Jodhpur

In Jodhpur there is sand everywhere except for where it should be. Sand in your shoes, sand in your socks, between the folds of your skin. Sand in the blanket of your bed. It is a bit like being at the beach except the nearest ocean is more than 600 kilometers to the south and the only girls in bikinis are at private pools or pixilated on computer screens at the seedy internet cafes along the Nai Sarak.

The sand is blown in from the Thar Desert, which rises in the west along the border with Pakistan and covers some 200,000 square kilometers within the Indian state of Rajasthan and spreads into parts of Punjab, Gujurat, and Haryana. It is not, however, the endless expanse of sand and sky I had expected. White dune after white dune. Sprawled like a silk sheet under the murderous sun. For that, one must travel four and half hours further west, to Jaisalmer. At Jodhpur, the desert is a low gravel plain dotted with pipal trees and small clumps of thorny scrub.

It was overcast and cold the afternoon we arrived. The mud embattlements of the Mehrangarh Fort towered over the city. The tuk tuks fought the cars and camel carts in the streets for a few feet of shattered asphalt. The first thing we noticed was the smell, which is the smell of India, and depending upon your pluck and spirit for adventure is either heinous or exhilarating.

After we climbed the winding dirt road up Bhaurcheeria Hill we went into the fort. Its stone walls are some 400 feet and the foundations date from 1459 when Ruo Jodha became ruler of the city. In the museum we saw a collection of howdahs, a kind of seat fastened to the back of an elephant, once used by the royalty of Rajasthan. We saw palanquins which had carried queens and bent the backs of foot slaves. Outside atop the parapet of the Fateh Pol gate we saw out over the city and the expanse of blue buildings at its center across a plain to the barren folds of the Aravali Mountains. A falcon perched on the rampart folded its wings and fell in a blur along the sheer red sweep of the fortress wall and was bore away on the wind.

At lunch we sat in the courtyard of an outdoor café and talked with other travelers about what we’d seen since arriving in Rajasthan. On my left was a lady billionaire and Adweek’s woman of the year 1985. She was the CEO of some company. They told me later which company, but I’ve since forgotten.

On my right was Armando, my travel companion, and a duo of carpet dealers from Dalton, Georgia. They were husband and wife, the husband slim with a black pompadour and the wife, a plump blond who smelled of shopping mall. It was just the sort of company I’d pictured for our Indian adventure.

“Oh you should absolutely go to Ranthambore,” said the wife. “There are so many tigers you can’t toss a rock from the truck without hitting one.”

We had already been on the tiger part of our trip, and we had seen no tigers. I told her we’d have to save it for next time.

An errand boy appeared and opened a box at the table and the lady billionaire selected from an assortment of jewels a diamond pendant and a set of gold bangles. A man stepped out from behind her and sent the boy away with a wad of rupees. I went to the bar and got a beer.

The man beside me was drinking a single malt. He was leaned with his back against the bar looking gallant and cheerfully nonchalant and I thought he had on perhaps the most interesting garb of any man I’d ever seen.

He wore jodhpurs and a pair of pashmina scarves flowing over a field jacket and he had dark eyes and wore his hair long under a straw Stetson hat. The center of his forehead was daubed with a blood red bindi and his long black moustaches swept along the sides of his face in the manner of a Rajput prince. He adjusted his ascot and introduced himself as Sandi Rathore. I complimented him on his clothing and asked him what he did.

“I’m a shepherd from the desert,” he said. I knew there had to be more to it than that but I only nodded and turned back towards the table.

“I see you’ve met my guests,” he said.

“Guests? I thought you said you were a shepherd?”

“I am. But I sometimes also guide people.”

“We came to see the real India,” I said. “Where can you guide us?”

He tossed back his whiskey and sat the tumbler back down on the bar. “Come with me,” he said.

We drove across town in his old Indian army model Mahindra jeep. The top was down and Armando and I rode in the back while Sandi blasted some indipop song and boys waved to us from motorbikes. The road led past a great marble ganesh and mud houses slumped into ruin. A few slat-ribbed cattle got up from the middle of the road. Sandi shifted into low gear and pulled down a dirt track lined with prospopsis cineraria and stopped before a large canvas wedding tent. There were cars all up and down the drive and a man atop a camel answered his iphone. The wedding had lasted an entire week and we had arrived for the finale.

Inside the tent a trio of red-turbaned troubadours welcomed us with a song of the desert. Sandi introduced us to everyone at the tables. They were all men. Like all men we asked about the women.

“They’re inside another tent,” Sandi replied.

“Are we allowed to seem them?”

Sandi laughed his big open laugh. “Of course,” he said. “But first let us liquor.”

A bottle of good English whiskey together with three glasses were set at our table. Also on the table were trays of lamb and chicken tikka along with a splattered Rorschach of sauces, capsicum and coriander and tamarind chutney. Armando and I had already had a free lunch once that afternoon, but we saw no reason not to have another.

A man at the far side of the table rose and proposed a toast. We drank. Someone showered the musicians with money and they smiled and struck up a tune.  Sandi leaned and spoke into my ear. He said they were a caste of musicians that for centuries had served his caste, the Rajputs, at marriages, births and birthdays, by setting the mood with songs of love, songs of the desert, of praise for the family. One had a hand drum and the second a shenai and the third a mashak bin, a kind of goatskin bag with a bamboo blowpipe. The melodic drone of the music sounded almost psychedelic.

When the music stopped we finished our drinks and Sandi show us inside the house. The first floor was filled with women. All wore embroidered veils and ankle length lehengas appliquéd with colored ribbon and strips of gold and silver lace. Armando fell in with a pretty girl in a pumpkin-colored dupatta. We were both invited for dinner the next day.

Outside came the sound of women wailing. Sandi motioned to the window so that we should see. The sisters and aunts and grandmothers of the bride all stood under a mandap strung with marigolds. Some whispered mantras and some were embracing the bride while others watched and wept into their hennaed-hands.

It was the departure ceremony. A white sedan adorned with roses and rangoli stood ready to whisk the bride away from her family for the first time in her life and to live with family of her husband. We walked outside. Someone opened the door for the bride and women swarmed the sedan. Rockets went up whistling from behind the wedding tent and blossomed overhead.

When the car was gone we were invited for more food and more drinks. Sandi and the girls would not hear of our departure. Armando was already in love. I considered not coming back to Korea.

“So this is the real India?” I asked Sandi. It was the same question Adela Quested had asked her Indian companion in E.M. Forester’s classic A Passage to India. And here I was, another western traveler a hundred and fifty years later asking the same question, and it occurred to me that every Indian guide since the invasion of Alexander the Great had probably fielded the same question.

Sandi did not seem to mind. He sat forward in his plastic lounge chair and began to roll a cigarette on one of the wedding tables. He looked up at me.

“India is like any other country,” he said. “Except that it isn’t any other country.”