India Shekawati region

29 april - 02 may 05

Namaste,

presumably the last time from India.
We spent 2 days in the Shekawati region. On the way we had another round of Lassi in Jaipur. We already stopped on the way down to Pushkar and something made us go there again… it’s the best of all Lassis I ever had.
Shekawati Region is – as mentioned – famous for its Haveli called huge houses of 18th and 19th century. Rich Indian traders and merchants of the Silk Road built them in the old colonial architectural style. To provide an image of the life in far away countries to the local people – and for sure also to show up – they took the most skilled painters and let them draw not only gods and sages but also exotic things like steamships, trains, bicycles, Queen Victoria, Jesus, angels and even the skyline of Venice and Vienna. The paintings were technically not all right because most of the artists had never seen one of these strange things themselves.
One night we spent in a perfect led guesthouse in Nawalgat. The owner had once worked in a 5-star hotel and is now able to distinguish very well between little things, that make life more comfortable and easy going and unnecessary touristic exaggerations. He took the bet out of it and is now perfectly happy with his 6 rooms for rent. They are all very authentic, familiar, clean and airy. They use reversive osmosis for water purification, they have internet connection with assistance if needed (usually no one knows what is going on in these small boxes, they just now the power button and the connection icon. Very few know how to connect the laptop – with one big exception: in Bharatpur I meet a very intelligent, friendly and open minded young guy who showed me how to use the allindia prepaid account on my own laptop - thanx Devesh!)
The little daughter of the DS Bangalow owner is named DELLI after an accounting software, which the parents got to know at the last PC training and use now for their guesthouse.
The wife is cooking delicious thali and they both believe in tourists who don’t like the anonymous luxury of star hotels, but the authentic warm hearted atmosphere of a family guesthouse – how right they are!!

Though we wanted to proceed to Amritsar, we stayed one more night in Mandawa, also in the Shekawati region, because there is one Haveli used as a hotel. They agreed on a reasonable price. In the previous village Nawalgat there were only deserted Havelis, where in the best case a caretaker was haunting the guests.
The owner – rich Mawari, who live in Kolkatta or Mumbai – seemed to have enough money. They didn’t want to sell them, but they also don’t restore them. Most of the colour is already gone, many parts lay in ruins.
Sometimes it's a bad view, but sometimes it’s great adventuring through the left halls and on the roof top.

When I went out alone in the early evening to see the missing Havelis, some kids caught me and asked me to play cricket with them. Most of you know Cricket quite well – most of the people to whom I write the German Version do not - so I have to apologize for my ignorance. I don’t even know the English terms – tough I believe there are only English terms for this game.
And old dump served as sports yard, 9 kids who knew much more than me, a bat, a ball – we had great fun. At the very beginning they told me “We don’t want money, we want fun!” and that was true!
The gave me this wooden thing to beat the ball, told me what is front and what is back and off they ran to throw the ball.

I stood on the given place, with this wooden piece in my hands and was waiting – till they told me that the ball was already gone. OK, once again. More explanations: “Ma’am, knock on the ground so that the pitcher knows you are ready!” Ok I understood. Knock, throw – beaten. Hurray!! Now I hit the ball quite often, but they were not satisfied. “Ma’am, faster, you have to beat faster and harder. The bat won’t bite you!” I told them about my fear to beat one of the boys who were standing not half a meter away. They just showed me their bruises and the expression in their faces seemed to say “Don’t mind, that happens from time to time.” I was still not convinced. One command from the team captain and they excitedly jumped away. I had loved to understand Hindi to know what he threatened them with.
Well, now “Ma’am” was beating harder and the ball flew over the fence. “Wow, great!” they cheered and sped away to dig out the ball between plastic bags, bottles, half rotten kitchen garbish and cow dung. Really, what a great shot. When I had learned my lesson, they all wanted to show their skills. Most of them were imitating doubtless well (to me un-) known national or international player and were quite disappointed when I had to confess that I had never heard these names and therefore couldn’t judge their performance.
What I really appreciated was that they also had Pakistani players in their repertoire. From a Indian friend I learned, that there are more and more friendship games between India and Pakistan nowadays and that they changed the rounds from 5 to 6, so that a draw could be the result –what happens quite often. He also told me, that the new Bollywood movies stopped painting just black and white on this issue. They put the conflict and Nations more and more in the background and talk about people, no matter where they come from but how they act. Fair or unfair.
Seems that they really want to calm down the situation. Since some weeks there is the first bus from Yammu&Kashmir/India to the Pakistani part of Kashmir – the thorn in their relationship since independence 1947. 1000s of people have lost their lives due to this conflict and it was not only one time that a nuclear war was about to break out. The big battles they mostly fought in Rajasthan, where we were in the last week because the terrain in Kashmir was not flat enough for fast tank moves. It’s a sad story which I think was discussed often enough in medias and news. If you need information I can provide anyway!
The Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh is sending peaceful messages, I can only hope he means it and they fall on fruitful soil! He became PM just when we were in India last year, on the way to Bhutan. Sonja Ghandi was elected, but after big threatening words about not welcomed Italian women who want to rule a country and some “intern discussions” she gave way to Mr Singh for the sake of peace within the parties and possible progress within the country. I am sure I didn’t get all her reasons, but this is a brief summary. It seems as if it was a good decision.

A quite strange dinner framed our evening. In the Haveli Hotel the believe that all tourists like the very touristic “traditional folksongs”. In fact we don’t like these shows in hotels at all, but the staff didn’t know. So everything was prepared when we arrived back at the Hotel for dinner. Right next to our ears the couple sat down and started playing with puppets, drums and other very loud instruments. I couldn’t even ask someone to pass me the rice without shouting from the top of my lounges. In the end they wanted to sell the dolls and get some money for playing. These are things which you have to get used to. Someone does something without being asked for it and then he gets really angry, sometimes even aggressive if you tell them you didn’t want it so you won’t pay. In Europe you would really feel offended if somebody starts talking with topics like money, but here it works. As soon as the people know that you really wont buy anything you can have the best chat with every fruits, antics or souvenir vendor. Its so easy going after you fixed the fronts, much better than in Austria. No shop assistant would tell about her life unless you know her/him before. None would be interested in what you are doing there. It’s not only because we are strangers here. They talk with everyone. In our society it would be counted as lazy and not willing to work if one talks to his guests more than the common small talk.

The puppet player let the princess jump dully over the stage, the soldier stabbing into the air and finally a mad camel whirled around like drunk. The best thing was, that his wife played the drum and sang in a wonderful smoky voice.

Martin gave some money and I thought the jeopardy is gone – but no! Out of gratefulness they played once again. I fled to the roof top and enjoyed the beat from far away. It sounded much better! It was not the last time to find myself up there in the windy shelter. In the midst of the night after waking up because electricity was gone the lonely fan high up on the ceiling didn’t move a single inch. The mosquitoes, happy about not being blown away at any attempt did their best to suck our blood. I was really hot and I wanted to know once again what Indian people do against these small monsters. They seem not to bother them. The only place I could go was the roof top. There I stay for an hour or so, kept the room door open, fan on high speed after regaining electricity and went to the reception desk to ask for some insect repellent. My odomos cream was not really working.
They did a great job, the fan too, so I could sleep well again.

In the early morning we left for Amritsar, which we will presumably not reach before tomorrow.

What’s on in your countries? Please give me your news,

Warmest regards, namaste

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