Breakfast was 5 Rupees. That's what the note says. A little more interesting might have been a note of exactly what breakfast might have been, but there is no mention of it.
The cold I had picked up had gone to my chest and I was coughing. The cold had actually made me partially deaf in both ears. My note says "cough medicine" and I assume that I bought some at a pharmacy. Again, no mention of the the brand. It was probably a brand that seemed familiar. There were a good number of very familiar (if a little old fashioned) brand names everywhere.
We then explored the fort and at one entrance came across Sri Hari Bawhani and his peculiar instrument. A few posts earlier than this one there is a slideshow video accompanied by Hari's "very nice Rajasthani music". The recording was not made on this first encounter.
My notes say "look round fort" "see tailors" and "8th July". I always seemed to be seeing tailors. I was looking into the making up some shirts again. The rolls of fabric/material that shirts are made of is called "shirting'. Somehow or other the word seems peculiar and amusing. It shouldn't because words such as "sheeting" as in plastic sheeting or "skirting" as in skirting board are quite familiar English terms. The word "shirting" just tickles me and it always puts me in mind of the word "trousering" used to describe someone getting some financial windfall/advantage and keeping it. Then again the word "pocketing" could also be used for the same action. I doubt that the fabric trousers are made of is called "trousering" but I stand to be corrected. If pockets are made of a special material, is it called "pocketing"? Probably not.
The reference to "8th July" is a reference to a restaurant/café called "The 8th of July'. As I recall it was very small but today it is probably much bigger and smarter, perhaps it is even a WiFi hotspot or something. Then it was small place with a good write-up in the Lonely Planet Guide as being somewhere that some home comforts could be obtained. It is strange what people crave when they have been away from home for some time. The 8th of July was a place that Australians could get Vegemite on toast if they wanted. It had Marmite too. I didn't have either. My notes on this visit don't say what I had.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Alighting at Jaisalmer
Everywhere you go on the touristic trail in India you have to be careful about aggressive touts and rickshaw drivers. In Delhi the competition for trade was cut throat. There is always someone willing to act as your guide or take you somewhere that you should really visit. There was (I'm afraid) never an occasion when I received any information or guidance without there being a financial incentive for the giver either from me directly or by way of a commission from whoever's shop I ended up in. You learn to put up with the hassle, to shrug it off.
Arriving in Jaisalmer was different. The train's arrival meant a whole new crop of tourists would all be arriving at the same time. As you step out of the station the sight before you is amazing. I know that I am not the only person who has experienced this. Other people have related the same story since. I think Robin and Donna (my brother and sister-in-law) experienced the same when they visited a couple of years later.
As you exit the station there in front of you is an enormous crowd of hotel touts, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw drivers all yelling and screaming to get your attention. Every one of them desperately wants your fare and the desire is physical. The intensity of the competition for your trade is so great that there would be a real risk that you might get torn apart by competitors. The risk is nullified because the baying mob is held back by Policemen wielding that peculiarly Indian tool of crowd control - the lath, a stave about 6 feet long and perhaps an inch or slightly more in thickness. A fearsome weapon.
Somehow or other we all got a ride together and ended up in a hotel called The Pushkar Palace. Our "room' was a structure erected on the flat roof of the hotel and was basically 4 single beds in one long room. It was cool (in both senses) and it was cheap.
Arriving in Jaisalmer was different. The train's arrival meant a whole new crop of tourists would all be arriving at the same time. As you step out of the station the sight before you is amazing. I know that I am not the only person who has experienced this. Other people have related the same story since. I think Robin and Donna (my brother and sister-in-law) experienced the same when they visited a couple of years later.
As you exit the station there in front of you is an enormous crowd of hotel touts, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw drivers all yelling and screaming to get your attention. Every one of them desperately wants your fare and the desire is physical. The intensity of the competition for your trade is so great that there would be a real risk that you might get torn apart by competitors. The risk is nullified because the baying mob is held back by Policemen wielding that peculiarly Indian tool of crowd control - the lath, a stave about 6 feet long and perhaps an inch or slightly more in thickness. A fearsome weapon.
