Bundi - my favourite place in Rajasthan

Bundi - my favourite place in Rajasthan

Monday 24 January

There is no doubt that the arrival in a new guesthouse can make or break the visit to a town. This is why at the last moment I decided to go for the more expensive option: a stay at the Haveli Banj-ki-Bushanjee. This is a glorious haveli, owned by the same Brahmin family for 200 years (now run by two gently courteous brothers, with good English). It is amazing: grand courtyards, heavily decorated dining room, wall paintings, statues and family photos everywhere. My bedroom - the smallest and cheapest - has a double bed built into an alcove, surrounded by coloured glass windows. Even the bathroom (with the requisite leaking loo) has intricate lacework on the walls.

And the dinner - thank goodness I was sufficiently recovered to enjoy the very tasty thali followed by my favourite carrot pudding.

So in the morning I was feeling well up to visiting the palace, set at the foot of awe-inspiring ramparts of the 19th century fort, now in ruins but dominating the town.

In the palace I had the good fortune to meet my best guide yet. Keshav Bati is a 59 year old retired air force corporal and since English is the language of the air force, he speaks good English. Even more important, he is passionate about the palace and the paintings for which it is famed and, sensing I was a fellow enthusiast, we took a long, leisurely tour of the palace, with detailed explanations of the paintings which absolutely made my visit.

As so often, the palace is in fact a series of palaces, many dating from the sixteenth century, though the paintings are often later. First up a steep ramp, reminding me of an extremely uneven version of the Edinburgh streets, to the palace of Chittra Sala. We strolled through the formal gardens where, Keshav explained, the ladies of the palace used to pass their time, and then walked up to a courtyard with the a magical collection of 18th century paintings. Hopefully I will eventually be able to show photos and explanations of these, although frustratingly the security people don't allow either flash or even tripods. Annoying as I had come armed with a tripod, realising that flash photography wasnt on. Lets hope my pics are not just blurs.

The paintings are a mixture of blue, the colour of hindu, and green, the colour of moghuls, illustrating the frequent tendency of the Rajputs to seek compromise with the Moguls, with some intermarrying, to buy protection from their marauding armies.

There were numerous paintings of people hunting, playing processing, with frequent symbolic appearances of the gods, notably Krishna, who is clearly a most attractive personality, not to mention very powerful.

There was one picture, for example, which had Indra, the rain god, wanting to show his power by flooding the land below (water pouring from the many trunks of his elephant, Erawat) But below is Krishna, playing the flute with one hand and with the little finger of the other, raising land to become an island thus rescuing chosen people and animals. (Shades of Noah?) Indra recognises that he is less powerful, and reappears at the foot of the painting (depicted as small and humble) to pay homage to Krishna. Now, without an explanation, the picture would have been entertaining and full of energy - rather like a cross between Bosch and early Italian paintings - but would have been less enjoyable.

Sadly Keshav was called away, to sort out a big tourist group in the next town, so I had to see the other palaces on my own. Annoying, because these were in a poorer state, but with clearly very grand paintings - lots of gold and ornament - and in very poorly lit rooms, so photos are highly unlikely to come out. I met Keshav later and he was mortified, because he said that flash WAS allowed in tyhis section of the palaces. Anyhow, the leper guard clearly adopted me and kept summoning me up little stairs and across courtyards to show me more and more amazing rooms and views, indicating with mime when I should take a picture!

Having 'done' the palace I took a ten minute stroll through the town )well, actually I missed the turning to my haveli). It is a relaxed little (despite its 100,000 inhabitants!) town, as yet off the main tourist track. I saw a few tourists of my age, clearly other serious painting visitors, and a few young backpackers. I stopped for a roadside lassi and talked to two faintly hippyish young French, the girl from Montpellier! Apart from some of the rickshaw drivers everybody is friendly, welcoming and blissfully free of pressure on you to buy, to spend. Nobody hasled me and asked for money.

I had (another!) banana lassi for my lunch in the garden of the cheaper haveli that I should have used and was really glad with my choice. It was OK, but you could see it was really a young backpackers hangout.

Then I set off for a longer walk, out of the city gates, down through the busy bazaar - more hectic, but still amazingly hassle free. At intervals I asked if I could take photos of stalls and nobody objected or asked for money. Indeed several kids asked to have their photos taken and were highly amuzed to see the result on my scren, and one boy selling peas, asked for his photo and then gave me a bakshi of a handful of delicious young grean peas (in their pods, so I felt safe to eat them).

I had done the walk in search of old baoris or water tanks, of which there are many in Bundi. I found the Ranij-ki-Baori in the middle of a busy roundabout. It was a huge and impressive edifice, with in the centre a deep, deep hole at the bottom of which was now some distinctly stagnant and dirty water, covered in flowers, no doubt of religious significance.

I continued on and on, further down the hill, into distinctly poorer communities, making it more difficult to sidestep stinking sewage, mud, cowpats, cows, dogs and pigs, or boars (they look just like French wild boar). Later I asked one of the brothers at the haveli why there were so many pigs, and what use were they. He explained that they were simply there, as scavengers, and were particularly prevalent in old cities with open drains. The authorities had tried to round them up and deposit them in the countryside (no boar hunting in hindu land!)but the project had failed.

Finally I came to my second baori - a huge open space in the ground, with steps going down on all sides, like masive terraces. The steps seemed to be using for drying carefully cut circular cowpats, used as fuel.

I'd walked too far - beyond the standard rickshaw land, so tried not to limp too noticeably as I got back to where I could hail a rickshaw home. At the haveli, another delicious meal, and talked to an English couple (actually she was Japanese, but a practising solicitor in London). He was an academic who had taught economics at a further education college as well as being a councillor on Westminster Council. A fellow fabian he said that he had always been a fan of Nehru's but now thought his economic, socialist, strategies had been disasterous for India. Another area I need to know more about.