“Athithi Devo Bavah”

I have always wondered if “Athithi Devo Bavah” has ever been followed. I guess it applies only to personal guests. Tourists in India have been looted many at times. I guess we Indians tend to miss out on the larger picture which translates into if you are nobody’s personal guest then you are nowhere. Let me get to the incident which drags me to state this.

Once I am settled in the hotel, this auto guy says he can take us to Wagah Border and back for Rs.500. I am told it should not cost more than Rs.400. Since we were in a hurry we decided to tag along. Also he claimed he would show us around the markets. While on our return trip, we realized that the “market” was a factory outlet! We proceeded with our journey. All of a sudden the auto driver asked us to take another auto claiming it to be that of his uncle. I was asked to pay Rs.50 to the other auto driver. So I took out Rs.450 and gave my driver which he refused. In other words he expected me to pay Rs.500 to him and an extra Rs.50 to his uncle. Wow! What an ingenious way to cheat!

I always wonder if my driver were to ever the Gurudwara uttering “Wahe Guru!”. An everytime he uttered it , I would like to remind him of the number of people he cheated this way!
Similarly in Haridwar, I was amused by the way Pooja was offered to the River Ganges. And to think I got fooled in my own land by my own people is a sad thing indeed. As I enter the temple I am told there is no separate temple or aarthi for the main deity. Just as we wonder why, we are asked to buy Pooja articles for Rs.20 (which is just some flowers and coconut and prob a betel leaf) . During the Pooja (I could not figure out a serious Sanskrit mantra) I am forced to give money to feed the Brahmins! Wow! Now feeding Brahmins is considered to be the most “punya” deed you could do in Hindu philosophy! So nobody actually refuses.

My friends and I were forced to part with Rs.50 to Rs.200 each so that we could get maximum “punya” ! What a way to gain it! The biggest joke was we were forced to part with the amount based on the fancy of the pujari. Our protests fell on deaf ears! The irony of the entire incident is he asks if I am giving the money whole heartedly. I thought it was Rs.50 and I said yes. When I part with my money he says it is Rs.100! Lol! Mind you ! And to top it all no Receipts!

My friends and I are then pulled into a temple supposedly of Mother Ganges! She is sweet no doubt decked in all her finery! The pujari holds my hand and demands money for Aarthi for the health of my family and he starts with Rs.500 upto some insane amount. I realized my pocket and my family would be much better off without it!

When these guys stand in front of the deity and close their eyes in contemplation would they ever feel the burden of these deeds? The bitterness they leave around them is far worse than the filth that Ganga is filled with!

The Golden Temple - Amritsar

Amritsar would always stay close to my heart as it was one of the first few trips outside Delhi. Having secured the companionship of a close friend, it was a like a dream come true. Here I am at the land of the Golden Temple!

The usual routine when you land in Amritsar (we took the Shan E Punjab) is to travel to Wagah Border. The Wagah Border reminds me of the 1947 Partition. I am sure it is the borders that would have bore witness to maximum bloodshed. I am reminded of the movie “Pinjar” where people are forced to leave their havelis for smaller pigeon holes in Delhi and vice versa. It is amazing that once brothers and sisters turned to become the worst enemies. I was discussing with a couple of friends how Pakistanis are actually very warm in reality. It is the politicians who have continued to reap benefits from the fantasy of hatred that they have imagined.

The retreat at the border also had a cultural program where everybody was called to come and dance. I had mixed reactions when I witnessed the program and the retreat together. At one end you had a cultural program which made the scene entirely informal, on the other hand the retreat made the scene entirely formal. I was looking forward to the latter and the former, I must say, disappointed me. It was fun nevertheless to watch people charged with patriotism.
The funny part is the patriotism is only for rest of the world, I wouldn’t be surprised if the soldiers on both sides share a cigarette and a quiet moment together after the retreat! Lol! I told you the Pakistanis were good guys!