Somehow or other we all got a ride together and ended up in a hotel called The Pushkar Palace. Our "room' was a structure erected on the flat roof of the hotel and was basically 4 single beds in one long room. It was cool (in both senses) and it was cheap.
Jaisalmer
The above video is an experiment. It's an iPhoto slideshow exported to Quicktime and then uploaded. If it works then I may have to go back and make some more. The music was recorded live on the recording walkman that I took with me. It is being played by Hari Bawhani on that strange looking instrument. To add atmosphere you can hear some tourist or other saying "excuse me, please!" and on more than one occasion the sound of a motor scooter going past with the rider sounding his "horn'. Right at the end of his performance the bells fall off the bow and Hari brings it to a conclusion with his own assessment: "Very nice Rajasthani music!". It was very good and I'm glad to be able to present it to the world now.
Transit in Jodhpur
The train pulled in to Jodhpur about 3.00pm the next day and the connecting train to Jaisdalmer was only a few hours later. I decided there wasn't a great deal of point in trying to see anything of Jodhpur in that time and spent the afternoon in the Refreshment Room drinking Chai and reading. While there I met three girls traveling together called Mandy, Imogen and Grace. They were headed to Jaisalmer too. They were all good fun and the time passed quickly before we all boarded the overnighter to Jaisalmer.
Monday, December 22, 2008
To Jaisalmer, Rajasthan via Jodhpur
The notes I took in my filofax thing are really very bad. They weren't written with this kind of thing in mind. Why I wrote them at all when they are so woefully inadequate is questionable. For instance, the whole of the next day, Wednesday 7 November 1990, is blank except for a note towards the bottom of the page, sometime after 6.00pm, which says "Out to Jodhpur". This doesn't jog my memory about the day very much. I must have done something but what it was is now consigned to the deeper recesses of my mind perhaps never to re-emerge or perhaps only to resurface when most of what I do from minute to minute is hard to hold in my memory.
The train was a sleeper. Most of the journeys I took were overnighter's. I must have said that it saves on a hotel room and you achieve something, namely onward progress,even as you sleep. To a certain extent taking overnight trains is unavoidable. They don't set off on journeys such as Delhi to Jodhpur in the morning. It would mean traveling through the heat of the day which would be uncomfortably hot for most passengers and a waste of a day's light.
Did I mention the unique signs that you find on the platforms of Indian railway stations? It is honestly something that has stuck with me ever since. They have the most sensible station information sign you might ever encounter. The sign says "This train will not leave before..." and a time is inserted. It was certainly comforting to know that there was never a need to worry about the train leaving before the appointed time of departure. What the signs don't say is exactly when the train will leave. On this occasion because of derailment somewhere up the line the train was 5 hours late in departing! Never mind I had probably fortified myself with a souvenir from Kashmir and the blue bench seats in the very spacious First Class compartments were comfortable enough. There were reading lights and if I wasn't writing a letter or postcards I was probably reading. One of the things that I might have done earlier in the day was visit a book shop in Connaught Circus. I've reviewed (and edited slightly) the foregoing posts and can't see a mention of buying books but I certainly did get a handful of paperbacks. I seem to recall that they weren't very cheap. They were a collection of Oscar Wilde's stories, A Passage to India by E M Forster and a book of Kafka short stories. Perhaps they sound a bit worthy or dated. Perhaps I should have been reading Midnight's Children. I am sure I tried once and found it too stodgy to digest.
The train was a sleeper. Most of the journeys I took were overnighter's. I must have said that it saves on a hotel room and you achieve something, namely onward progress,even as you sleep. To a certain extent taking overnight trains is unavoidable. They don't set off on journeys such as Delhi to Jodhpur in the morning. It would mean traveling through the heat of the day which would be uncomfortably hot for most passengers and a waste of a day's light.
