Thank you India! / Mariella

I remember when I first heard “Thank you India”, by Alanis Moressette. It was one of many little hooks sunk into me, pulling at me impatiently. It took me another fifteen years to get to India. 

The White Temple, Jodhpur

It was for work and a little play and because we only had three weeks, we elected to stay in one area. This area was Rajastan, the land of kings, a desert realm of ancient palaces and home to the descendants of the warrior clans. My husband goes once a year and I hid behind him for a few days after we landed, I was terrified! The systems by which the nation conducts its daily business stupefied me! But then something started to happen, something in that head wiggle wiggled its way into me! The tight grimy streets began to carve themselves into the fibre of my being and the character of the people engraved itself into my sense of humour, my smile, my faith in humanity. How so many people can live in a country struggling under the weight of itself and still smile, laugh, sing, dance in the streets, haggle you out of every Rupee in your wallet, rejoice, pray, carry on in faith, embrace you and include you amazed me.

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Here are a few facts about Rajastan:

-Taps drip and so do toilets, the only thing to consider is where they drip from!

-Hooters hoot.

-Shops are open between 10:00/11:00 am and 8:00/9:00 pm.

-Cows will eat trash more readily than old papads.

-The solid line in the middle of the road is treated more as a serving suggestion than a road rule.

-Indians have rocks, will build walls. They have been built everywhere and for no apparent reason, there are high walls, like the wall of China, climbing vast mountain ranges and disappearing into the distance, there are low walls criss-crossing through the sparse dry forests and between villages. India is held together by walls.

Pushkar, A view of the Holy lake from my window

Romantic Udaipur, the Venice of the East!

There is an iconic exchange for everyday that we were there, such as the conversation with our auto-rickshaw driver who, after negotiating us through a donga in the middle of the road in the middle of the night said it better in his crackled English than anyone could, ‘Oh my goodness, this is a very mountain road!’, or the gentleman who has known my husband for years, confiding with arms outstretched, ‘this man is like a bother to me!’.

Having gone from the lofty mountain shrines around Pushkar to the Romantic lake temples of Udaipur, I think I found the heart of India in a small home at the base of the mountain upon which Jodhpur’s magnificent Mehrangarh fort stands. The day after we arrived in Jodhpur, we decided to take the road less travelled by. We walked through the streets until contented by how utterly lost we had gotten ourselves! We headed roughly up the road intending to possibly approach the fort from the side and find steps going up. Once the road became a winding path in the shadows between high blue washed buildings we found the last houses built against the rock face itself and here there were children playing. A boy, with large bright eyes yelled, ‘Come, come!’ We followed. 

He led us to a cerulean blue building built from the same stone as the cliff face, which turned out to be his home. We were greeted with many smiles and immediately food came out of the cupboards. We gladly accepted, all the while thinking, eeck, my tummy’s not strong enough for home cooked food in India! They watched us eat without joining us. 

We spend the entire day with this boy and his family in their small home at the base of that overpowering rock, they showed us the small temple they care for, the well they tend, a hole in the solid stone, which took two elephants to empty. We looked through wedding albums and did each other’s hair! Before we left, the boy’s mother, whose name is Kishan, said to me, 

‘You Englishstani, me Hindistani, but blood is same’

I thanked her, and sent her photos after, if it were appropriate to hug her good bye, it would have been a very long hug!

Kishan, on left, and her beautiful family 

On the way to Kishan's house

India is a rising star, and change brings with it shabeens in taxi ranks where there was once no alcohol at all, technology almost as quick as the kids and a direct link to the first world, but walking out of that blue house with a family of farewell waves at my back and a packet of leftovers in my bag, I felt like a desert nomad, stepping out into the setting sun, with my eyes set on the horizon and an ever elusive ancient world to discover.