Out In The Blue

Parts 1 - 3

It was Sunday. The day of the Cricket World Cup final, to be played in front of 100,000 wildly expectant Indian fans in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Not all that far from here actually.

Given that Indians are absolutely crazy about cricket, and given that the Indian team have actually made it to a home World Cup final, today’s game has grown to become one of the biggest single sporting events in the country’s history.

And guess who else made the final?

Australia, of course.

India have had an unbleminished tournament so far, winning every single game convincingly. They’re the red hot favourites to win the title.

Australia, on the other hand, lost its first two games by significant margins (to India and South Africa), but have won every game since, although some were very close. Everyone rightly sees Australia as the underdogs in this game.

Australia have already won five World Cups, considerably more than anyone else. India and the West Indies are next on the list, having both won two. Surely it’s India’s turn again.

The game was due to start mid-afternoon, so off I went to explore the streets of the Blue City of Jodhpur beforehand.

The view from my bedroom window.

Cute mosque

Another political rally, for the BJP. Politicians really should listen more.

Aussies would never get this excited about an election campaign.

Electric rickshaw

I’ve noticed a number of women wearing black in Rajasthan, which I haven’t seen so much elsewhere. Hindu women don’t wear wear black when mourning, like in many other cultures. They actually wear white, which represents purity, and respect for the departed’s family.

Women dressed in traditional Rajasthani dress, buying sweets.

The dress colours are amazing here, they’re always so striking.

And just in case you were wondering, traditional dress here is not just your run-of-the-mill sari affair, but it generally includes 4 pieces of clothing:

• a long skirt called a ghagra, which is normally patterned.

• a choli, a blouse that matches the ghagra, which is often sleeveless.

• the kanchli, worn over the choli, a close fitting bodice.

• and finally the odhni, a large cloth worn over the head to protect from the desert heat, stitched at either end.

Now you know.

Hole-in-the-wall

The Sardar Market, and all the streets surrounding it, are awash with shops and market stalls, and thousands of people swamp the place during shopping hours. It’s an incredible place to people-watch. I can’t seem to get enough of doing that.

Sparkly wedding decorations

Upmarket bangles

Ghanta Ghar, Jodhpur’s clock tower

Various spices, and, at the bottom, gur, which is known in English as jaggery, an unprocessed sugar made from either sugar cane or from the date palm.

I visited the Umaid Heritage Art School, after being invited in by Vijay, who runs it. He proudly explained the long history of the school, and told me they have 160 students studying there at any one time. The school’s mission is to try to develop the centuries-old Rajasthani tradition of miniature painting.

The works there are extraordinary, I could easily see a whole bunch of them exhibited in the Asia Pacific Triennial Art Exhibition at GOMA in Brisbane, they’re that good. Will someone please tell the curator?

I didn’t photograph the big works, just a couple of smaller ones. Vijay is careful the larger ones don’t appear online, as they’re original works, and he’s had experience of them being copied and printed, and sold for profit.

The paints are made from local natural ingredients, including local stone and soils, flowers, fruits and other plant bits.

The variety and scope of the work in the gallery was mind boggling. There were literally hundreds of works, of many different styles.

Vijay also told me he’s proud to be known as Lentil Man, a superhero, just like Superman and Spiderman. He’s Lentil Man because he holds the world record for the fastest painting on a ….. lentil. No shit. It took him 32 seconds.

https://youtu.be/QDFGxJY24_g?si=ZKcs4y2a5fMXs3SG

Vijay’s a super nice man, and is doing amazing things for local artists and local traditions in the area.

Yeah, Alex is sometimes easier for the locals than Oleś. He painted me my very own art lentil. It was mental.

Dried rice pastas and snacks

More election flags. Don’t ya love the Pooja Unique Salon?

My guesthouse is the blue building in the distance.

Eventually I returned home, because Raju, the manager, said they’d all be watching the World Cup cricket final, along with pretty much everyone else in India.

I was happy to join them around the telly, with the Hindi commentary/graphics and the poor picture quality making for interesting viewing, at least from my eye-challenged perspective anyway.

India batted first.

They made a sizzling start, and the crowd went wild. But Australia’s bowlers bowled really well, and eventually took control of the innings. India were eventually all out for the relatively low total of 240, which is considerably less than the 300 - 400 they’ve been making all tournament, if they batted first.

It was always gonna be a hard total to defend, but India has a whole pile of  crack bowlers, and a huge home advantage.

Australia started pretty poorly, and were 47/3 in no time, ie, they’d lost 3 wickets for only 47 runs, and it looked as if India would cruise to victory, and finally realise their dream of a home World Cup victory.

Everyone around me was super cheery, laughing and joking around. Optimistic.