Did I mention the unique signs that you find on the platforms of Indian railway stations? It is honestly something that has stuck with me ever since. They have the most sensible station information sign you might ever encounter. The sign says "This train will not leave before..." and a time is inserted. It was certainly comforting to know that there was never a need to worry about the train leaving before the appointed time of departure. What the signs don't say is exactly when the train will leave. On this occasion because of derailment somewhere up the line the train was 5 hours late in departing! Never mind I had probably fortified myself with a souvenir from Kashmir and the blue bench seats in the very spacious First Class compartments were comfortable enough. There were reading lights and if I wasn't writing a letter or postcards I was probably reading. One of the things that I might have done earlier in the day was visit a book shop in Connaught Circus. I've reviewed (and edited slightly) the foregoing posts and can't see a mention of buying books but I certainly did get a handful of paperbacks. I seem to recall that they weren't very cheap. They were a collection of Oscar Wilde's stories, A Passage to India by E M Forster and a book of Kafka short stories. Perhaps they sound a bit worthy or dated. Perhaps I should have been reading Midnight's Children. I am sure I tried once and found it too stodgy to digest.
Friday, October 17, 2008
An Exclusive Audience with a Guru
So I went with the young man to a little place on the Main Bazaar Road. There are literally hundreds of tiny shops lining each side of the road. I was led inside and introduced to a fairly elderly man. I can't describe him now. It's not that I don't have time, I just don't remember. All I can remember is the way it all went. The first thing I was shown was a old black and white photograph of a group of men in white loincloths and I was asked to simply point to one. I have no idea why I was asked to do this. It had some bearing on the outcome of it all but I never quite understood what.
This was the first of two memorably enjoyable occasions when I was knowingly conned into parting with money that I had sworn I would not part with. The Guru asked all kinds of questions and I provided him with the correct answers. The questions were personal but not intrusive and the answers I gave were not secrets. All of this was a kind of softening up exercise to get my confidence and perhaps get me to give away some information of use later. I don't think I told him anything that made me particularly vulnerable.
It was obvious the performance was not going to be for free. It was a private audience with a supposedly wise old man. It also soon became clear that I wasn't going to learn anything about the two women in England who were supposedly thinking about me. I began not to co-operate very much.
The best bit about it was when the old man told me to think of the name of a colour but not to tell him what I was thinking. I thought hard about a colour. He then took a small piece of paper and wrote something on it and folded it up tightly and asked me to hold it in my right fist. I did as he said. He then proceeded to ask me a great deal more questions leading nowhere in particular and then came back to what colour I had been thinking of. I told him the colour I had thought of was the colour puce.
The old man looked genuinely surprised. He asked me what colour puce was. I think I was half right when I told him it was a very dark red that bordered on green. In fact it is a dark red that borders of greyish purple or browny red that borders on brownish purple. Whatever it is, it is a genuine colour and I felt pretty confident that I had foxed the old man. He even asked me to spell it.
He then asked me to open my hand and open up the piece of paper. I did. I swear that there was no way he could have interfered in the process. If he did distract me while I was opening my hand and unfolding the paper I don't know how. Written on the piece of paper was "PUCE". I often think about this trick and wonder how he did it. Surely he needed me to spell out the colour's name so that he, or perhaps his young apprentice, could write it down on another piece of paper and replace what I was holding but my fist was closed tight until he asked me to open it and reveal what was written on the paper I had been holding. I was impressed.
Shortly after that I was asked to choose between three numbers. I think they were 50, 100 and 150. After I had chosen he told me that number was going to be the number of rupees I was going to give him. I was less impressed. I had to disappoint the Guru. I assured him I was going to give him something because I had enjoyed the experience very much indeed; the sleight of hand involved in the piece of paper and colour trick had been completely and amazingly unnoticeable. I think I decided to give him 20 rupees. I think I actually did give him 20 rupees. To be honest I can't remember exactly what I did give him but whatever it was it was exceptionally good value for the entertainment I had had. However, I don't think I turned out to be as good a prospect as the young man, the Guru's disciple, had thought.
