Its the sheer magnificence of the forts and palaces, fascination of the story behind them, aroma of the delicious food, intriguing landscapes, vibrancy of their dance, music and art draws me back to the state of Rajasthan. Recent journey to some of the north side of Rajasthan gave me some of very unique experiences of opulence, wilderness, rustic and tranquility. Attempt is the portray them using few words and some snaps which I and Prasanna took during my journey. So here is my journey.
Spending 5 days in Jodhpur was very easy with abundance of experiences in all aspect – heritage, nature, art, culture, shopping, food. Stay in Pratap Niwas Palace in Jodhpur made the royal experience complete.
Blue city view from fort
Osian
Stay at Osian Desert Camp, was quite offbeat, with great hospitable people and nice food, gave us an experience to cherish for a long time to come. Best part was to experience the night sky with hardly any ambient light, giving us full view of milky way.
Osian itself was quite untouched with total rural surrounding.
Milky way captured on camera (Photo Courtesy: Prasanna Kumar)
Sunset jeep safari
Jaisalmer
Its a beautiful yellow city, more touristy, its hard to explore more than what the tourist agents wants you to see ;-). Fort, Kuldhara, desert safari is something offers some nice experience. Registhan Desert Camp, gave a good experience of Jaisalmer desert…
Though it is very well known only for its palaces and forts, Rajasthan has amazing wild side of it. Being a person of mountains when thought of wilderness comes to mind, I was quite taken aback when I saw countless number of birds chirping through the day, among evergreen bushes covered the unique desert terrain. And the kind of greenery I had not anticipated be it in Jodhpur or in Jaisalmer as I had my own idea of desert. Each place had something unique which it had to offer, be it terrain, vegetation or animals.
Exploring Countryside
Eventful early morning walks in the fields opened up busy world. Most of the early mornings during our stay at Jodhpur, Osian spent peeking into their busy schedules of these creatures……
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Bushes were filled with chirping of sparrows, babblers, various types of bulbuls, sun birds, bee-eater, hoopoe and so many more.
And you spot a deer or two playing hide and seek, observing each of your movement closely
During drive to bisnoi village we ere lucky to spot a Chinkara maleNeelgai, watching us intently during our jeep safari in Osian desert
Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park
A foothill of Mehrangarh fort has been wonderfully developed into a eco park (http://www.raojodhapark.com/index.html) with all indigenous desert plants that naturally attracts a lot of local birds, insepcts. Had an amazing walk in one of the rocky trails of the park, could spot some rare insects, birds with magnificent Mehrangarh fort in the backdrop. Greenery among the rocks was quite a treat to experience.
Painted grasshopper
Various rocks found in this region of Rajasthan
Rocky path of the park
Keechen
An experience which kept playing back even during sleep for couple of days after I witnessed the sight of huge number of black birds all over the blue sky above us and on the ground. Keechen is a unique place where these Demoiselle Cranes migrate to each year in great numbers from Southern Europe, Russia, North Africa, where whole village supports them and protects them. Sevaram Malli, local conservationist, was like a character out of fiction for us when he narrated how they are spending their time, money and everything to protect these birds.
Here is what I tried to capture what I saw.
Desert Nation Park
Eastern Imperial Eagle which we managed to spot in the park
We were so looking forward to touring the desert national park with lots of anticipation to catch glimpse of rare flora and fauna. But it didn’t turn out to be the way we expected. There was no one who could really give us proper info or a guide, including the National park office itself which connected us to another tour agent. Though in-spite of these we ventured in, but we were told you cannot take vehicle inside in the vast protected area, no other alternate arrangements were suggested even…It is so sad that Jaisalmer, city in the heart of Thar desert with its unique landscapes and animals, has been reduced to few tourist spots(like fort, desert safari, shopping areas) to be covered in 2 days. Places like desert national park, wood fossil park has been neglected by tourism departments and tourists alike.
Relishing melons plucked from fields in desert national park under the hot sun – driver of our jeep decided decided treat us with after disappointing venture into the park’s protected zone
Jaisalmer
In Kuldhara – the ghost village, there is a path of water flow after each year’s rain, interesting aspect is they grow wheat without having to water till it the harvest.
As I mentioned earlier, landscape and terrain of the place is very unique as in any desert I have seen but hides a lot of mystery as well. Its surprising to see so much farming activity all around Jaisalmer, though once a year.
There are many intriguing things such as marine fossils stones to marsh lands which grows wheat on its own with minimal rain the place gets.
Aesthetic beauty of the city of Jodhpur is quite unique, it really carries an air of royalty in nooks and corners of the town. It might be those palaces or simple residence built in typical pink stones or just the paintings done on city walls. When you spend a bit of time in the place, you’ll realize why. Art is their way of life, it runs down as major part of the culture in the whole place, be it painting, textiles, various folk music and dance forms. Place is a heaven for art lovers.
