II- Jaipur
Pink city, pink palaces, was the Maharaja gay? says Hendrik. We’re speeding along in the rick Kuldeep hired us for the day. The driver is Don, his nickname after the Big B movie. He’s a friendlyguy, yells to us from the front about the various palaces we’re speeding past in a rickshaw-yelling voice that is strong and practiced. We got to the Tiger Fort pinnacle just before sunset and found wrought-iron chairs and tables on the terrace in the sky high above the city sprawl and we drank Kingfisher beers and chatted, Katya, young Hendrik (from Germany) and me. The sun became an orange bowl and sunk slowly into the dun of smog until it was swallowed whole- at least five whole minutes before it should’ve set properly. Set into the smog. And soon after, a curious sound reached our beer-ears- like wailing bats between the cave-walls of the valley, a thousand mosques singing a thousand ALL-AAHS reverberated between the guardian cliffs edging the city, and rose into the smog. I cupped my ears and it was all I could hear- a fine blend of prayer calls, almost frightening in their unfamiliarity. An unexpected conspiracy. A sudden siege of piety for the smog-swallowed sun. And then the boytoy Dutch boys with Nazi eyes and fraternity cut-off shirts saunter over with sauntering smiles and beer breath to small talk and ask what the hell the racket is. I explain. They snigger, and tell me about an Amsterdam painter who purposely painted an incorrect Mecca compass on the ceiling of a mosque there. Hi-larious. These fresh faces belong at spring break in Miami beach, not in Jaipur. They laugh and tell me how their driver is just like a dog, coming when they call and even asking permission to use the bathroom. I tell them I need to finish my beer. Too polite. Too Canadian.
We finish our beer and make for the parking lot where K saw a rick (for some reason our rickshaw driver said he couldn’t go all the way up to the Tiger Fort, so we hiked around the bag-eating pigs and leering motorcycle lads, climbing a quick fifteen minutes up to the clifftop fort to catch the sundeath). But there is no rick in the lot anymore. Just one car left with a couple climbing in. Katya begs them for a ride down, and they’re happy to oblige. Indians are kind. He’s Dinesh, owns a textile store. When K tells him she worked with Shiamak he swivels round to shake her hand, and tells her he won’t wash it after this. They sure love a sniff of celebrity in this country, that’s for sure.
They get us down to Don, and he drives us crosstown to an Italian terrace joint, wood-fire pizza and Spaghetti Bolognese. Surrounded by goras we’d barely know we were in India if not for the mock-Mughal hotel across the way. It’s a tourist town in a tourist time- it’s to be expected. They’re in throngs around the palaces and the touts and sellers are watching them, ten-to-one. We even saw the snake-charmers earlier and I found myself with a cobra around my neck.
I’m on the terrace roof in the night that’s almost cold, someone’s blaring Hindi love songs down the street, in the distance I can hear a highway. Don’t even know how we found our way back here tonight, twists and turns in the dusty backroads.
Pink city, pink palaces, was the Maharaja gay? says Hendrik. We’re speeding along in the rick Kuldeep hired us for the day. The driver is Don, his nickname after the Big B movie. He’s a friendlyguy, yells to us from the front about the various palaces we’re speeding past in a rickshaw-yelling voice that is strong and practiced. We got to the Tiger Fort pinnacle just before sunset and found wrought-iron chairs and tables on the terrace in the sky high above the city sprawl and we drank Kingfisher beers and chatted, Katya, young Hendrik (from Germany) and me. The sun became an orange bowl and sunk slowly into the dun of smog until it was swallowed whole- at least five whole minutes before it should’ve set properly. Set into the smog. And soon after, a curious sound reached our beer-ears- like wailing bats between the cave-walls of the valley, a thousand mosques singing a thousand ALL-AAHS reverberated between the guardian cliffs edging the city, and rose into the smog. I cupped my ears and it was all I could hear- a fine blend of prayer calls, almost frightening in their unfamiliarity. An unexpected conspiracy. A sudden siege of piety for the smog-swallowed sun. And then the boytoy Dutch boys with Nazi eyes and fraternity cut-off shirts saunter over with sauntering smiles and beer breath to small talk and ask what the hell the racket is. I explain. They snigger, and tell me about an Amsterdam painter who purposely painted an incorrect Mecca compass on the ceiling of a mosque there. Hi-larious. These fresh faces belong at spring break in Miami beach, not in Jaipur. They laugh and tell me how their driver is just like a dog, coming when they call and even asking permission to use the bathroom. I tell them I need to finish my beer. Too polite. Too Canadian.
We finish our beer and make for the parking lot where K saw a rick (for some reason our rickshaw driver said he couldn’t go all the way up to the Tiger Fort, so we hiked around the bag-eating pigs and leering motorcycle lads, climbing a quick fifteen minutes up to the clifftop fort to catch the sundeath). But there is no rick in the lot anymore. Just one car left with a couple climbing in. Katya begs them for a ride down, and they’re happy to oblige. Indians are kind. He’s Dinesh, owns a textile store. When K tells him she worked with Shiamak he swivels round to shake her hand, and tells her he won’t wash it after this. They sure love a sniff of celebrity in this country, that’s for sure.
They get us down to Don, and he drives us crosstown to an Italian terrace joint, wood-fire pizza and Spaghetti Bolognese. Surrounded by goras we’d barely know we were in India if not for the mock-Mughal hotel across the way. It’s a tourist town in a tourist time- it’s to be expected. They’re in throngs around the palaces and the touts and sellers are watching them, ten-to-one. We even saw the snake-charmers earlier and I found myself with a cobra around my neck.
I’m on the terrace roof in the night that’s almost cold, someone’s blaring Hindi love songs down the street, in the distance I can hear a highway. Don’t even know how we found our way back here tonight, twists and turns in the dusty backroads.
No comments:
Post a Comment