Returning back to Amritsar, I entered the Harmandir Sahib. As I entered the Temple, I was slowly being exposed to the magnificent building and I was filled with awe and wonder. A temple in the middle of the pool with its top covered in gold! As we entered the sanctum sanctorum which housed the “Guru Granth Sahib” my ears were filled with bhajans! It was indeed a blissful moment. After offering my prayers , we moved towards the pool, towards the fishes. They were so cute.

The next interesting part was the Prasad. If I am not mistaken it was wheat halwa dipped in ghee! Punjabi food is indeed quite rich! Take a look at the picture of lassi that is posted. Do you think you could hold back yourself for such good food? Which explains my need to have more halwa which I did the next day! OK I didn’t visit the temple again for the Prasad! I tried my best to focus on the principles of Sikkism including the langar!

Alright alright! Yes the langar was an attraction and I couldn’t miss it for anything. Any person who enters the Gurudwara is offered food and everybody who leaves is enquired if they had food, just as any good host would do! I am defy impressed. The only downside was the cleanliness and I perfectly understand with the amount of people they handle on a daily basis.
The principles emphasized by Sikkism and Harmandir Sahib in particular are very similar to Hindu philosophy. The three main principles according to me are Prayer, Seva and Satsang. The number of volunteers that help the people who visit the building is breathtaking. There are volunteers who take of the footwear, clean the temple premises, offer water to pilgrims, serve food at the langar, wash the utensils, etc. The best part was a volunteer asked all pilgrims if they had taken food! I really think we just need to extend this feeling to our societies and communities . This could bring in harmony something that our society needs the most!

Speaking of harmony my last visit was to Jallianwalla Bagh. The atrocities committed during the British rule makes one wonder, how on earth did we tolerate all this. Could you believe all residents on a particular street had to crawl to traverse through that street..all because some guy misbehaved with an English princess? Did not Gen Dyer think of his own family when he killed innocent women and children? The bullet wounds, the well all remind of the gruesome incident which held the entire nation in complete shock and disbelief! It is good to know that Gen. Dyer was finally assassinated in London. I really wonder if he would have felt remorse as he lay dying from his bullet wound.

It is amazing that one place could hold both peace and pain together. It is the balance of these two that has made this place indeed holy!

The Blue city! - Rao Jodha's paradise

Having left Jaisalmer on the holy day of Holi, we were a little concerned if we would be stopped by some naughty drunken miscreant who would demand money for not coloring your face! Wow! That was a pretty long statement and the fear remained for the whole of 4 hours of our drive down to Jodhpur. We were indeed fortunate enough coz we realized that was it was the gruntled driver’s trick to hold us back in Jaisalmer till he played Holi with this family!

Fortunately for us, the musicians here, turned out to be far better than the ones in Jaisalmer. I had a chance to listen to Kamas and Pantuvarali ragas (my fav) in the traditional form. I am yet to figure the difference between Rajasthani folk and Hindustani classical. The rendering was amazing and I felt transported back in time nearly 500 years back when these songs were actually sung in front of the king in a durbar. Wish I had recorded the songs!

After a light dinner and a deep sleep, we were ready to explore the blue city! Yes the buildings of the brahmins were originally painted in blue to demarcate their homes. Over time, however most people started painting their homes blue to escape the blaze of the burning sun! And that’s why the name!

There seem to have been many fights among the various cities of the Rajputana itself while the Mughals seemed to make the situation worse. This forced the Rajputs to side with the British. This is evident from the construction of the Umaid Bhavan palace. It is a combination of both eastern and western architectural style. It was infact designed by Edwardian architect Henry Vaughan Lanchester. A part of this hotel has been leased to the Taj group. And we were shown the ensuite room which costs 4 lacs per night! What a royal night it would be!

