohorts (the oily bunch I can see trooping in from the kitchen when they hear their master shouting) and then addressed Joshi. ‘Of course you’re lying. Do I sit here and eat grass all day that I have to now believe that a gora has asked you to come and chat with him? ’ He turned to the cohorts. ‘And his English is also laughable. Hah!’ he said. One thing led to another and the young Mahender Joshi found himself thrown out of the hotel, his bike hurled after him, his forehead bleeding. But Mahender Joshi got up and brushed the dust off himself and wagged his finger at the owner. ‘Mark my words, you ullu ke aulaad, one day I will be where you are. But better. Much better. And I will be surrounded by gora-goris.’

  Mere aas paas sirf gora-gori hi honge!

  Mahender Joshi can afford to smile now, as he recounts this story. It is an object already attained, even if he says so himself.

  ‘It’s a bit like the Gandhi moment in reverse,’ D whispers.

  But, Mr Joshi continues, that time had not been a time for smiles. He was like a man possessed, a man with a mission. He would have to do something. No longer this kowtowing to hotel owners for a spot of guiding. Enough! It was winter. He cleaned out one room in the house. The best room, which had a view of the fort in the distance. He bought the frame of a bed for 140 rupees and found a spare mattress. He began to pace up and down in the railway station, pro
mising a home-style holiday experience to arriving tourists. On 12 January 1995, two girls from Spain agreed to come and try out the homely experience. They would pay forty rupees for a room and use the common facilities.

  With the two giggling girls renting his room, Mr Joshi’s gaadi began to inch forward. Others began to come. On 17 January 1995, a couple from England arrived, taking the total number of tourists staying with them to nine. The family had huddled into fewer rooms, moving out of their own bedrooms to accommodate more guests. Mahender Joshi remembers he had to run out that night to hire five blankets from a decorator at two rupees each. As spring crept in, he brought his guests to the Mehrangarh tank for their bath. It was exactly the sort of thing they enjoyed.

  ‘The Blue House’ became a word-of-mouth success. And then, pretty soon, Rough Guide India included ‘The Blue House’ in their recommended budget options. But Mahender Joshi suffered another blow. A clever competitor stole the name ‘The Blue House’. He had not registered it and from the legal standpoint there was nothing he could do. Business suffered badly. But he prayed and worked hard and eventually added the two floors on top, so that the views remained unparalleled. ‘It is very cosy, very cosy,’ all the gora-goris used to say to him, so he went one day and registered his ancestral house, finally, as Cosy Guest House.

  Now of course, thanks to guidebooks and grace, business is booming. His brother helps him out – though he is trying to go abroad – and they have acquired another property in old Jodhpur. To give customers home-style experience that is slightly more discreet; a notch higher. Every room has an individual courtyard or terrace with it; the rooms are large and airy. In fact, just this morning, he has made the final payment. It is all quite stressful.

  Mr Joshi’s brother joins us now at the table, bearing ledgers.

  ‘Do you ever meet that man any more? The one who had you thrown out?’

  ‘Of course. All the time. That is, whenever I go in that direction. He is quite respectful now. Maybe he thinks he deserves a little credit for my success.’

  We laugh. ‘I think we’ll leave you to that now,’ I murmur, pointing to his books.

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ D adds.

  We walk up the narrow flight of stairs to our room. When we turn and stand, wedged tightly in the doorway, we can see him hunched over his ledgers. And all around Mahender Joshi, talking, ordering drinks, smoking joints and reading menus are his guests, the goras and goris. The night is smoky and the dark shape of the fort teeters over their heads. I look around, somehow disappointed, until I spot two dreadlocked African Americans in a corner and one South Korean girl climbing up tidily from the lobby. Not one African from Africa naturally. The luxury of world travel, even on a budget, is yet another first-world perk controlled by the economics of currency arbitrage. Oh, and there’s a Baghdadi nose, I add, aloud. At least, it’s not literally all gora-gori.

  ‘Stop being so p.c.,’ D orders.

  ‘I never thought of myself as politically correct. Gee. That’s an awful insult,’ I reply.

  ‘Not that p.c. Nobody would ever think that of you. Post-colonial, p.c.,’ she clarifies. ‘I mean, if this were one of my JNU term papers I’d be writing about the desire of the once-colonized for whiteness and the great problems this poses to our national psyche. The intimacy of enmity. Falana falana falana. But in this context, it’s also kind of sweet.’

  Her eyes flash as I open my mouth. I am not allowed to be ponderous this evening. Not today.

  ‘Tomorrow is fine,’ is what she says. ‘I’m too tired to talk about serious stuff tonight. My cousin R called. He’ll drop in after work. Apparently he has a surprise for us. Also, we ought to finish packing?’

  19

  It is afternoon and we are sitting in a bus bound for Jaisalmer. We were the first ones to buy tickets mid-morning – along with an old Muslim couple – and so we have been allotted seats in front. I am by the window. S is trying to sleep. He rests his head on the iron railing in front, and later, long after the incident, after we have reached Jaisalmer and found a hotel and eaten dinner, at night I will smell the sour iron smell on his forehead and wake up in panic. The old couple are sitting behind us. They are going to Pokhran.