This was the first of two memorably enjoyable occasions when I was knowingly conned into parting with money that I had sworn I would not part with. The Guru asked all kinds of questions and I provided him with the correct answers. The questions were personal but not intrusive and the answers I gave were not secrets. All of this was a kind of softening up exercise to get my confidence and perhaps get me to give away some information of use later. I don't think I told him anything that made me particularly vulnerable.
It was obvious the performance was not going to be for free. It was a private audience with a supposedly wise old man. It also soon became clear that I wasn't going to learn anything about the two women in England who were supposedly thinking about me. I began not to co-operate very much.
The best bit about it was when the old man told me to think of the name of a colour but not to tell him what I was thinking. I thought hard about a colour. He then took a small piece of paper and wrote something on it and folded it up tightly and asked me to hold it in my right fist. I did as he said. He then proceeded to ask me a great deal more questions leading nowhere in particular and then came back to what colour I had been thinking of. I told him the colour I had thought of was the colour puce.
The old man looked genuinely surprised. He asked me what colour puce was. I think I was half right when I told him it was a very dark red that bordered on green. In fact it is a dark red that borders of greyish purple or browny red that borders on brownish purple. Whatever it is, it is a genuine colour and I felt pretty confident that I had foxed the old man. He even asked me to spell it.
He then asked me to open my hand and open up the piece of paper. I did. I swear that there was no way he could have interfered in the process. If he did distract me while I was opening my hand and unfolding the paper I don't know how. Written on the piece of paper was "PUCE". I often think about this trick and wonder how he did it. Surely he needed me to spell out the colour's name so that he, or perhaps his young apprentice, could write it down on another piece of paper and replace what I was holding but my fist was closed tight until he asked me to open it and reveal what was written on the paper I had been holding. I was impressed.
Shortly after that I was asked to choose between three numbers. I think they were 50, 100 and 150. After I had chosen he told me that number was going to be the number of rupees I was going to give him. I was less impressed. I had to disappoint the Guru. I assured him I was going to give him something because I had enjoyed the experience very much indeed; the sleight of hand involved in the piece of paper and colour trick had been completely and amazingly unnoticeable. I think I decided to give him 20 rupees. I think I actually did give him 20 rupees. To be honest I can't remember exactly what I did give him but whatever it was it was exceptionally good value for the entertainment I had had. However, I don't think I turned out to be as good a prospect as the young man, the Guru's disciple, had thought.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Posting My Parcel
When I got to the Post Office with my wicker basket stitched up in white muslin and sealed with sealing wax I presented it at the counter for weighing and the calculation of postal cost. A large friendly Sikh man did the honours and declared that the parcel would cost 625 Rupees to send to the UK. At official rates this was about £18. At least the contents were worth more. The stamps were purchased and affixed. The Post Office official then told me in a matter of fact way that the parcel was over sized and wobbled his head. I said I did not know that there was a regulation size. He assured me there was one and he told me that the maximum size for a parcel was the equivalent of two cases of Mr Pik drinking water and he wobbled his head again. I told him again that I had not known that. He assured me that it was the case and again I noticed the head wobble slightly. All the time the man had a very pleasant smile on his face. I told him that I was sure it wasn't very much larger than the regulation size and that it wouldn't be a problem. The Postal worker had the air of a man who had been trying to make a very subtle point and with a resigned sort of look he franked all the stamps and removed the parcel to a shelf for parcels that were to be posted. I left the Post Office and made my way back to Paharganj. As I walked it began to dawn on me that the official had been hinting that my parcel would miraculously become of regulation size if I were to give him a little incentive. His approach had been just a little too subtle. The head wobble was supposed to be the unspoken sign. I worried for a little while that my parcel might not actually be posted, but what could I do?
As I reached the junction where I had been accosted some while earlier there was the young man who had done the accosting waiting for me. He greeted me joyfully reminding me of the appointment I had made. There was no avoiding him and I really didn't have very much else to do so I agreed to go with him to see his Guru.
As I reached the junction where I had been accosted some while earlier there was the young man who had done the accosting waiting for me. He greeted me joyfully reminding me of the appointment I had made. There was no avoiding him and I really didn't have very much else to do so I agreed to go with him to see his Guru.
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