Travelogues  
Empires and Dust
Travels in Modern India – II                                              ( Page 2 )
by Ashish Nangia

Corridors leading off the main gallery have photographs and paintings, the royal family hunting, posing and doing whatever royals are supposed to do.  Kota was a provincial outpost even at the height of Rajputana, and remained so under the British.  It suffers from mediocre architecture in a land where standards of this sort are set high by the likes of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur.  In all this, there is a detail that stands out, a true elevation drawn on the wall of a lookout post, remarkable in its deviation from the standards of architectural depiction in Rajput art and approximating more to the English standard.  Its almost as if an English-trained Indian draughtsman has been engaged, who attempts a fusion of the modern with the traditional, blending tigers, over-scaled foliage and the inevitable side-on human figures with the starkly rendered centrepiece that is remarkable both for its content as for its location, here, in Kota, the back of beyond in the middle of nowhere.

Painting Detail (True Elevation) in Umed Rao Palace,, Kota

Modern-day Kota has become home to a growing private tuition industry that seems to be fuelling a significant part of the city’s economy.  These are the impressions we retain in the few hours that we have before we go and see Akshay.  There is a tension in the air from the night before and we tolerate each other’s company in sullen silence, alleviated by lunch, the heat, and a brief foray to look at Kota saris, fabric woven in cotton crossweave that leaves transparent gaps and promises to be wonderfully light and cool in summer.  For the umpteenth time I wonder why these things don’t come in sizes and shapes for men, and why when they do, its for a price all out of proportion to the work that goes into them. 

Dinner at Akshay’s is a magnificent affair of traditional Rajasthani fare, with the family and helpers ladling out helping after helping that threatens to leave one gasping for breath from the spice, the oil and the heat as much as for its excellent taste.  Remembered lessons in formal behaviour come back as dinner plays itself out, an elaborate ritual of host-guest responsibilities and shifting roles, a pantomime where everyone has a part to play and set things to say and do.  It’s an intricate game where success is measured by many things and honour of self and family balances delicately between too much and too little.  We’re supposed to leave for Bundi the next morning, and Akshay as usual, his magnanimity overcoming practicality, makes plans for leaving at  5 am that are quickly dashed by the pragmatics of family, relatives and the occasion.  Simply put, ditching 200 guests for a pleasure trip to a palace with your friends (whom no one has ever seen) takes a braver soul, or one more foolhardy, than any of us is.  Megha and I catch a cab back to Brijraj Palace.  We’ve both had a full day from the heat and the socialising and there’s not much to be done before bed.

Another morning, and there’s a taxi that waits for us outside the hotel at 7 am in the morning as we set out for Jhalawar.  This is the site of a Sun Temple, our source of information being once again Lonely Planet.  This is also a forced excursion in some ways, waiting for Akshay to fulfil his family responsibilities so we can go to Bundi together the next day.  He’s thankfully shelved all notions of leaving today but that means we have to create work for ourselves, so to speak, and pass another day in and around Kota. 

The cabbie is completely unprepared for Megha, who one might have mentioned before can be completely cute.   She sits in front with him, and for a while I worry about whether he can drive straight under what is obviously such a powerful influence sitting not two feet away from him.  Still, I have the whole back seat to myself so there’s not much to complain about.  The road to Jhalawar is mostly fine and typical Rajasthan rolls by.  We stop for tea and delicious poha at a middlish town, and get appropriately stared at.  I think I need to stop hanging out in shorts every now and then, and Megha, always gets looked at by all the men and most of the women.  We stop at a bus terminus to pick up water, and by now the cabbie is entertaining thoughts of running away with her.  What does he plan to with the irritant in the back seat, I wonder.  What would I have done?  The rest of the road trip passes in this delicious play of subtle innuendo and little villages and soon Jhalawar is upon us, a medium-sized town enclosed within ramparts in good condition, narrow streets with people on them.  Our car blazes through and I feel vaguely like a politician visiting his people might have.

Except that this politician is dressed in a faded t-shirt and really baggy shorts. 

– Continued

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