Musings of a Wandering Mind

Rajasthan Travel: Jaipur with Raju

Travelling in Rajasthan in February 2008
Jaipur >> Shekhawati >> Pushkar >> Jaisalmer >> Jodhpur
+ Previous: Arriving at Jaipur
+ Next: Jaipur Old City: City Palace, Hawa Mahal and Jantar Mantar

Raju is my escort in Jaipur, taking me from place to place and helping me with every little thing. It is unusual for me have someone show me around, but a friend in Delhi puts me up with Raju, and I find it convenient.

He is a thin man; it looks like he will collapse at a strong wind. He sounds a little harsh and groggy when he speaks, but behind that voice is an innocent person. He makes a living out of showing tourists around the city, and most of the time he will have someone book his services from Delhi. His rickshaw is ancient enough that it’s a wonder that it still moves. It makes an awful noise as he accelerates, as if begging to let it die in peace and be forsaken as a scrap in some dingy garage. But like everything else in India, this rickshaw too will be dragged on until the last fragment of its body comes loose and there is nothing of it left to drag further.

I try to start a conversation with Raju when I sit in his rickshaw for the first time. But the sputter of the rickshaw dissolves all sounds around it, including my voice. It is like sitting in a classroom and being commanded by a monitoring bully to stay quiet. It takes less than a minute to learn, and I give up all attempts of chatter.

But it’s good to have Raju along. He is no efficient guide who can tell me of the past and present of touristy monuments or give a scholarly lecture on Maharajas of Jaipur. But he takes me to places where they serve good Dal-Bhati-Churma and great Aloo Parathas. He knows artisans who work on the streets and sell Katputlis(puppets). He knows all the small alleys where you can find Marwari films, and tells me how Marwari is becoming a diminishing language in the state. He gives me company even in sitting quietly when I want to spend time doing nothing in a relatively empty corner of the lake that hosts JalMahal. When I try to take pictures of Black Winged Stilt wading the lake shore, he asks me inquisitive questions about the birds, making me almost feel proud about my knowledge.

Most of our conversation happens in Hindi. My fledgling Hindi is good enough to for everyday affairs, but I search for words once in a while. One of these days I tell Raju that he must learn English, and make a sales pitch telling him on the benefits of being able to cater to a global customer base. He nods in acceptance. In fact he does speak bits of English and understands what others say.

Raju had become a good friend in the four days I spent wandering the forts and ancient structures of Jaipur. On the day I left the city, we agreed to stay in touch as I offered to help him improve his English. He is kicked up but we both know distance education is not that simple. Having seen me ask inquisitive questions about Marwari language before, he offers to teach me Marwari in return. But that’s not something that kicks me up. How much ever I desire to speak ten different languages, an attempt to learn just one more in recent past has been a miserable failure.

But we have managed to keep in touch in the last few months with occasional conversations over the phone about progress of our lives. Raju now owns a brand new rickshaw and the old rickety has finally heaved a sigh of relief. Or who knows, it might have been dragged further to a miserable geriatric life by a new owner!

Posting Raju’s number here after he requested for it. He can be reached at +91 9829900473

Continued at Jaipur Old City: City Palace, Hawa Mahal and Jantar Mantar

Rajasthan Travel: Arriving at Jaipur

Travelling in Rajasthan in February 2008

Jaipur >> Shekhawati >> Pushkar >> Jaisalmer >> Jodhpur
+ Next: Seeing Jaipur with Raju

I made a 3-week trip to Rajasthan, covering Jaipur, Shekhawati, Pushkar, Jaisalmer and Jodhpur in February this year. Starting now is a series of posts on the experiences of travelling in Rajasthan.

It’s a pleasant winter afternoon in Delhi. Sun shines brightly, keeping the cold and fog at bay and making me feel cheerful and energetic. The leafy environs of Bikaner House, Rajasthan Tourism’s office in Delhi, looks almost like a small forest. It is such a nice day that I don’t feel like leaving. I want to continue my stay here till the days come when the burning sun becomes unbearable and Delhi’s best days of the year are a past. But I have come here to leave, in search of the romance of the desert and remains of its past.

It’s a relief to see buses lined up to go to Jaipur; I don’t have to wait for long before the next one departs. I walk into the booking counter – a typically gloomy government office where a sleepy man tears a ticket and thrusts it past the counter at me. I am lucky to have exact change; a few people without it are brushed aside and sent away in an unfriendly manner. When you do business with government, you always work on their terms, even if you are a customer.

But Rajasthan Tourism is still better than a normal government office – it actually works. The buses are kept well and the seats are clean. Windows shut properly and are weather sealed to keep the cold wind outside. Even better, they seem to have heating in the bus – something I have never seen anywhere before. But the moderate weather requires neither heating nor cooling.

It takes a long time to put urban sprawl of Delhi behind us. What immediately follows is the unsightly buildings of Gurgaon that rise steeply and haphazardly – it seems no less chaotic than a war zone. But beyond all that is the countryside with open landscapes spreading far and wide interspersed with tiny houses here and there. Mustard fields spread all the way to the horizon, and the carpet of yellow flowers floating on the lush green plants is a sight that I am going to relish for most my next three weeks of stay in Rajasthan.

Half-way through the journey, the bus stops for a tea-break at the appropriately named place called Mid-Way Restaurant. That’s another Rajasthan Tourism enterprise, once again giving me an impression that things actually work there. It’s not just a restaurant but a hotel and tourist complex, with rooms, a lounge bar, a clean and well maintained restaurant, ATM, trinket shops and everything that a tourist can do with. But it’s all the same at some level when it comes to government – the staff are not the friendliest I have seen in a restaurant and take their own sweet time to be at service.

Back at the comfortable bus, yellow and green landscapes outside and a book on my lap keep me occupied through the 7-hour journey. The bus is late by an hour to arrive at Jaipur and it is dark when I alight from the bus. No sooner I am there, I am overwhelmed by touts rushing in to be at my service – “cheap hotel.. auto-rickshaw.. coolie…”

Half a dozen of them pounce on me together and remind me of my days of running around frantically to escape them in Shimla last year, and at Agra much before. But I am seasoned now, take them all with ease and engage them in a conversation effortlessly.

I tell the touts that I am waiting for my contact in Jaipur to come and pick me up. But they don’t take to my story immediately and persist for some time. I am relieved from them only when another bus arrives and shifts their attention to likely victims arriving in it. But one man remains by my side, hopeful. My conversation with him is predictable, and is exactly same as it would happen in any bus stop in any touristy place.

‘Sir, you want Rickshaw?’

I tell him someone is coming to pick me up, but he is insistent.

‘Sir hotel-wotel? I will take you to a cheap hotel.. very nice. Give me only ten rupees for the rickshaw’

‘No thank you,’ I smile and tell him again, ‘someone will pick me up’.

‘ok sir, I will wait with you; if your contact doesn’t come, you come with me.’

This was fine with me, and I accept. I had spoken to my contact before alighting the bus and he was already on his way. But the tout is still hopeful and tries to distract me. After a brief pause, I was lost in my own thoughts when I hear him speak again – ‘Sir, where do you want to go?’

I laugh at this question and ask him why would he want to know.

‘sir rickshaw? hotel – wotel?’ he smiles and asks me again, still hoping for some business. We went through another round of conversation telling the same things to each other before my contact arrived and bailed me out.

Continued at Seeing Jaipur with Raju