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Travelogues
The morning is early, the dawn breaking over Kota in waves of pink and orange, the dry air begging for rain and relief. We crowd into the car with Kota and Manisha’s son safely ensconced in the back with the ladies, Kota and myself in the front. We stop by Kota Barrage, damming the Chambal river and bringing water and electricity to the town and its region. A few wrong turns later, we’re on the highway to Bundi - an important city in Rajasthan once, a fort commanding the hilltop over a lake, and a palace nestling on the slopes overlooking the town below. The ride from Kota is short. We look at accommodation in Bundi town, a heritage haveli distinguished by small rooms with no view and an overpriced hotel with little of anything. The palace towers over the historic center in terraces punctuated by jharokhas and intricately carved balconies. It’s a little outside the town that we finally settle for a state government guest house next to the lake, a water body enclosed by hills with lotus flowers at its edges and chattris constructed in the middle. The fort overlooks the valley, old and ominous in its stark outline. The guest house is manned principally by one Swaroop who is happily drunk at this early hour, 8 in the morning. We get our rooms and I immediately order a chilled beer, the only one the hotel has. Surviving hostile stares by the girls, Kota and I open the bottle and down a glass in double-quick time.
If the fort is strong and commanding, Bundi Palace epitomises the best of Rajput hill architecture, waves of successive terraces shimmering out from the hillside with balconies, jharokhas and perforated railings adding finesse and texture to surfaces that glow burnished gold in the sun and cast shade and shadow in the evenings and morning. The climb up to the palace is a steep walk. Inside, well-preserved paintings and gardens testify to what can be done if a serious attempt is made for conservation, combined with a state-funded program of education about the country’s heritage. The interior of Bundi palace is a network of courtyards surrounded by pillared corridors, some with alcoves and enclaves once again showcasing Rajput art depicting the court, the royal hunt and possibly members of the royal household. Below, the town stretches out in hues of orange, yellow and blue, a dense matrix of settlement dotted with the occasional temple and open space. I’m carrying the baby on my back and Kota has taken up the role of photographer, clicking away while Manisha feeds the hungry baby with bananas. It seems he likes these a lot, munching hungrily as he curls the ends of my hair with tiny fingers. The reality of the town itself is quite different, squalid and overflowing with muck in narrow lanes crowded with cars, buses and the inevitable cow. In this sense, perhaps little has changed in the centuries, with the people still struggling for a living in the shadow of the fort and palace up above.
And outside, the buffaloes still munch slowly, their bodies mirrored in the mud below, and a road laying machine clears swathes of land for a new road. At night, the chattri in the lake shimmers with light, we blow out puffs of smoke into the evening sky, reflecting in a time of silence over the years gone by and perhaps, those still to come. Separated by time and distance and happening, we come together once again in a small forgotten town in India, global citizens of the new world with nothing to say. Beer is good for talk, except when there is no more talk, and nothing left to be said. |
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I
go through this irritating wait of being impatient to go to town and
wander around, while the rest, it seems, are content to hang around and
talk. To be fair, Kota and Manisha have just come through a hectic
social do, and Megha has been to Bundi before. This doesn’t help, of
course, and the hours tick away in small talk. Rain comes down,
drenching Bundi and turning the lake into a mist of vapour and cloud and
half-seen chattris vanishing in and out of the water. The
aftermath is this slow languourous weather where everything seems a
little more blurry than usual. The water dries up really fast, soaked
up by the thirsty earth. As if to compensate, lunch is a fiery affair
of Swaroop’s finest, which consists of destroyed vegetables soaked in
oil and a spice mix that mostly consists of chilli. We’re blown away by
the food with our stomachs left in helpless anguish, and this more than
anything else finally serves as impetus to leave. 
Bundi
fort is in bad repair, but still retains a certain magnificence and
solemnity. Baolis pepper the insides, and remainders of fine
wall murals leave one aching for a program of conservation before this –
and countless other treasures all over the country – are wiped out
forever. An inscription attests to the age of one of the Baolis,
1533 AD. A time when Akbar was ruling over Delhi, and when Mughals and
Rajputs began the first of the alliances that would serve them both so
well over the next two centuries. 