Mystical Jaisalmeir, is quite “cosmopolitan” from centuries with its history of being part of silk route, but it so seemed like to me this beautiful yellow city is loosing itself with overpowering tourist culture.
Here is a brief on what I got to experience, witness along my journey through these cities.
Places and Haweli’s
Terrace of Haweli
Our house for the days spent in Jodhpur, Prathap Niwas is one of most aesthetically decorated place giving us true haweli experience. Be it furniture or paintings on the walls, each corner had perfect details of flowers, designs of all sorts.
And there the Mehrangarh fort itself …….Mehrangarh palace museum houses some of the most exquisite heritage items on display and also intricate paintings on the normal wall is just a visual treat!
Marwar Painting
Interesting aspect is materials used for Marwar painting – Squirrel hair brushes and stone based paints
Visit to Umaid Heritage Art School(https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attraction_Review-g297668-d3948504-Reviews-Umaid_Heritage_Art_School-Jodhpur_Jodhpur_District_Rajasthan.html) allowed me to soak in the details of this art form. Vijay, artist, who has been practicing/teaching the art form from decades, not only displays his and his students works(both from his rural school and other traveler students), also teaches interested individuals who visit art school. Though I reached there too late for the free lesson sessions and missed getting my hands dirty trying out some traditional motifs, watching all the works on display, hearing stories from Vijay was quite fulfilling experience. It was mind-blowing to see the level of detailing which is achieved with natural paints and brushes on cloth or rice papers. One could only achieve it by practicing it for years with all dedication.
Fabrics & Pottery
Nice drive along country side of Jodhpur unveils more of the art forms hidden away in rural areas. Various families traditionally doing pottery, block-printing, durries and so on. It was fascinating to see block-printing, even traditionally had well established supply chain, weavers, color makers, block printers – all were done by specific families.
Following are some of them we got to witness, try out, in just a day’s ride.
Handblock printing with natural dye on handmade cotton fabric.Pots ready to be fired in traditional wood klin. Batch of pots to be used for ceiling of a Jodhpuri houseCute mud bird house most them were occupied. Could see these bird houses not only in potter’s shed, but many of the normal shops around JodhpurHandwoven Durries, which has a specific fascinating loom.
Music and Dance
Tunes of Ravan-Hatta still lingers in my ears. Thanks to being a “tourist”, almost all days I found myself listening to or watching one or the other form of folk art (weather I liked it or not ;-))…about 60% of the artists were super talented and rooted to their traditional forms, quite a few of them wanted to score some brownie points with tourist crowd by picking up popular Bollywood folk numbers (irrespective of them being originated from that region or not).
But still I was quite astonished to see the number of very popular Bollywood songs which were inspired from local folk songs.
An experience to cherish was to be part of Mehardngarh fort folk music fest (http://www.jodhpurriff.org/) opening ceremony. Magical setting with Mehrangarh fort as backdrop, finest artists performed Sarangi Langa, Qawaali, Scottish/Rajasthani folk music fusion, folk dance and so on.
Mr SK Sharma, the man behind reviving this folk art form in the region. It was quite inspiring to see what a single person can do.
Various handmade puppets, missed clicking the boy making these dolls.
Food
Lunch in village house with freshly made bajra roti, local desi ghee and jaggery was an unforgettable, and of course Kair Sangri side dish was to die for.
Rajasthani food is veggies delight. Like in all places I visit majority of the days had my does of local food done with local ingredients.
Kair flowers, dried fruit of which gets used in preparing traditional Rajasthani dish of Kair Sangri
Garbage piled all over Bangalore, so much so that garbage is overshadowing those gardens which gave the city its famous tag. It’s just not the aesthetic factor which causes this worry, it is providing ideal incubation environment for all types of nasty germs. And here is a typical Bangalorean reaction, first thought comes, oh these BBMP guys should be held responsible, naah CM is really accountable, not really where did the PM’s Swatch Bharath heading to? But honestly is it so? Whose waste is it anyway? PM’s, CM’s or the guy who does thankless hard job of picking your garbage from your doorstep? Time for an honest answer! Yes, you are right it’s yours, its mine. Can money clear the mess we are creating with our own mother earth?
Now here is the next question, why are we generating so much of waste? Can’t it be reduced? Yes of course it can be, it takes few moments away from our busy lives to reflect on our current lifestyle to start with. There is this ideal world is where, like our earlier generation, one should be able to manage waste within the household!! That looks like a fairy-tale land for now. But we have to start somewhere and idea of this article is to create a background process of ‘waste thinking’ with some practical daily examples of where we stand along with some tips. Remember this is just a tip of the iceberg, the more you think the more things you’ll figure out till your mind reaches 0 waste scene. Let’s sit back and think for a moment
Veggie Shopping: An impromptu visit to a mall on the way back home is far convenient , but with it there comes a pile of plastic bags contributing to majority of our household plastic waste. Just a bit of planning here will help, pre-planned shopping trip with few reusable cloth or polyester bags, some of the smaller reused plastic/paper bags for carrying small veggies such as chilies.
