Day Sixteen

Breakfast was a tasty buffet of fresh fruits and some scrambled eggs with black truffles. Not too shabby. I brought some extra muffins along for the guide and my driver. Parminder (the driver) had eaten a good portion of the lunch I brought along the day before. I got the sense he is avoiding spending money on food while on the road and that the muffins would be appreciated. I think their western nature scared him off. He says he only eats simple lentils and rotis. If I were raised on that type of food I would feel the same way. It’s practically all I want these days anyways.

We headed into the center of Jaipur pretty early to tour the Amer Palace. I’d told the guide how much I like animals, especially babies and he brought me first to see a five year old elephant. I was worried he’d be the size of a house already, but he was only the size of a Winnebago. I stood next to him to have my photograph taken and he took my hand in his trunk. It felt very nice and secure. He’s strong, but I could have pulled away if I needed to. I know this because when he brought my hand to his mouth, I did just that. The handler assured me he would not have bit me, but he sure looked like he wanted to take a nibble. If I ever do lose a hand, I hope it’s to a baby elephant.

Speaking of such things, I asked my guide about the cobra, and he confirmed it probably was not dangerous. The charmers milk the venom out on a regular basis. Even if I did get bit, it would not have been too poisonous. They sometimes also take the fangs out, but he wasn’t sure if that was done. There’s a lot of pressure on the charmers to keep the snakes for only a few years and then release them before they are ‘too dumb’ to return to the wild. That cannot be done if the fangs have been removed. I certainly like the sound of the release. I feel a lot of guilt over my enjoyment of subjugated animals. It’s not as bad as taking their pelts, obviously. But elephants were not put on this planet to march in line, taking tourists up a mountain to an ancient fort.

After petting the baby elephant, I rode a giant elephant up a mountain to the Amer Fort. It was very bouncy. I tried to sit with dignity, but it’s difficult. I suspect the most comfortable way would be flat on my back, but I wasn’t willing to make a scene and try. There were about thirty elephants going up and down the mountain shuttling tourists. Their faces were painted and their backs saddled with riding platforms. The drivers sit on the neck and do not seem to have any reigns or other means of controlling the elephant. They have some sort of poking stick, but I only saw one driver using it. I suppose there’s not much room for error here. The path is very narrow with just enough room for two to pass each other going opposite ways. The departure and arrival do require some maneuvering though. Perhaps there’s some switch or cane that I missed.

The fort is magnificent and I enjoyed having a private guide I could grill on the details (it didn‘t hurt that he was dressed like Indiana Jones). The more I heard, the more I realized that what I was seeing was not an accurate representations of how these forts and palaces were run during their time. They’re very impressive in their soaring austerity. They resemble great museums or other monuments. But what’s lost is that these were homes, full of lush comforts and the trappings of life. All along the walls, floors, and ceilings are iron rings where lavish carpets and drapes were hung. Courtyards could be tented off, and their many levels flooded to cool off the day. Flowers and essential oils would float on the water to keep things smelling pleasant. Musicians and dancers would perform under Islamic arches. Peacocks would wander the grounds, mingling with the court, the ladies in waiting, their staff, their staff’s staff. It’s impossible to combine all the little details in my mind and lay them over the purely architectural representation available to me now. I had forgotten that these forts and palaces were home to royals with their politics and intrigue and were on level with Versailles in their splendor. It gives me new appreciation for all the steps my hotels take to replicate this part of India’s past. All their flowered pools and frescoed walls are not mere design elements, but an attempt to reproduce the splendor of the palaces.

Next it was off to the Maharajah Palace. With my new perspective on the fort, I realize the relationship between these two buildings is more of summer home/winter home than residential/political. The palace offers a number of delicate spaces suited for holding court and hosting festivals, but otherwise they offer similar services. Both are ably defendable, and in Jaipur aided the Maharajah line to remain unbroken since the twelfth century. Even today, the latest generation of the Maharajah line lives with his family in the palace. They have a private wing split from what’s open to tours, but even their private courtyard was on view today. In exchange to opening their home to tours, they receive the admission fees and can use them to maintain the extensive grounds. Done through a trust, they also avoid paying taxes on much of their income.

