I’ve been coming to India — for weeks, or months, or years — for more than two
decades. The anger I used to feel when out of my depth has been ground down
into quietude. In that sense, at least, I have been Indianised. I let many
things pass. My particular deep end was a two-year stint of migrating with
nomads in Rajasthan. It was hellish for us all, but made more hellish, for
me, by linguistic isolation.
Cranks such as Rousseau made solitude seem glamorous, but sensible people know
that it is really awful. I had gone to the nomads believing that I would
understand more if I had no companion with whom to construct a separate
cultural bubble. I left convinced that solitude is best enjoyed with
friends.
Since then, I have gradually shifted from the cliché of hating India to the
cliché of loving it. I think of it as home, and speak Hindi well enough to
impress visitors, if not locals. And, after all these years, I am ready to
invite certain judiciously chosen phoren friends into my life here.
Guests, however delightful, are hard work. There are those, for example, who
have a problem with lavatories. Others cannot stomach the food. Some
collapse under the horror of visible poverty. Others do not notice the
poverty and grind, seeing only beauty and glorious smiles.
On this trip into the Indian desert, I am taking Rosa, a resilient first-timer
who, if required, can pee behind a thorn bush, to the curious delight of
passers-by, without turning a hair.
She will be a good companion.
We start out from Delhi in mid-morning. And we are still driving through Delhi
a long while later, past malls the size of national parks and high-rise
apartment blocks on land that was empty scrub a few years ago. “This is real
India,” I say from the back seat. “This energetic, blind struggle upwards,
or downwards, into post-Fordist capitalism.” But my friend has gone to
sleep.
At last we emerge from the long reach of conurbation. I ask Koju, our driver,
to stop the car. He pops a cold bottle of champagne; Rosa and I stand
sipping from long-stemmed glasses, whipped by gusts of warm, gritty wind.
Thus fortified, we feel the exhilaration that is the appropriate spirit in
which to begin a journey.
Heading west, we follow, more or less, the half-buried skeleton of the
Aravalli Range. Farms give way to scrubland and granite, and the further
into Rajasthan we go, the more my painter friend keeps gasping and pivoting
in her seat. The colours! The castles! The men! The women!
The light is dust-hazy, the landscape pastel dun. The high-key colours of
skirts — reds, greens, yellows, candy-pink, fuchsia and marigold, shining
with silver or gold — are held by the background in harmonious contrast. The
women, balancing brass pots or bundles of wood on their heads, glide along
with a roll of the hips and a sway of the arms that is mesmerisingly lovely.
Rajasthan is designed for what the Buddhists call “lust of the eyes”.
Wherever one looks, from Jaipur to Ajmer to Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, in windswept
palaces or airy havelis, gathered around village wells, walking along dusty
roads, framed by carved windows, are these kohl-eyed, nose-pierced,
hard-working, smile-flashing, fabulous women.
But let’s move on to lust of the stomach. Because it is time for lunch. We stop
at a tiny restaurant I know, between Amber and Jaipur, which looks from the
outside as if it might be a goat shed, but serves the best North Indian
cuisine this side of anywhere. You enter the shed to find a dozen tables set
with laundered linen, slowly revolving fans, subdued lighting and the
enormous bulk of the proprietor and chef, Amer. He serves each dish himself,
and a faint, superior, Cleeseian smile appears under his moustache each time
you groan in sensual pleasure and try to push away another treat. This is
the kind of heavy, rich food brought into India by the Muslims. Vegetarians
and dieters will not be happy here.
Afterwards, I feel it is time for my friend to attempt a bazaar. “Yes, I would
love to walk around and explore, but I don’t want to buy anything,” she
says. “Perhaps one or two carefully chosen things, when we get back to
Delhi. . . ”
“Oh, really?” I think. “Just you wait until you enter the Aladdin’s caves out
there. Nobody can resist them, or their proprietors, who, after all, once
sold to hard-nosed princesses.”
So we enter the melee that is the Jaipur bazaar. We join the stream of life,
consisting of female goatherds; urchins, thin as scraps but electric with
energy; women in black chador; young men wearing Nikes and backward-pointing
caps; old men in doorways smoking chillums and rewinding their enormous
turbans; lyre-horned cows who push you out of their way because they know
they’re sacred and you’re not. (One thing I notice when I write
about India: I end up listing things. How else to do justice to its
profusion?)