[To stretch bit further, you can grow bit of your greens and some veggies in your terrace/garden to help and reduce the whole cycle of shopping altogether, saving you fuel apart being healthy :D]
Grocery Shopping: Supermarkets though are great revolution, brings along lot of packaging plastic as a baggage. So key thing is to go well planned and buy things in bulk as much as possible.
[Thinking a bit further, best thing is do shopping in a local grocery store, you can even demand the guy to use newspapers over plastic covers or carry saved plastic covers for grocery]
Online Shopping: Again another great revolution, helps us save time (is that?), gives us endless options for buying. But brings in baggage of what I call as over packaging with lots of cardboard, plastic and other packing materials. It is really important to be aware of this before ordering online. For instance, consider it only for buying a rare stuff which can’t be found in a neighborhood shop.
[Thinking further, should we start giving a serious thought about our consumerism?]
Heading Out: Filling up those bottles, packing some snacks before heading out (be it on a long drive or a short drive for work) would save you from buying bottled water or those snack packets.
[Again, thinking further, homemade food, fruits/dry fruits in a steel box like olden days seems like a healthy and eco-friendly option anyway ;)]
Social Events: Parties/gatherings can be one place which can generate maximum amount of waste if not given attention, here are some things to be kept in mind,
Replace disposable plastic plates/spoons etc with biodegradable or reusable options
Go conservative with usage of paper towels/napkins
Labeled Separate bins for food waste, plastic, paper waste etc in plate drop and other strategic places to make sure guests do their waste segregation right there.
Give a lot of thought about food to be served to avoid harmful plastic packaging as much as possible. Few tips are like, go for takeaway/delivery with household/reusable containers and home cooked one or go for potluck 😀
Pre-plan for leftover food disposal, example, get enough bio-degradable packing materials to distribute among guests, talk to some needy family to take it home and so on.
All the above tip will makes your job much easier, though to start with you may look like a fussy host, but it’s all worth the effort to create a greener earth and you are trend setter anyway!.
Culture of Gifts: For some reason the culture of gifts have become bit overblown social obligation than something symbolizing token to share happiness. Given society we live in now, not sure these gifts would make any relevance other than adding to the kitty of ‘waste’. Our generation needs to give a serious thinking about this matter of gifting so that we can gift a cleaner and safe future for the generations to come. But being pragmatic, let’s do it in steps, here are some thoughts of gifts and return gifts
Choose a plant, home made/personally made ones, handicrafts, seeds, organic goodies, earth-wear, handmade so on and go for newspapers or recycled paper for packing.
As a host, it might be wise thing to start ‘no gift’ campaign or give options, like only organic/handmade/cash etc ;-). This helps in reducing accumulation of unwanted waste. It is not an easy task as of now, but soon you’ll have lots of people following you
Keep eco-friendly options for return gifts as well.
Religious Celebrations: Amazing thing about we Indians is that we do have loads of festivities, spreading a lot of positivity. But recently in this overwhelming enthusiasm of worshiping and festivities we are forgetting to take delicate care of Goddess Earth. It might be worthwhile just step back and see what part of the festivities can be thought through to have cleaner festival.
Festive decor can have only flowers, like in olden days, preferably from our garden which can be a household compost
Haldi-kumkum is best given in decorated tray/bowl by the lady of house directly, not in a small plastic sachet, especially in this modern times when kumkum is never used by ladies to adorn bindi, huge number of those considered sacred are ending up in landfill along with all sorts of waste.
Gifts such as a blouse pieces, purse, plastic boxes, trays can turn into more a symbolic one as whatever is given is hardly of any use. It can be a Tulsi or any other medicinal plant which is the bounty of mother earth for our good health and well-being. Or consider sourcing handmade/handicraft gifts from self-help group, which turns helps some needy part of society.
Think biodegradable option for cups, spoons, plates and boxes for distributing prasad or go with reusable ones.
Choose healthy homemade/organic options with bio degradable packing when it comes distributing sweets for loved ones.
Toys: We all want our little ones to have an amazing childhood and end up picking up everything child fancies, not figuring out where to put a stop in this world of consumerism. In many cases letting the child play with natural things from surroundings, sticks, leaves, pebbles and so on would be much more enriching for a child.
Encourage children to make toys using the basic materials from nature over the prepackaged synthetic ready to use creativity kits.
Choose handmade wooden toys over simple plastic/synthetic options.
Try and reuse toys.
Toys create understanding of the life for young minds, so it has to be dealt carefully to educate our future generations to care about earth.
Its just the beginning of the list, now that you’ve read all these, doesn’t it ring a bell that a generation earlier most of these aspects were very much part of the lifestyle then. Did we just leave all good things from our daily lives and adapted some external culture and inventions without thinking through? Food for thought, we better get serious, time to go back to our roots where need of the hour is.
A foothill of Mehrangarh fort has been wonderfully developed into a eco park (
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