Interestingly the father of the current king Gajendra Singh was involved with a woman who is said to have seduced him and finally brought about his death. And that is one reason why there is no reference to her or his father in the entire palace. One is reminded of the film 'Zubeidaa' where the king of “Fatehpur” played by Manoj Bajpai, gets killed in a plane crash thanks to his wife ‘Zubeidaa’ played by Karishma Kapoor. One is often left intrigued by these relationships and the effect it could have on the families of those concerned. I really wonder if Zubeidaa (or whatever was the lady’s name) had any control over the affairs of things to the extent portrayed.

Oh of course how could I forget the royal cremation ground with an attached bath. This left me wondering was not death common to all mortals, something that equals all mortals at some point. Isn’t it the for the same reason, the moment the person is death the body is placed on the ground to denote the ashes would go back to the ashes indeed. Not that it was unique to Jodhpur, but securing a place in the local church by the Western kings to bury their dead seems to reinforce the fact that death does not achieve its purpose atleast with those living.

The Mehrangarh (derived from Mihir- descendants of the sun deity) fort by Rao Jodha is an impressive of architecture atop of a hill(nearly 400 ft above the city..wow!) . What was most impressive about the fort was the way holes were carved in the 4-5 foot wall. These holes allowed hot oil to be poured over the invading enemies. The beauty of these holes enabled the gunmen to aim both horizontally and diagonally while not exposing themselves. Of all the treasures in this fort( you would find most of them on Wikipedia) the one that attracted my attention the most was the opium filter!

Opium it seems was or rather is still is a way of welcoming guests. So a host was required to invite his / her guest by feeding them with three drops of opium with their right palm. This greeting was exchanged by the guest to the host. So when I asked the importance of opium as a welcome “dose”, the guide said that it was reserved for festivities and the opium improved the rigor of the guests to carry them through the fesitvities! What intrigued me the most was the idol of Siva linga at the top of the filter! Well God was excited himself with the drug I don’t we as humans could abstain from such temptations!! Lol! Oh btw opium is still sold legally in some places in Rajasthan and illegally imported from Madhya Pradesh! Now that’s definitely interesting!

The fort does have an interesting collection of palanquins (note not dholis! …the distinction is based where the handles are fixed to the main body! ) . It is believed that the former queen of Jodhpur did not wish to be seen in public while visiting London. So a modern palanquin was made specially for her visit and she landed straight into the veiled palanquin and taken around! I would have definitely cloister phobic in that one. I wonder if that was a muse that Her Highness must have used to avert the trip to a foreign land! Looks like luck did not favor her and she got herself caught in a tight compartment !

While leaving the fort through the Fattehpol gate we noticed the handprints belonging to the wives of the queens who committed Sati over their husbands funeral pyre. These imprints are indeed touching as they remind you of people who were ready to burn themselves for a cause which could be either protecting themselves from the enemies (when the fort was in captivity) or to join their loved ones in death. Well one wonders if some of these were forced incidents, the guide reassured that the choice always rested with the wives. I was ready to believe that as the number of imprints was far less than the number of wives that a king usually maintained (sometimes 15 at a time!). The Sati practice that most women were forced into during the later years was not part of tradition, rather a result of the fear or insecurity that was carried forward through the years!

And thus ended our trip to Rajasthan and we took a flight back to Delhi! (flights are pretty cheap from Delhi ..could be as low as Rs. 3,000 if booked early)

The Golden City of Jaisalmer

Call it coincidence or whatever word that may suit you! Landing up in Jaipur by flight when trains were available and cheaper seemed to be a stupid thought. It could not have been worse and once I booked my flight tickets I was wondering what had come over me! Then it happened. I was swamped with a meeting which would have never let me catch the train. Added to it, when I reached Jaipur I realised that all the trains from Delhi towards Rajasthan has been canceled due to the Jat Andolan! What? How did I miss that? Indeed Lucky!