  Last night, my cousin R arrived at eleven. It was so cold that his breath misted in the air when he spoke. He brought an extravagant offering. The pastry chef at the Taj had handcrafted these gourmet chocolate affairs for us. Gigantic slices of a multilayered cake, lined with generous layers of chocolate ganache, steeped in syrup, and topped with a dark chocolate slab. Arranged artfully on each of the four rectangles were a strawberry, a cherry and a milk chocolate cigar. Individually, they were certainly worth more than the room rent. We shared one last night, squabbling like children over the strawberry and the cherry. And now, the remaining three in their cardboard box sit delicately in a thin cloth bag on my lap, along with my jacket and cap. It’s quite hot in the bus. My handbag is stuffed in the sliver of space between the two of us, along with a fair amount of annoyance. These seats have been designed for midgets. In the canvas bag, we are carrying a jacket that another guest, an Australian, had forgotten in his room at Cosy. We have his number, he has ours; he’ll pick it up from us at the bus station in Jaisalmer. Our rucksacks are crammed into the spindly racks above.

  The bus is already very full. But people are still buying tickets and bustling in, though there are no seats left, flush with that resolute Indian hope for adjustment. Mostly it’s men in pagris who tumble to the back and slither into spots where there is something to hold on to, hoping to get seats later. The engine thrums, that hefty asthmatic sighing, and we have been ready to leave any moment now for the last half hour.

  In a last-minute scramble a bunch of women climb in, trailed by children. They are all reed-thin and the women wear colourful synthetic skirts with bright dupattas wound around their torsos and covering their heads. The little girls wear frocks and scuffed sweaters. They have several sacks with them and the conductor heaves these in. There is no place for these sacks to be stowed, so they are left to sit, all misshapen and lumpy, fruits and vegetables popping out, in the aisle. The women and children scatter, a few squatting on the floor of the bus. At some point, trouble begins. One passenger points to a sack and says something. Immediately, two other passengers chime in. The conductor takes it up. ‘Kathal? Kathal?’ he asks, looking this way and that. Jackfruit. One of the sacks is stuffed with jackfruit.

  Commotion ensues.

  In many parts of India (including Bengal) there is this notion that one should never, like never ever, carry any of the following on journeys: jackfruit, pickles or very ripe bananas. The no-no lists often have minor cultural variations, but jackfruit, it seems, is a common factor. Or bad things will happen. My mother, that very sensible science-minded person, has her own reasons for believing this. A year or so into their marriage, my dad and she were once going to attend a wedding in Asansol. On the Howrah Bridge, their taxi broke down. They ran all the way to the platform only to see the train leaving in front of their eyes. Fighting with each other over the apportioning of blame (this bit I assume), they returned home. Later they realized that the sealed brown package they were supposed to deliver to someone in Asansol (my dad is a great one for volunteering for such things) had contained jars of pickled jackfruit. At this point in the story, my mother’s voice would rise an octave or two. ‘You know how we found this out? The oil from the aachaar leaked through and ruined all my best saris which I was taking to the wedding!’

  Years later, I gathered the reasoning behind this odd no-no from Robert Svoboda’s Aghora. Apparently, the only sense spirits employ is that of smell – the reason why across cultures incense is employed to show respect to ancestors or household gods and goddesses. Now, overripe jackfruit and bananas and strong oily pickles have a fecund musk that attract spirits – mostly naughty ones at that – to themselves. And with naughty spirits at play, cacop
hony ensues. Bad things might happen.

  S is roused and looks around sleepily. We assume that after all the chattering in Rajasthani, of which we understand only a few words, the bus will begin to move. But matters quickly deteriorate. The conductor, goaded by several passengers, is asking the girl to reconsider. To leave behind her jackfruit. The girl in the pink dupatta, whose jackfruit it is, naturally begins to protest. She shrieks shrilly. And then, from somewhere in the middle of the bus, a young man rises and begins to fume. He is short and belongs probably to the newly citified, newly prosperous classes, all faux-leather jacket and Salman Khan haircut. Sure enough, he comes forward, claims he’s in the police, and kicks the sack of jackfruit. It skids. The girl in the pink dupatta rushes forward to protect her sack, and then the chap raises his hand.

  In a second, fog descends on my brain. A lone flare, red and acid, begins to singe the thin skin of my palms and armpits at being thrust, woefully unprepared, into the sort of incident that happens to other people: riots and muggings and molestations. But S is already there, exactly in the middle, between the man and the girl and, shamefully, very shamefully (for I have been schooled in feminism from an early age and it should have been me in the middle), I feel thankful that he is big like a bear and that odious man, police or not, will not stand a chance.

  But (much as he would have liked to, one suspects) S does not need to fight. As suddenly as this matter had flared up, it gets defused. The policeman (?) draws back immediately and returns to his seat. He sits down next to an old lady. He continues to roar though. I give the girl my water bottle and assure her that we will join her in protecting her jackfruit till the very end. The old woman behind us pipes in with her support. Her husband, his dentures juddering slightly, agrees. She drinks some water and then continues to tell me her story in Rajasthani, beginning probably at the moment the jackfruit tree had been planted in her village. The man who had raised his hand to strike her is reciting angrily to the people clustered around him the influential positions his friends occupy in local, state and finally, the Central government.