On the road to Agra, home of the magnificent Taj Mahal. It is my husband’s 36th birthday, one that he is thrilled to spend in a 7 hour car ride from Jaipur, I’m sure. Trying our best to create some fun, however, with an attempt at blueberry muffins (his favorite; I guess a croissant was close enough), an India cricket jersey and a chai tea stop. It is only now warming up after 3 chilly hours in a non-heated car.
Our driver is vaguely surly but we’re not sure why. Seemed happier earlier this morning when we tried to talk to him about his family but English is a bit of a barrier. I do know though he is 34 years old and already has a 13 year old daughter and a 10 year old son, something that is hard to imagine given that David is two years older and we’ve only been married 2.5 years. In general I continue to puzzle over the concept of arranged marriages but it is still very common here and even with some of my Indian friends in the U.S.
But back to the road. “Road” is a bit of a strong word. It’s actually the beginnings of a four line highway linking two of the major cities in India’s Golden Triangle of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. But a few years into the construction, much of the road is unfinished, forcing cars to switch sides of the road—almost as if driving straight into oncoming traffic—with great frequency. Instead of finishing one whole side of the road driving to Agra, for example, someone decided to work on alternating side. And drive into oncoming traffic we do—the lane switching we do to get around the overburdened tractors groaning with animal feed can get extremely scary when dogs, people, camels and motorcycles are heading straight at you. Some of the unlicensed trucks are absolutely heaped in cargo, causing us to see many overturned trucks throughout the trip. Also, I now understand the warnings my friend Swastik shared with me about driving at night — there are no lights on the roads so driving in the dark is extremely dangerous. Hence our 7 a.m. departure today.
Yesterday we managed to enjoy Jaipur despite the incident on Sunday, although admittedly with a little trepidation. After a late start thanks to a comfortable, temperature-controlled and quiet room, we headed up to the forts in the hills north of the city. Amber Fort was my favorite, the residence of the former Rajput commander of Akbar’s army in the 1500s that was later extended by the Jai Singhs before they moved to the City Palace in Jaipur (learned incidentally that the name Singh was a title given to rulers meaning lion). This fort was not meant for fighting but rather pleasure and comfort for the Singh’s 12 wives and 350 concubines. Our guide was a rather old Indian chap who actually created a very colorful picture of what those royal compounds looked like, decorated in sumptuous hand-woven carpets, precious jewels, exotic perfumes and flowers in part to inspire “programs of romance” as our guide explained it. I’ve been reading some historical fiction since arriving here – one book called Beneath a Marble Sky and another The White Munghals – and before those novels never really understood the Rajput era’s indulgence in women, both concubines and multiple wives, although it is said that the more concubines you had the more powerful you are. Of course that no longer exists today, although the descriptions of that amorous way of life seems rather romanticized and lacks the drama one would expect from 300+ women fighting over the same man.
We then took our rickety rickshaw to the Jaigarh Fort, a stern looking compound above the Amber meant to protect its inhabitants. The fort was never captured, probably thanks to its housing of the world’s largest wheeled cannon that even gets its own name, the Jaya Vana. This thing had a range of 22 miles, can you imagine? My other favorite part of this fort was that the Indian government ransacked the fort in recent years due to the rumor that the Singh family royal treasure was buried in the thick walls. No luck, though.
The last fort before our shopping adventures began was the Nahagrarh. It’s a little unclear why this one was in the guidebooks although the Indo-European architecture and murals were beautiful. Nonetheless, we were overtaken with men actually starting to give a tour and then demanding money even though you never asked for their halting English version of Munghal royal history.
After that we tried our luck at shopping again – still no sign of decent Kingfisher t-shirts for my Haas crew, and definitely very few high quality gifting options for the parents/grandparents set in the local bazaars although plenty of hawkers trying to convince you otherwise. Honestly, the volume of “Please, ma’am, pashmina shawl”, “ma’am please come in”, “ma’am see my shop”, “looking is free, ma’am” plaints is just too much sometimes, you have to say no 5 times minimum for someone to leave you alone and by that time someone new approached you. In Goa, I took up the practice of sprinting away from the shocked teenage boys pushing jangly ankle bracelets at me. Which was entertaining in itself.
The only other activity of note in Jaipur was our failed attempt to enjoy a 3-hour Bollywood movie at India’s most famous Hindi movie theatre, the Raj Mandir Cinema, established in 1976. God even knows what movie we got “Diamond Box” tickets for—even the Indians don’t really know, they just go because they love Bollywood so much – but it was pretty awful. No singing, no dancing, just some movie about an actor who witnesses a murder and then gets a little crazy about it. And entirely in Hindi except for a few random English phrases, so after 30 minutes we snuck out the back, past all of the Indian girls videotaping the movie on their mobile phones and the dudes talking on their cell phones in the back. One bonus: finding out Bollywood movies aren’t complete without popcorn and candy bars too. No Snowcaps but some faux Kit Kats called King Tuts.