The Maharajahs had been ordinary Rajahs prior to the arrival of the Mugul emperors. But when India fell to the Islamic invaders, these local kings took the political route and married their daughters into the families of their conquerors. In doing so, they were granted the superior title of Maharajah and given authority over vast regions. Families like these in Jaipur integrated Islamic design and customs into their houses, but retained much of their autonomy. The only time Jaipur was lost to Islamic usurpers was for a period of about three months when the Maharajah’s son-in-law took power. While it sounds like the Mugul emperors were on good terms with the Maharajahs, he still arranged for the Maharajah to leave town for a period and then supported the son-in-law in claiming the throne. It sounds like a bloodless coup, or maybe just a game of king of the hill where the weak boy claims victory after everyone else has gone home. When the Maharajah returned, his son snuck into the palace through a secret passage known only to its longtime residents and evicted the son-in-law at knife point. Evicted him from the country. So beyond those three month, Maharajahs have ruled Jaipur for thirty generations. On the other side, the Mugul emperors were able to keep the population under control by acting through these royal proxies in managing at a local level. It seems to have worked well for everyone, and the Mugul period is spoken of fondly by most Indians. It’s not until Auranjeb took power and levied huge taxes and reigned down much violence that India seemed like a conquered nation. And once the British took over, they reverted back to a more traditional Mugul style. They setup puppet leaders, and appointed many new Maharajahs when it made political sense. Now there are over five hundred Maharajah families living in India. They don’t all have estates like the city palace, but they seem to occupy a special place within Indian culture.

The most impressive part of the Maharajah’s palace was the observatory. Before I arrived, I assumed it was a facility for star gazing. There are many high hills in Jaipur and low light pollution. It would be an ideal spot and I was looking forward to seeing some ancient optics. But Indian observatories from the fifteen hundreds are a bit more passive than that. Because of the important role Astrology plays in Indian spiritual life, it’s very important to have detailed information on the date and time a person is born. And for the ancient world that means sundials. One large courtyard at the palace is dedicated to dials of various shapes and sizes. First is a dial for gauging the exact time based on the position of the sun. A cofactor must be determined daily to compensate for the time of year, but after that, the dial is accurate to within six minutes. Not content with that, a larger dial was built, one that still holds the world record, that is accurate to two minutes. A more complex dial casts the shadow of a medallion into a convex hemisphere set into the ground. Along the surface of the cave is etched the paths of all the constellations across the night sky. Where the cast shadow intersects with a constellation line tells us which sign we are under at any given time of day. With that information we can head over to any one of the dials for each individual star sign. I’m not sure what those dials are meant to reveal. They were closed for repair. I watched as masons stripped aging plaster and reapplied in flat and even sections. The whole facility has an ultra-modern look to it. The accurate measurement of shadows requires the structures be constructed with mathematical accuracy. The arches are more arched than any I’ve seen in India, the edges more crisp. When I first walked in, I assumed it was a modern art installation, but my guide assured me this was as it appeared four hundred years ago.

After all the sightseeing, my guide took my to the obligatory handicraft shops. At least this time I got to see how the carpets are made. My favorite part was watching the guy blowtorch these meticulously crafted tapestries. This has the double effect of sealing the knots and burning up all the loose and trimmed threads. After this, the carpets are vigorously cleaned to get rid of the burnt parts. seeing all the work that goes into one, I’m not surprised they’re so expensive. I do wonder if maybe it’s a craft that’s had its day.

I also saw how fabrics are printed, and even got to stamp a four color print of an elephant. The vegetable dyes are stored in large ink pads and the patterns are lined up manually by ancient artisans. Before being immersed in the mineral bath, the stamps are unrecognizable. Most of the dyes come off a murky brown. But after soaking for a few seconds in the acidic formula, the colors shine bright. I suspect there’s something similar going on in those color changing magic markers you can buy at the mall.

Dinner is the most awkward time of the day. No one else eats alone at my hotel. Last night they brought me magazines. I’ve thought about inviting out fellow tourists I meet around the sites, but that seems like it’s opening a whole mess of issues. So tonight I invited my driver to join me for dinner. He readily accepted and recommended a restaurant owned by a friend of his. The food was up there with the best I’ve had in India, but the meal was no less awkward for the company. Instead of sitting alone in silence feeling self-conscious, I got to sit with this Indian man in silence feeling self-conscious. It didn’t help that we were the only two people in the restaurant. Tomorrow night I’m in another five-star in Jodhpur, but after that it’s a dessert camp for two nights. I think I’ll be more comfortable there. It is the land of my peoples.