But the Australian batters Travis Head and Marnus Labuschagne refused to yield. They dug in, and tried just to survive, for awhile. They were lucky at times. But they did survive, and then Travis Head started to let loose, and began to hit the ball to pretty much every boundary in the whole stadium. Or over it.

The runs piled up. The mood changed. As Australia’s run total rose quickly, a deathly hush enveloped the whole jam-packed stadium.

Pics from Ahmedabad :

The stressed out and worried Indian team.

It began to get pretty quiet around our telly.

Such a bummer.

Australia went from strength to strength, Head and Labuschagne put together a huge partnership, and eventually an Australian win became pretty much inevitable.

The masterful Travis Head, after he’d just reached his century. It was a great knock.

Everyone around me either left the room or became totally disinterested, and stopped watching the game completely. I don’t blame them.

The room was completely empty when Australia won their sixth World Cup crown.

Even I’d left by then.

It was a great victory, but I have to be honest and say that, being here, I was so much hoping for an Indian win. It would’ve made 1.4 billion people so happy, even just for a while. India were the better team all tournament.

I was so looking forward to the celebrations and parties in Jodhpur, which would’ve kicked on through the night, and for days to come.

But instead everyone just went to bed early.

Including me.

Mehrangarh Fort and Palace

So, from the cobblestone track right behind my guesthouse, I could walk steeply up the hill to another of the magnificent Rajasthani fort palaces.

There were so many of these cute squirrels hanging out on the wall.

The magnificent fort towering above the hill.

Entrance gate and fresco

The holes in this bastion are from cannon balls fired at the fortress by the Jaipur army in the early 1800s.

Once inside the fort complex, it’s still a long way to get to the main palace area.

This guy was playing an incredible stringed instrument called a ravanahatha, which literally means ‘Ravana’s hands.’ (Ravana was the mythical evil king in the Ramayana who disguised himself as a sadhu and kidnapped Sita).

The musical instrument has an incredibly haunting sound, because the sound travels through the middle of the silver neck, and finally emerges through the hole in the top, creating a sort of natural reverb effect.

Notice that the curved bow also has a separate string with bells on it at the top right, so the player can actually play an extra bell rhythm separate from the melody, by moving the bow quickly back and forth. Great idea.

This instrument, and others like it, are assumed to be the precursors of stringed instruments which appeared later, like the violin.

The first part of the fortress of Mehranghar was constructed by the builders of Rajput ruler Rao Jodha, who was the head of the Rathore clan. Hence the name Jodhpur. By the way, rao was the term for king, before the term raj, and then later, maharaja, came into use.

Rao Jodha was pretty successful on the battlefield. He captured a lot of territory from the Delhi Sultanate, and created a kingdom which came to be known as Marwar. The old capital, Mandore, soon outlived its purpose, so Rao Jodha decided to start a new one at Jodhpur, which was on the lucrative trade route between Delhi and Gujarat. This allowed the new city to flourish, on the back of the trade in opium, copper, silk, sandalwood and other highly prized goods.

At the time, noone lived on the intended site for the new fort except for a hermit, who refused to leave the hilltop. Jodha tried to convince him to go, but he wouldn’t. Jodha then got a priest higher up the spiritual pecking order to force the hermit to leave, but the hermit was pissed, and cursed the site, so it had a permanent scarcity of water.

To help the new fort and palace prosper, Jodha’s soldiers executed and buried a man of the Meghwal caste in the foundations of the new palace. The guy had actually volunteered for the auspicious job, and his reward was that his family were granted generous land holdings that their hold to this day, apparently. What a guy.

The auspicious sacrifice must’ve worked. The fort was never ever successfully taken by an invader. When the powerful Mughal king Akbar lay siege to the fort, which they, realistically, eventually may have taken, the Rajput rulers did deals with him, allowing him certain tributes and rights of passage, whilst maintaining their own autonomous internal rule.

The spikes on the gates were built to deter elephant ramming.

Whenever the maharaja or any of the noblemen died, their wives were expected to commit suicide (sati), by throwing themselves on the funeral pyres of their husbands (or on separate pyres). To maintain honour for themselves and for their families, they were expected to sizzle away in there without uttering a sound.

Really makes you wanna marry a rich guy, doesn’t it? Not that they had a choice in those days. In those days?

Before they died, the widows would leave a ceremonial handprint, which was then displayed at the gates, to publicly display their family’s honour.

As usual, the stonework here is unbelievably intricate and exquisite. I can stare at these beautiful buildings for ages. Wherever I look there’s another piece of artistic or architectural brilliance to enjoy. It’s so magnificent to see it with your own bungeyes.

Howdah hell dey make dis?

Fancy palanquins for fancy royal parades and festivals.

Loads of lions around, as usual.

The palanquins for the royal males were open to the skies, and to the eyes of the citizens.

But for the women and girls of the royal court, they were all closed up, as women were not allowed to be seen at all in public, a practice which was brought to the region by the Muslim Mughals.