It is marriage season. There are musicians dressed in white uniforms with
epaulettes and red cummerbunds, playing brass instruments loudly and badly.
And, standing in the midst of it all, a pure white stallion with pointed
Marwari ears, waiting to pick up a gold-encrusted groom.
We enter several shops, but my friend buys nothing. I am amazed.
It is the 12th-century citadel of Jaisalmer that finally undoes her. I send
her off there on her own, because I first saw the place in 1978. The golden
sandcastle glowing on the rim of the Thar desert was a sight I shall never
forget, and I do
not want it sullied by overlays of contemporary Jaisalmer, its skirts now
lined with new hotels and busloads of tourists. For all that, if you’ve
never seen Jaisalmer, it is a must.
Rosa returns buried under parcels, having fallen victim to silver-tongued
merchants who enticed her from tiny medieval doorways while she gazed,
speechless, at sandstone palaces carved into lace.
IT IS yet another lovely day when we set out for Kuchaman fort. Now, it could
be argued that the exteriors of Rajput forts are paranoia in stone. But some
of them are so glorious that the rapaciousness that made them is beside the
point. More than a century has passed since the Rajputs cut heads and
protected their kingdoms from marauders. Power and privilege have gradually
been taken from them, so that their principal function these days is to
prevent their properties from sinking under the sand. But there is no cloud
without its silver lining. Their financial plight has meant that most are
turning their palaces, forts and havelis into hotels, and for that one can
only be grateful.
Kuchaman is quite simply magnificent. It rises on top of a 1,000ft rock cliff.
You drive up to it by 4WD, along an almost perpendicular road once used by
elephants. Inside, the martial architecture of ramparts and bastions,
studded with guns and honeycombed by secret passages and dungeons, gives way
to the most fanciful assemblage of delicate palaces, temples and courtyards.
The rooms have been added over generations, and each displays
the taste and caprices of its particular rajah. One courtyard is constructed
as a chessboard. Real soldiers were used as chess pieces. A little palace is
entirely covered in gold leaf. Best of all is the mirrored room, a giddying
kaleidoscope. When a candle is lit, the room displays its raison d’être.
One candle becomes a million candles, flickering and dancing in the most
charming way. You feel as though you are inside a jewellery box.
Thus our days pass in a glut of eye lust and tummy lust. More restaurants,
more palaces, more forts, havelis and roadside dhabas. A visit to a charming
maharajah to view his collection of priceless miniatures, a reckless drive
through a jungle in an open Jeep at night, looking for leopards. . . and a
lot more shopping.
Back in Delhi, in that reflective, rather melancholy mood that descends after
a friend’s departure, I congratulate myself nevertheless on the success of
the venture. Rosa has had the holiday of her life, nothing went wrong and
she didn’t even have to pee behind a thorn bush in front of an audience. I
imagine her readjusting herself to London, and to post-industrial time.
Rather her than me.
Getting there: fly to Delhi from Heathrow with British Airways (0870
850 9850, www.ba.com), Virgin Atlantic (0870 380 2007, www.virgin-atlantic.com),
Jet Airways (0800 026 5626, www.jetairways.com)
or Air India (www.airindia.com).
Returns start at about £400.
Getting around: it is advisable to hire a car with a driver. Avis (0844
581 0147, www.avis.co.uk) has
chauffeured cars from £150 per week. Or try Hertz (0870 844 8844,
www.hertz.co.uk).
Where to stay: in Jaipur, the Madhuban Hotel (00 91-141 220 0033,
www.madhuban.net) has a comfortable, homely feel; doubles from £16. In
Jodhpur, the Devi Bhawan (291 251 2215,
www.devibhawan.com) has a pool and charming rooms; doubles from £10. The
34-room Kuchaman Fort Hotel (222 404 2211, www.nivalink.com/kuchaman)
is inside the imposing walls; from £46.
Tour operators: Ampersand Travel (020 7723 4336, www.ampersandtravel.com)
can tailor-make itineraries throughout Rajasthan. A 14-night tour, visiting
Jaipur, Kuchaman, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and Delhi, starts at £1,600pp,
including flights from Heathrow, boutique-style accommodation, a chauffeured
car and guides. Or try Pettitts (01892 515966, www.pettitts.co.uk)
or Abercrombie & Kent (0845 070 0600, www.abercrombiekent.co.uk).
