62. Six Hundred Kilometers on Thirty-Six Rupees

The main ruined temple at Kiradu is dedicated to Someshwar Mahadev.
61. Ancient Temples & A Scam
May 5, 2022
Beyond Delhi, taking tea at a roadside stall. photo Indian Tourism Development Corp.
63. Delhi – Then Back To The Road
July 14, 2022
 
Ajmer's battered 'Two and a Half Day's Mosque' and t he dry hills behind.

Ajmer's battered 'Two and a Half Day's Mosque' and t he dry hills behind.

 
 
S o life was cruel. Ramesh had made off with my rupees. No one wanted to buy my watch and pound notes only yielded 36 rupees. I wrote to friends in Delhi, asking them to send more cash to Jaipur, which was en route. Since the hotel advance covered one more night, I cycled around the city and visited the massive hilltop fort, which towered above it.

The next morning was New Year’s Day, auspicious for a fresh challenge. After breakfasting on milk and jelabis, I filled the basket on the handlebars with bananas and oranges – fruit was cheap – and headed north-east. The fields were progressively greener, roadside trees more frequent and camels fewer. The richer landscape supported blue-sheened king crows, bright green parrakeets and bee eaters, mynahs and glossy black bush chats. After a poor Monsoon, groups of villagers were busy repairing the roads on famine relief projects. An occasional pond offered noisy plovers and stilts with improbably-long pink legs. By the verge a flock of crows devoured a dead vulture – slow to take off, vultures were common road kill. The land was flat but a brisk headwind made going tough and soon I pulled up at a tea shack where a generous patron, in a gesture common in India, refused payment. Around villages, protected by their sanctity, peacocks became more frequent.

 
 
Swanage once had swan-shaped pedalos,  but those on Ajmer's reservoir are more elegant.

Swanage once had swan-shaped pedalos, but those on Ajmer's reservoir are more elegant.

 
 

By dusk, Jodhpur 100 km behind me, I stopped for tea at Jaitaran. The athletics master of the local school appeared. He had good English, studied Raj Yoga and said his guru could disappear at will or make himself very big or very small. Sadly, the guru was away. The teacher put me up at the school while one of his pupils cooked us millet chapattis, the heavy Rajasthani staple, serving them with ghee and ghur (raw sugar). This was followed by more chapattis with dal and a sort of raita.

In the morning, we sat in the sun whilst the boy served up a hearty breakfast – more millet chapattis but with vegetables in place of cadi, that raita. The pupils showed off their school, wanted me to stay till it opened, but, accepting I had a long way to go, reluctantly waved me off. The narrow strip of rough tarmac eventually merged into the Pali-Ajmer highway. Rugged hills loomed ahead and the road climbed into a busy town, where I refilled the basket with fruit and tomatoes. Here, the famine relief teams were replacing culverts, diverting me up and down treacherous dusty tracks. The workers laughed, salaamed, namasted as I passed, shirtless and pink in the sun. The traffic was busy - mostly lorries and buses – and often drove on the right side – which, in India, is the wrong side! A line of carts passed, pulled by bullocks whose great horns were painted red, yellow and green.

 
 
Looking down from Taragarh into Ajmer's haze.

Looking down from Taragarh into Ajmer's haze.

 
 

In Ajmer I found a tiny, cheap room and decided to rest a day. The city is overshadowed of high, rocky hills and I climbed them to the ruins of its ancient fort, Taragarh. The track led past the beautiful wreckage of a 12th century mosque, fashioned from the purloined masonry of a Jain temple once richly decorated with figurative sculpture. It is called ‘2 ½ Days’ Hut’ – the time it took to demolish the one to create the other. Every figure had been painstakingly defaced, the lovely foliate carving left, then the mosque died of old age.

Folk carried firewood up the hill. One man tried to persuade me into a sacred tomb; why should I ascend so far without the saint’s blessing? He hoped for a donation but I turned away to a shack serving tea. There a few coins could be turned to immediate, palpable benefit. The view was magnificent, across rugged peaks towards holy Pushkar or over the hazy city to its huge, ancient reservoir.

 
 
Jaipur's enormous astronomical instruments were built with the city in the 1720s.

Jaipur's enormous astronomical instruments were built with the city in the 1720s.

 
 

The return descent led past the fort’s water tanks – all empty now. A sinking sun turned ruined, crenellated walls, the great gateway and a knife-sharp ridge into stern silhouettes. Swifts circled up on the thermals and a flock of goats, passing in a cloud of dust, set me sneezing. Chipmunk squirrels swore at a slinking mongoose and a herd of long-tailed langurs leaped through the trees. In a streetside tea house men passed round a conical chelum, a coughing lungful of naughty smoke before I slept.

Next morning, the way led between tracts of sandy desert interspersed with vivid green crops on lower, irrigated land. A driver with a load of chairs took me into little, princely Kishangarh, famed its genre of miniature portraits with ludicrously exaggerated eyes. Beyond it, villagers indicated a cell with neither door nor windows, where I slept deeply, the bike across its entrance.

 
 
The Hawa Mahal (Wind Palace), a many-windowed emblem of Jaipur, looks down on its broad streets.

The Hawa Mahal (Wind Palace), a many-windowed emblem of Jaipur, looks down on its broad streets.

 
 

Dreaming of a slap-up dinner, the next day I reached Jaipur’s post office. My money order hadn’t arrived. Forget the feast! A busy tourist city, I wandered through its wondrous 18th century astronomical structures seeking a friendly foreigner to touch for a loan. None looked promising and I was loth to try an improbable one. Eight rupees remained; Delhi and cash were still 275 km away, so onwards through Amber, the gearless bike confronting its steepest hill so far. At dusk I joined lorry drivers sleeping on charpoys beside the road. One offered a morning lift to Delhi but when I woke, he’d gone. A cyclist heading the same way supplied; as we sat, a passing car hit a pair of doves. Being India, people rushed to revive them with water, fed the one that recovered.

 
 
The Delhi road used to pass beneath the old palace, Amer, capital of the kingdom before Jaipur.

The Delhi road used to pass beneath the old palace, Amer, capital of the kingdom before Jaipur.

 
 

By nightfall, exhausted, with only 40 km to go, I bought hot milk. The stallholder asked if I had eaten, then called his son, who fed me and provided a bed in the school where he was watchman. Next morning, they gave me more milk and sweets. I reached my friends’ flat with only a 25 paise coin left. It was lunchtime. The servant laid another place!

 

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