Opium paraphernalia. Opium was common for certain special occasions and festivals in the region, and not just for people in the royal court. I guess it was sorta like the historical equivalent of having a coupla slabs on Australia Day.

The opium was placed in the top of the pouch, water was poured in and then squeezed through the opium, and the opium-filtered water was collected in the wooden trays below, and then drunk.

The huqqa, or hookah, on the right wasn’t used for smoking opium, only for spiced tobacco. Just like it still is.

The whole complex, and Rajasthani architecture in general, is built around the concept of the courtyard. Whole sets of buildings were designed to display magnificent facades around the edges of the courtyards. In Mehranghar there are a large number of these beautiful courtyard areas, each surrounded by exquisite sculptured buildings.

A more recently built palanquin, carved in a Gujarati and Rajasthani style

More beautifully artistic killing devices

Shield covered in carved leather, and embossed with precious stones

Extravagant carved ivory royal make-up chest

An ancient carved huqqa. The cone for the spiced tobacco is at the top, which is called the chillam. Once lit, the hot smoke is then cooled through a chamber of scented water, and then sucked up through the flexible pipe. Nice, if you like it.

Ivory train models

Huge spring-release gate padlock, which needed an elaborate key to unlock.

Another ancient padlock, not hugely unlike the one I bought the other day for my room. Often guesthouses around here don’t rush to provide you with a padlock, so I carry my own now. Not that I’m particularly worried about theft around here, but you never know …

Statue of the goddess Gangaur, a reincarnation of Shiva’s wife Parvati. Gangaur is worshipped by women, to pray for longevity for their husbands (not for themselves), for their own fertility, and, if they’re unmarried,  to help to find a good hubby.

Ancient miniature painting

Some of the rooms in the inner palace are exquisite, as usual.

View of the ramparts and some of the old city walls

Royal cradle

The female part of the palace, or zenana. This is sort of like the Rajasthani version of the harem. The word zenana simply means ‘womanly’ in Persian.

The zenana was separate from other sections of the palace, and the attendants were exclusively either women or eunuchs. Same sex attraction didn’t exist in those days of course. That only exists today because leftwing deviants are corrupting our poor gullible heterosexual children in schools.

According to the Murdoch press, that is.

The architects didn’t hold back in this part of the palace, I’m telling you. The carvings are magnificent everywhere.

There’s extensive gardens up there too.

Kites were gliding the thermals in the mid afternoon. Of the avian variety, of course.

I just love medieval castles! There should be more of them.

Oh, it’s too late.

Spanish Marco was saying to me that it’s incredible that no one anywhere in the world really builds stuff like this anymore. I was thinking exactly the same thing.

I mean, there’s the brand new and incredibly chic sheik palaces in Saudi Arabia and Dubai, or Putin’s little billion-dollar shack on the Black Sea.

But the detail and intricacy of the stonework here could never be replicated on the same scale anymore. Not at a doable price, that is. Even the billionaires would squander big chunks of their entire fortunes trying.

Über an Uber

Lookin’ slightly more blue-ish from this angle

The Kids Are Alright

So the family who live across the lane from my guest house are so sweet, and I’ve been chatting to a few of the kids, who are keen to speak English, and have been teaching me a little Hindi on the way through.

Their dad, Zigarh, is a rickshaw driver, and they have a little shop that they run out of their home, frequented by those few tourists who walk past on their way to the fort up the hill (it’s not the main route), or by locals who stop by for a chai or instant coffee, or a snack.

Life on our corner, from outside the shop.

I go to the shop for a late brekky every morning, and they now invite me to sit inside, as there’s no shade outside most of the time, and they like me hanging out with them.. I like sitting in there too, and watching the customers from the inside, for a change, who come to their little hole-in-the-wall and get served by one of the three younger girls in the family, or by one of their cousins.

It’s amazing who turns up.

Sometimes the customers look at me in disbelief in there, especially if I’m holding the fort. Sometimes tourists ask me if it’s my shop.

There’s five girls in the family, the two older girls live with their aunt’s family, and Shaheen, the twelve year old, kept telling me how much she’s been dying to go to a new games mall, as it was expensive and none of them had ever been. She also told me how much she was dying to buy a new dress, and kept showing me beautiful traditional Indian dresses on my phone.

Well, even the young ones have an eye for it, they can just tell when they’ve found a softie like me, and it really didn’t take me very long to crack.

Shaheen eventually asked me straight out if I’d buy her a dress, and I said yes. I mean, how could I resist that cute face? And saying yes to Shaheen exclusively would be a major slight on her sisters, so before I knew it all the girls were about to be treated bigtime, compliments of me.

And I was very happy about it, of course.

As it was the last day of the Diwali holiday, and to provide some income to Zigarh, we all headed out in his rickshaw one afternoon for a family outing (without mum, who needed to stay in the shop).

