Change In Plans

Jaipur - Rajasthan - India

This short post is about the trip from Delhi down to Jaipur, and about our first day here.  The events and images are coming at us so quickly that it is difficult to capture and convey them.  Nothing prepared us for the overwhelming sensory assault of our first trip to India.

Jaipur is a city of over 3 million people, and is the capital of the state of Rajasthan.  We flew down from Delhi early yesterday  morning.  On the airplane, I was surprised to see that the total distance is only 250 kilometers (flying time of 16 minutes).  Apparently the road is so narrow and crowded that it could easily take 7-9 hours (!) to drive. This is between the nation’s capital its nearest big-city neighbor, across a relatively new road on flat and dry terrain. The government’s recent emphasis on developing road infrastructure seems like a good idea.

We are staying at a truly spectacular, off-the-charts hotel called the Rambagh Palace.  One of the Rajasthani queens built it originally for her wet nurse in the 19th century.  It is just down the hill, within easy viewing distance, from the main palace.  It was converted into a grand hotel in 1957.  

Rambagh Palace in Jaipur - spectacular hotel

Grand is an insufficient word to describe the graceful scalloped arches and the shiny pink and white marble floors.  The ceilings are 20 feet high, and every room is finished in dark hardwoods and brass.  The grounds are vast, and closely manicured.  Even the breakfast room is decorated with intricate white marble carvings in concentric arches over the doors and windows.  Zola, who loves grand hotels, and is generally pretty articulate, summed it up for all of us with: “Wow!” 

The staff greeted us with flower necklaces made from chrysanthemums, and by daubing each of our heads with a red dot. The whole effect was transporting.  We felt as though we were visiting an era of colonial privilege and 19th-century style.

Yesterday afternoon we went to an elephant camp in the foothills about 40 minutes from the center of Jaipur, to watch an elephant polo exhibition.  At the gate, we were greeted by six elephants with brightly colored saddles and paint on their faces and trunks.  The kids got to feed them bananas, and we were showered with flower petals from the mahouts who rode the elephants.  A 15-man military bagpipe and drum band, fully kitted in tartan kilts and long capes, played an accompaniment as we walked in.  We discovered that we were the only guests. 

The camp and polo grounds were very elegant, again looking like a British officers’ club from the late 19th century.  Two teams of two elephants each (plus a mounted referee) took the field, and played for about 15 minutes.  None of us had ever seen polo on horses, much less on elephants, so this was great novelty.  Basically the mahouts drive the elephants around the hockey-rink sized pitch at a trot, and the players whack away at a kids’ soccer ball with very long polo mallets.

Suddenly, the game stopped, and it was our turn to take the field.  Team Yellow was Tallulah and me on one elephant, and India on another.  Team Blue was Zola alone with a mahout on one elephant, and Indrajit, our guide, on another.  I don’t think we were very good, but we played a full-bore 2-on-2 elephant polo match for about 45 minutes.  Tallulah got tired, and went to sit in grand style with the referee on his elephant, where she could throw the ball in after each goal.  Team Yellow emerged victorious, by the score of 9 to 5, in large part because my elephant had been trained to trot a little faster than the others.  When we got down, we all laughed for a long time at the splendor and absurdity of it all.

The elephants and the bagpipers did a twice-round-the-field procession, after which I was instructed to present the commander of the bagpipe unit with a bottle of dark rum.  Apparently this is long-standing tradition with Indian bagpipers.

Finally, we had dinner out by a roaring campfire (by then, other guests had joined), and we watched traditional bhangra dancing.  The dancers whirled and swirled, their long skirts flowing and their mirrored fabrics glittering in the firelight.  The music and the dancing (and the fire eater performance) were again transporting.

Eventually both kids were asleep, and we had to drive back to the hotel.  

At this point, all four of us are absolutely blown away with the beauty, the culture, the history, the coolness of India.