Jodhpur was one of the less-touristed and traditional towns in Rajasthan that we visited. Here, the men wear colorful turbans (our Jaipur-born guide was able to tell their caste and sub-caste just from the look and color of this headpiece), and the women are in deep purdah, a word that literally means veil or curtain. The same guide described to us with pride how his wife always has her shoulders covered and also pulls on her veil when her husband enters the room while she is talking with his mother, out of respect for him.
This is also a place on the outskirts of which live animist villagers who worship trees (while supposedly also being Hindu) and are allowed to serve visitors opium (my Dad lapped up some of it from the old man's hand and found it sweet).
And it is a town of unabashed color, not only in the clothing of its inhabitants, but also in the bazaar that occupies the city center selling everything from bags of Kashmiri saffron, pictured, to giant bars of soap to rows and rows of those bright expendable bracelets that are the attributes of any traditional Indian woman.
The center of town today is as blue as in the sixteenth century, when Brahmins settled there upon the founding of the fort and sought to distinguish their homes from the rest of the population by painting them blue, to prevent pollution by lower castes.
The center of town today is as blue as in the sixteenth century, when Brahmins settled there upon the founding of the fort and sought to distinguish their homes from the rest of the population by painting them blue, to prevent pollution by lower castes.
And, as in all self-respecting Rajasthani towns, there is a mighty, beautiful fort, this one perhaps the most impressive of the ones we've seen. The delicate filigree work of its jalis (lattice windows) makes you forget you're looking at sandstone. And the sumptuous rooms make you marvel, with one bedroom touchingly adorned with Christmas decorations--a British influence from the 19th century.
Here, they can teach you to tie a turban or direct you to the "fort astrologer" who will tell you things you never wanted to know ("Don't worry, if you'll have a long life, I will tell you that or, if you'll have a short life, I won't say anything. Also your illnesses. Everything like that.") Tradition lives on here in many guises.
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