I’m not sure who was more excited, the kids or me.

Zigarh doin’ his thing

First up we went to an optician that Zigarh knew, so I could buy some new reading glasses, as mine had finally snapped the night before.

I tested lenses, then chose a frame, the optician then grabbed some generic lenses of the right magnification, traced the shape of the frame onto them, and then filed them into shape on a glass-grinder.

Then he clicked them into place in the frame, glued them, and sanded and buffed up the edges. Smart, and quick. The glasses are sturdy, good quality, and were cheap.

Then we drove to a place called Mastiii Zone, which is basically a large shed full of rides, indoor activities and arcade games for kids. It looks all glossy and nice, but it was expensive, and turned out to be a bit of a ripoff. But the kids loved it anyway, even though they ran through their Mastiiicredit pretty quickly.

Left middle right, Shaheen, Mafu and Sonam about to hit the zone.

Zigarh and I left them to it, and went off for a chai. That’s him on the left. Eventually the girls called us to come and collect them, and we watched them use up their final credit on sit-down driving games and negotiating those fluffy toy-grabbing machines.

Kitsch is universal, unfortunately.

Luckily, even though Mafu dropped her little fluffy dog right at the end, one of the boys who worked in there just opened the machine and handed it to her anyway. Sweet.

As I was not into the girls asking me to buy them things all day, which both of the younger girls had demonstrated their uninhibited propensity to do, I told them right at the beginning what their Oleś credit limit was for the day. They could decide themselves how to spend it, but weren't allowed to ask for more. They each got a certain amount for a dress, or whatever else they wanted to buy.

Sitting waiting for the kids as they shop. It reminded me of shopping with my own girls in the city, when they were that age. I always appreciated a ‘dad seat,’ where dads who’d finally reached their shopping limit could sit, while their excited girls shopped and never dropped.

This time it was a strategic absence on my part. If I went into any shops with the girls they’d immediately be overcharged for everything, as I’m regarded as a stinking rich foreigner.

Which I am, in relative terms.

Well, relative to this beautiful family at least.

As it turns out, the girls needed dress advice from their mum, who wasn’t with us, so they decided to shop with her another day. That was fine by me.

It’s been so nice to hang out with this beautiful family, the kids are really sweet and really normal, almost always nice to each other. But a couple of times I’ve also seen them get mean and screechy, swear-ey, name call-ey and slappy. Especially when they're jealous of each other. You know, normal sibling stuff.

But they were super grateful to me at the end of our day out, of course.

Blue City art

Another rally, from a rooftop

Jaswant Thada

Jodhpur has its own little Taj Mahal, Jaswant Thada, which is only about a 20 min stroll from Mehranghar fort’s main entrance. It was built as a memorial to Maharaja Jaswant Singh II in 1899, and the area has since become a memorial to all of Jodhpur’s royal rulers.

The Maharaja himself, looking over his city.

The complex itself adjoins a beautifully restored lake, which forms part of the Rao Jodha Desert Park, a once-denuded nature reserve which, over the past two decades, has been planted out with flora endemic to the area. This has naturally led to the recovery of the lake system, it now retains way more water than it used to, and, as a result, birds have returned there en masse at certain times of the year.

The main building in the complex is really beautiful, a huge white marble structure with exquisite carvings and stonework.

Yeah, yet another beautiful building, it’s so bloody tiring isn’t it.

Nah, only joking. Each of these places are stunningly unique, and interesting in their own right. Especially in the flesh.

Great game, playing chasey around the wheel. I almost joined them, but it wasn't the right place.

Each sculpture is a memorial for a member of the royal family

Later I went to another ancient stepwell, Toorji ka Jhalra, where folks in the old city would once go to collect water. Way back in the day. It’s a cool shady spot, and the geometrically designed stepped walls are striking. The water is even full of fish, a good sign of the water quality.

Time Is Deserting Me

I’ve spent a long time wandering around this city, and somehow nearly a week has passed. As usual there’s an infinite number of things to see, including, of course, a seemingly endless stream of strikingly beautifully dressed women.

Oranges, pinks and reds rather dominate these parts, a striking contrast to the pale desert sands.

The lot for many women in India

Oodles of dried fruit

The thread colours are no surprise

Traditional Rajasthani lassis come complete with dried fruits and nuts

Time moves, it never ceases, and so, with downward-cast eyes, I’ll soon move on. I’ve become so close to my little family.

The Pushkar Mela awaits me, the famous camel fair and art and cultural festival, culminating in the auspicious Kartika Purnima full moon, a day when tens of thousands of Hindu pilgrims gather at sunrise at the ghats of the only temple to Brahma in the whole of India, and purify themselves in the sacred waters of the lake.

The wonders here are omnipresent.

And no, they never cease❤️

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