So at midnight my friend and I were scheduled to take the train to Jaisalmer from Jaipur. The train arrives at 1130 pm and I had booked the first class tickets hoping that I would not have to search for the coach in the middle of the night. The biggest shock of our lives was yet to come. The first class compartment was hardly clean. Gone were the days when it was pleasure traveling by the Indian Railways. Things were so clean and orderly. So the cleaning team was hastily summoned and they were asked to quickly clean the compartment. These guys did a half hearted job and were finally given the compartment hardly five minutes before the departure. What a hassle! It turned out to be exactly 180 deg opposite to what I planned to achieve through booking a first class AC ticket.

Having waited for half hour, sleep was evading us till 2 am. Finally we settled in and slept dreaming about the golden sands of the desert.

Godi Sagar Lake

We reached Jaisalmer the following morning. Taking the cab (accompanied by a gruntled driver) we reached the Godi (/ Gadi) Sagar lake. It was scorching hot and we reached the banks. It was quite picturesque and considering the fact it was a man made lake to collect rain water, the lake was indeed impressive.

What really amazes me of the people of the north is the attitude. While we clicking the pictures of two little boys, the mother sneaked up from behind took our water bottle. What! That was ours and we were dying of thirst! When I tried to reason with her, she told us we could also drink the water and that she did not have any issue with it! Lol! I wanted to despy thank her for her kindness ..a kindness that flowed from the fact she had become an proud owner of a water bottle (in a desert) and thereby commanded a better position than those around her. What a transformation!

Sonar Quila

(Ref: Wikipedia)

Popularised by Satyajit Ray, the Jaisalmer Fort was built of golden sandstone by Rawal Jaisal. Sipping in a cup of masala chai and looking at the architectural splendour of king's and queen's chambers was a heavenly experience. As you walk to the canon points (which had a range of 5 km!..commendable as the fort was constructed in 1156 AD) the view of the golden city is breathtaking. Interestingly, the fort still houses 25% of the city's population. I wonder how one would feel living inside a fort and being seen by tourists as they pass by. This place is known for golden sandstone and by striking a good conversation with people around one could discover a myriad of untold stories.

The Royal Camps at Sam

(Ref: Tripadvisor)

During the desert safari in Dubai I always wondered how people would fare in a desert. Thanks to Jaisalmer I had a near living experience by staying in a tent close to the sand dunes. What an experience! When I first heard of it I could imagine listening to the Rajasthani folk music under the moon was what I had in mind. Well somehow we have a knack of making things not so beautiful sometimes. People from all camps were grouped together and the cultural program started. The music was not upto the mark. Considering the fact that these artists usually can reach amazing pitches, this was a let down. However we were compensated by a nice walk around the camp in the desert under the twilight. That was the very night when the moon decided to be really close to the earth and our first night in the desert was indeed rewarding. With the spring breeze touching your face and with the moon at its brightest, if there was something called heaven, it was indeed this...

Camel Safari
After the short camel safari at Dubai I was looking forward to an actual camel ride in the desert. On the day of the Holi we awoke full of expectations for the camel ride. We notice a camel waiting for us at a distance accompanied by its 10 year old master. Upon approaching it we realised it seemed to be more of a calf. We asked the master if it could handle the weight. He said of course.Really? We boarded the camel and travelled upto the dunes. What a sight! waves and waves of sand with little footsteps of other animals that inhabited the place. We got down and we could feel the soft sand slipping away as if it were a shy kid trying to find a place to hide.

Upon our return we were confronted by something really strange.. the camel half way through had decided that it had enough of us. It just fell on the ground kicking the ground like a little kid. And where were we? U guessed it right, we were lying on the sand with the camel by our side! We did not have a clue to what we were doing there along with the camel. We felt sorry for the camel and started walking towards our camp shaking our head in disbelief. As I turned back I could see the camel running away happily, holding its head held high,along with its little master on its back!

After a sumptous breakfast, we left for Jodhpur- leaving behind the golden city for the blue one!