^ ask and ye shall receive. I've been writing for about an hour and a half. This week is meant to be writing week for me. Yr request coincides, thanks, needed a topic.. Here it is, raw and fresh off the laptop.
I reach Jodhpur at noon sizzling and irritable. The place I had chosen to stay was a little more expensive than my budget allowed but it was an old house with character, big window seats and a view over a small fort. When I reach there, the young man behind the desk smiles, jumps out of his chair and starts talking. Behind him an older man sits and watches. I’m in desperate need of a shower, a fan and a bed after the 8 hour(or was it 10?) bus journey I’ve endured.
How can you wear so many clothes in this heat?
I release my backpack in irritation and look up wearily.
Why are you so covered up? Take it off. All the other Europeans are in T-shirts and shorts and you’re wearing more clothes than me.
The bag thuds on the floor. I reach boiling point. I am about to respond when the quiet man answers:
Do you want her to take all her clothes off??
No!!
It is better she is like this than naked.
The young man nods. I grit my teeth. I swallow a lecture about customer service, tact, timing, personal choice, obnoxiousness of youth and the repetitive nature of Hindus.
Can you just show me my room?
Yes, yes. He must see the look on my face. He starts to turn on the charm only it comes out as smarm. What is your good name?
Sheherazade.
Sheherazade! That is a very beautiful name.
His sincerity nudges me out of my mood. A little.
Upstairs, the room is massive, meant for 3 people but there is only me so I try first this bed, then that, then the window seat, stare at the ceiling, the décor, imagine its inhabitants of long ago, munch on biscuits, sigh, shower and pray. It is too hot to venture out and cruel fate has timed a power cut with my arrival. The room is unbearable. I escape to the shaded roof, it's still very hot outside but a little merciful breeze blows. I guzzle something sweet and carbonated and order vegetable pakodas. Unable to finish the food, I decide to share it with the girl at the next table. I walk over, offer her the pakodas, try and explain what a pakoda is and sit down what-the-hell. Nobody says no to free food and the chatter of an irritated but excited traveller. We exchange tales of Indian hilarity for the next two hours.
For the rest of the day and evening I am irritated and I’m irritated that I am. Jodhpur is pretty, the Brahmans paint their homes blue and the houses have a bluish blush that deepens to an indigo wash by evening. I sit on the roof and force myself to write something constructive in my book. I fail and instead give into a stream of negative consciousness.
In the morning, a little subdued, I walk start to walk to Mehrangarh Fort, a short uphill walk away. I snake through the neighbourhoods, past cows, rickshaws, stares, chai-stalls, shops bubbling with colour and aroma, city-girl lungs screaming. I stop and ask now and then and always, always they point up, towards the fort which hangs over the neighbourhood like it has for centuries. I reach a fork in the road and stop. Two women sit outside a house on a bed. They start to talk to me. Sit, sit. I’ll be late I say, the fort will close for lunch. One of the women speaks English. No, she says, the fort no longer closes for lunch, it would stay open continually until evening. You have time, stay. Their enthusiasm roots me to the bed. These are the moments that make it extra special. We get talking and the woman tells me her family has just started running a guesthouse with only 3 rooms. A light-bulb bursts into life above me. Show me I say. She points to the building opposite us.
Inside there are only 3 small rooms. How much I ask. Rs 150. Well under £2. I’ll take it I say. I’ll go get my bags now! She sends her nephew with me to help with the bags. I am thankful for the help to escape the grandeur of the annoying accommodation.
When I return with the nephew, I fill in the never-ending Indian forms of bureaucracy. It is then I find out the guesthouse owners are Muslim. I clap my hands. The woman tells me she’s involved in local politics and that the guesthouse is a new money-making venture for the family. She promises to show me around and we talk and talk. Finally, I force myself to leave for the fort.
Forget the Taj, the Mehrangarh fort is the reason to see India. I walk around it, through it from room to room to roof, peeping into the bedrooms of Maharajahs and the Phool Mahal now empty of its dancers and courtesans. In my ears I listen to the accompanying descriptions and historical stories on tape. I stop here and there, running a hand over the palm-prints of wives on their way to the funeral pyres of their husband, Man Singh to lie down and perish with him, marble walls and crumbling stone. I fall in love with the place and stay for as long as I can.
When I return I sit outside with the family. There are so many children but I ask for each name and memorise it. A couple of the boys go to school(their parents have a little money), the girls don’t(the boys get priority) and in that house full of children every morning only a couple of boys leave for school and the rest stay behind.
The grandmother leaves the bed for my comfort and sits up straight as a rod on a low wall across the house. I plead for her to return to the bed, I’d sit elsewhere but no she stays on the wall, grinning and waving me away. I sit and one of the mothers brings me food -delicious and hot. It burns my insides and I feel as though my eyes will bleed. She sees me struggling, tongue hanging, chugging on water and laughs. Don’t you eat lamb in your country? I laugh. Yes but this is hot. But lamb dishes are supposed to be hot. I blow my nose, say it’s delicious and continue to abuse my digestive system.
Neighbours walk past and the grandmother tells them I’m from England and Muslim and understand a little Hindi and staying with them and find the food hot and look at her wearing long sleeves and covering her head and she’s better than us and and and…the neighbours listen open-mouthed, steal a look my way now and then as if to make sure I haven’t disappeared, smile, shake their heads, smile, stare, sit or stand longer than they intend. It’s not every day I walk into the neighbourhood. The grandmother tells a good tale and I get carried away with the story each time.
The afternoon drifts by lazily. Soon an ice-cream man appears over the curve in the path. All the children spring to attention, hurry to help the ice-cream man push his cart over the hill for no other reason than to be close to his wares. One child- a neighbour- asks for an ice-cream. The others throng around the cart and watch the boy reach in and pull out an ice-cream. He runs away with his treasure leaving behind a throbbing mass of envy.
I turn to one of the mothers and say the children can have ice-cream. She looks at me, understanding but not accepting. She shakes her head, frowns and smiles, smiles and frowns. I call to one of the boys- the most outgoing one- who knows a little English from school and tell him everyone can have an ice-cream. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment and races back to the cart. Confusion breaks out. Just what was he doing? He breaks the news and shouting follows. The ice-cream man stands back. Little chocolate hands disappear into the cart, pulling out ice-lollies in every colour; vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice-cream. The mother next to me laughs in glee and touches my hand. When the children all have an ice-cream I ask them to get some for me, the mothers and the grandmother. I pay the ice-cream man and he wheels his cart away alone, no child interested in giving him a helping hand now.
The ice-cream isn’t quite Haagen Daaz but in the heat and the moment it’s the best ice-cream, ever. In the whole wide world. The grandmother giggles and slurps her ice-cream happily.
We are sitting for a couple of hours when the grandmother suddenly lets out a whoop and lifts her khameez swiftly. A snake drops out, falls on to the ground and slithers our way. Screams explode into the air as the dust-coloured short snake swishes this way and that. I lift my feet off the ground. The woman politician- a tough cookie- grabs a giant stone, follows the snake and smashes the stone into it.
The grandmother holds her chest and laughs nervously. The rest of us join in. Where did it some from somebody asks. It was inside my khameez, it came up my back and around my stomach. We all shiver and pull our shoulders up. The children hover over the dead snake. As evening comes, the grandmother relates the snake story to passers-by and each time I am pulled in by her story-telling, laughing and shivering a-new.
To be continued..
