I watched a man do something no human should be able to do, at a time that no human should be awake to watch it. Bharat, our yoga instructor, did a headstand, then locked his feet in the lotus position upside-down, tucked his legs against his chest, raised his head off the ground so he was like a little yogi bird, meditating in the air with only his arms supporting his folded horizontal body. It’s pretty hard to explain, so like a clapping walrus beached on my yoga mat, I insisted that he must perform the stunt again tomorrow, so that I can take pictures of it like the culturally insensitive tourist I am.
After the weekend, India has begun to feel rather different. With a 140 guest luxury event coming up in almost exactly two weeks, and much of the planning and preparation yet to be implemented, our Western understanding of well-worn phrases like ‘forward-thinking’, ‘planning ahead’ and ‘always be prepared’ have been sternly challenged. I’m not sure how much it is a wise/professional idea for me to give away about the event, but it’s gonna be properly swish. It will now involve acquiring a tuk-tuk and ‘pimping’ it, caricature drawing, rummaging through Jodhpur for people who can play unusual traditional Rajasthani instruments, palm reading, and chairs. Lots of assorted chairs. The chairs will begin to permeate my dreams soon, I just know it.
Some seriously intense negotiations for a tuk-tuk (which I’m sat inside). On the left is Abid (tuk-tuk driver, friend, madman. If you’ve read Shantaram he’s my Prabaker). On the right is Jitendra, negotiating on behalf of Raas and myself. In the middle with the neckbrace is the incapacitated owner of the tuk-tuk. Ominous.
Liv’s thoroughly impressive caricature handiwork.
So now the game has changed. We are looking at an Everest of a fortnight, the ascent of which will be both exhausting and enjoyable. We carry responsibility not just for the team of staff which we are in part leading, but for the satisfaction and hopefully exceeded expectations of 140 people who, I suspect, consider the experience of having their expectations exceeded to be something which rarely exceeds their expectations of an experience (don’t worry). Meanwhile, I am determined to keep dallying and dillying away on this blog; like me doing yoga, it’s helping to keep me sane, focused, and provides amusement for onlookers.
A stray puppy. An old lady tried to hit me with a broom for suggesting that it was cute.
A shopkeeper called Amit Khan insists the mice in his perfume shop are his pets. He feeds them chai during the day and whiskey at night. Seriously.
I’ve hobbled aboard an online team of promoters working for the O2 Academies, and I’m getting a free 2 hour online masterclass in social media this afternoon, which should prove really useful. Bizarrely, as I settle into a land of littering and poor hygiene, where old men use nasal douches to spread their saturated brains onto the roadside at 6 in the morning and the only thing which happens like clockwork is the powercuts, I have ended up embracing technology more than I ever had before. Perhaps it’s something reactionary, my little version of nationalism: ‘you have cows which live like vermin but are treated like gods? ok, cool, I’m from the West and I have the Internet’. I say the West, because in the mind of lots of the shopkeepers there seems to be this idea that the West is one coherent community. Someone will ask you where are you from, and when you say England he will start muttering to himself about what a lovely city England is, as though the UK is just some sort of province of Western civilisation. I suppose it makes sense in a way. Rajasthan is bigger than many of the -stans in Central Asia, and I gather that the South is an entirely different kettle of fish (it’s a kettle which actually has fish).
This weekend is the Jodhpur RIFF (Rajasthan International Folk Festival), which we have been led to believe is a pretty big deal. There’s traditional music, and dance music, and dancing and other entertainment, all in amazing settings like the Mehrangarh Fort itself or the structured madness of Sardar Market, with its centrepiece of Jodhpur’s ‘big ben’, a clock-tower which glows in changing colours at night. I really hope I get some time off to check out the music – I’ve been getting really into Ragas when I’m left to my own devices, they go on for ages and you can get lost in the atmospheres they create.
I almost forgot to add to this patchwork post that Liv and I have been invited to a wedding reception. It’s on October 31st (though the wedding happened in May) and it’s a Muslim couple. The husband is Vicky, my omelette extraordinaire, who now makes me 4 egg, egg white only omelettes with vegetables, chilli, masala, and cheese for about 70p! He’s a really great guy, and he’s also my main source of Hindi tuition. If anyone ever visits Jodhpur, his shack on the left as you come out of Sardar market is a culinary Mecca in a world where food and animals are to most people entirely unrelated. Another great find is this chicken shack half way up the New Road, on the far side of Sardar market. We tried it out last night, and they served me four enormous pieces (pretty much a whole chicken, to be honest) of spicy, salty, herby, delicious chicken for 200 rupees (£2.40). I’ll be making a return journey very soon.
The wedding reception invite.
Vicky’s amazing egg white masala omelettes. Perhaps not the most flattering picture, but TRUST.
An enormous, triumphant highlight of foodstuffs in Jodhpur are the sweets. I’d call it a sweet culture, which ties in with most other elements of life. For example Ganesha, the elephant headed multi-limbed celestial Frankengod, has his own delicious treat – Laddu. There are sweets for parties, sweets for other gods, sweets for sickness, sweets for people who don’t like sweets, even sweets which appear to be for tourists (Gulab Jamun, omnipresent on restaurant dessert menus). On Sunday I went to the greatest sweet shop in town, apparently, and picked out a few interesting looking ones which all proved to be taste as different and weird as they looked. Some are like sugary sushi, others look like orange macaroons but taste like cake and sugar filled with butter. Here’s a picture of the ones I picked. The Laddu is the little brown balls which look like goat poop.
Sweeties which make my heart flutter and my belly round.
All the change from the weekend has made me see things in a different light. It’s like being in Jodhpur for the first time again, but now it’s doesn’t feel unusual, just wonderful. Everything bright and noisy feels welcome to my ears, and I think I actually quite enjoy the cauldron of smells which you spin in as you walk through the streets. I’m starting at last to pick up some Hindi, and I know where to go to eat, and who to speak to for anything else I need…even an elephant (I kid you not, if you want an elephant, I can get you one).
A sugarcane press by the clock tower.
People! Specifically, women. They are about, here’s proof.
x
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