THE LAND OF PALACES, GODS AND LEOPARDS
Where do you start if you have never been to India? Easy, says Mark Ellingham, try Rajasthan...
I’VE an idea that people either go to India in their 20s and then keep gadding off to Delhi or Goa, or they never visit the country at all. Despite working for 25 years at Rough Guides, I was in the latter camp. It was clearly an oversight to address, but how exactly? India is so vast that creating an itinerary is a mighty challenge in itself.
And then I remembered that David Abram, who co-wrote the Rough Guide to India, now works for specialist agent TransIndus. I called him and told him that my wife Nat and I might try South India for a gentle introduction. David disagreed instantly: ‘No. You need brilliant colours, Jain temples, Muslim shrines and leopards. I’ll plan a three-week itinerary for Rajasthan, starting in Delhi on a Thursday.’
So that’s how we found ourselves checking into a Delhi hotel (on a Thursday, of course) and then jumping straight into a taxi to Humayun’s Tomb. A prototype for the Taj Mahal, built for the second Mughal emperor, this is a quietly stunning sight. It is a popular one too, but if you come at sunset you can wander around with just a few Indian families, who will, charmingly, invite you into their group photos.
At dusk, we headed, as instructed, over the road to the Nizamuddin quarter, centred on one of the oldest and most revered Sufi shrines of the subcontinent. This is a truly extraordinary place and the reason we were here on a Thursday was because, as David said, ‘you will be knocked out by the experience’. He wasn’t exaggerating.
You pass through narrow alleyways lined with beggars and stalls of religious artefacts, buy a tray of flowers to scatter on the saint’s tomb, and pay someone to tend your shoes. Then you sit crosslegged in the courtyard, while qawwali singers and drummers unleash a hypnotic swirl of sound, and a cast of Sufi devotees, seemingly from another age, pack in to pay their respects.
We had a gentler day to follow, looking around the bazaars, before taking a train to Bundi. The idea was to see a bit of small-town India and Bundi fits the bill perfectly – colourwashed houses and cobbled lanes that end up at huge public wells with amazing steps and carvings.
One of the delights of Rajasthan is that you can stay – pretty much the whole time if you wish – in historic buildings. In towns, havelis – 18 th and 19 th Century mansions–have been turned into B&Bs or boutique hotels. In the countryside, things are even grander, and you can lodge in a bona fide fort or palace, often with a Rajput family, Rajasthan’s aristocratic caste, still in residence.
Our next stop was one of the most idiosyncratic of these: a Gormenghast-like fort called Bhainsrorgarh, hosted by Hemendra Singh, an extravagantly moustachioed Rajput with pearl earrings. One or two wings of his fort had crumbled into disuse but the restored quarters offer a wonderful reminder of Indian country-house life. Boatmen rowed us out at dawn to see kingfishers flash across the water.
At Bhainsrorgarh we picked up a
car and driver – most India tailormade trips operate like this – and headed for Udaipur. This is perhaps Rajasthan’s best-known royal city, with its pretty fortress islands and vast Maharajah’s palace.
Our itinerary was offering daily wonders but I find it hard to credit that the next – Kumbhalgarh – is not a household name. It is, effectively, India’s own Great Wall: a circuit of ramparts extending across the hills for 22 miles, and enclosing 360 Jain and Hindu temples.
We rose at dawn to troop around the first section. We didn’t meet a soul, though from our amazing vantage point we could see groups of tribal villagers making their way across the valleys. David later told us that he had seen leopards here.
Not that we missed out on those. Our next stop was another frozen-in-time Rajput B&B called Castle Bera. Our host was Baljeet Singh (‘Winkie’, as he introduced himself), and our guide and driver was a man called Gaffar Khan, who has taken some of the finest wildlife photographs I’ve seen, including an amazing shot of leopards, monkeys and peacocks nonchalantly sharing a rock.
Gaffar drove us to see this spot at dawn and ranged a torch across the hillside – and there were the leopards’ eyes, glistening back.
Then as the sun rose, he pointed out two families, finishing off the previous night’s kill. Remarkably, this all takes place outside any protected reserve. Indeed, just behind the leopards’ lair, trains trundle along the tracks from Delhi to Gujarat.
Leaving Bera behind was hard but Jodhpur called. And for me, this is the most enchanting and interesting of Rajasthan’s royal cities. The bazaars are a delight – during our visit, stalls were stacked
high with coloured powders for the Holi festival. It has the most interesting of Rajasthan’s palaces, too – the Mehrangarh Fort, maintained by a trust set up by the Maharajah of Jodhpur. And then there is the Maharajah’s ‘new’ palace, half of which he lives in, and half of which is a hotel – an expensive one, but with affordable extravagance at its Pillars restaurant.
We also travelled to two spiritual cities – Pushkar and the largely Muslim-populated Ajmer, home to another ancient Sufi shrine. Both are compelling. And Ajmer, little visited by foreigners, has the bonus of some of Rajasthan’s top bazaars. We were directed to Ram Ratan’s tiny shop for essential oils, and spent a dream-like hour being bombarded by wonderful aromas.
Our final stop was Jaipur, the ‘pink city’, which mixes ancient bazaars with modern designer shops. We spent a great evening at the city’s splendid Raj Mandir cinema, alongside a ceaselessly whooping audience, and an equally memorable day at the Amber Fort, with its elephants and mirror mosaics.
As we exited through the bookshop, the highly cultured manager took us in hand, chatted about the film we had seen at the Raj Mandir, and asked if we might like a DVD of ‘the funniest film ever’. His nomination? Rajkumar Hirani’s PK – a Bollywood take on ET, which casts a daringly satirical eye across all of India’s religions. Guess what? He’s right.
Despite spending three weeks in India, we did not visit Agra or the Taj Mahal. ‘Lunacy!’ exclaimed David upon our return. ‘You’ll have to go straight back.’
And guess what? He’s right, too.