Jodhpur

This is a continuation of my diary from my RTW trip from October 2003.

I spent one night in Jodhpur and could have spent a second. It was the most relaxed place I had experienced so far in terms of hassle from touts and hawkers.

The Meheranghar Fort is the main tourist attraction. Firstly it is an amazing piece of architecture that puts every British castle to shame in terms of scale. It is situated on the edge of the Thar desert plain, on top of a lone rocky hill. The height of the hill and the scale of the Fort are breathtaking.

What added to the experience of looking round the place though was that this is also the best ‘produced’ museum that I have been in so far on this trip.

What I mean by that is that Robben Island in South Africa was evocative as the place where Mandela was jailed for 17 years. Yet little else had been done with the place apart from putting a blanket in his cell to show the conditions he had to sleep in.

The National Museum in Sri Lanka had all sorts of interesting bits of architecture from the Ancient Cities, but they were left lying all over the floor in a random way with no sense of historical narrative or indeed labelling. The labels that were in the museum looked to be antiques in their own right!

So I entered the fort expecting lots of dusty rooms with great views of the plain, similar to Agra Fort. Yet the Maharajah of Jodhpur acts as the Director of the Museum and is clearly determined to show his palace off to the best effect. There is an audio tour (apparently only the second place to have such a guide in India), which brings the place to life.

On the inside of the main gate was a moving testament to ancient practices. Adorning the walls were 22 handprints in deep crimson. These were the handprints of the women of the harem of a former Maharajah of Jodhpur. On his death, the women had all bedecked themselves in all of their jewellery and left their handprints by the gate before leaving the Fort forever.

Their destination was the town, where they stripped themselves piece by piece of their jewellery, handing things out to the townsfolk and beggars. When they had given away their last piece, they headed to the funeral pyre of their husband and one by one sat themselves down in the flames as the suttee practice demanded. They remained in silence until they too died, joining their husband eternally in the afterlife.

The luxury of the palace and Zenana (part of the palace where the women lived in Purdah) was thrown into relief by understanding the end to which the women all knew they must go.

Another interesting architectural feature were the massive nails jutting out from the front door. Standing on tip toe, with my 6 foot height ad arm outstretched I could just reach the bottom most one... They were of course anti-Elephant protection for the Fort. The main door was also set at a right angle to the approach ramp... A design feature to make sure there was not enough room for elephants to get a run up at ramming toe door down either.

The most striking thing about the view from the Fort was how blue the town is painted. It made for a vivid contrast to the Rajasthani desertscape.

Before I was about to leave the Fort, my eye was caught by a spectaular amount of bird noise. I soon saw a huge wake of vultures wheeling over a heap of meat left out for them.