Jaipur (Part 1)

Jaipur, part 1
We arrived in Jaipur after a fairly uneventful, 4 hour bus journey. We had seats that no-one tried to take, we were on highways and not mountain bends, there was little traffic and little noise. I slept for the first couple of hours and read half of For whom the Bell Tolls in the second couple. The only major event was that we stopped at an arrangement of roadside shacks to use the bathroom and have some tea. I had a questionable somosa (they were delicious despite the kitchen) and some hot masala chai, I held back on using the squat toilets – they were so putrid even the locals opted for the rubbish-pile over them.
Defecation in India is, by necessity, an open process. Space and time dictate the act be performed in any situation or place - on road-sides, train-lines, bus aisles and street walls and corners. Toilets are basic and immediate. Ceramic tiles face short cement walls; they do not conceal the user but offer a focus and concentration point. Unfortunately the Indian drainage is (for the most part) an open sewer system running through streets providing drinking water to the mass of wandering dogs and sacred cows. Drains are often blocked and overflowing.
Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan with an official population half that of Sydney and an unofficial one much higher. Although it was occupied for much longer, Mahraja Man Singh founded the place in 1756 (I think...) and built his fort (Amber Fort) and city there.
After disembarking the bus we caught tuk-tuks to the hotel and were greeted on arrival with a ping pong table. I remain undefeated in international appearances (although am 0-2 in Chess). Our hotel room was quite small, but clean, and we barely spent a second in there over the next couple of days.
Our first outing was to the Amber fort – about 8km from town – and built when Japiur was founded. The Amber fort is more yellow than Amber and is built from local sandstone. The fort however, is surrounded by a complex of stone walls and turrets following the ridges of the surrounding mountains. In terms of land-area, I think this was the biggest we had visited.
After passing a small line of shacks selling various wares (including ‘cold bear’ for the adventurous tourist), entering the gate and pushing through a wave of people selling postcards, sparkly pens and gyrating puppets, we ascended an outer wall to the palace area. We have been to a lot of forts and palaces now, so it takes a fair bit to impress, but this palace was interesting because you free to explore mazes of the palace. Most forts have a path to be followed and many sealed off areas. The Amber fort was not as well maintained, but you could wander through the narrow passageways, up and down stairs, into the bathrooms and the kitchens, or look out from the balconies. It was easier to immerse yourself in another world by doing this and I was pleasantly surprised by the experience.
We packed 5 people into a tuk-tuk back into central Jaipur, where we were meeting at the movie cinema to have some dinner and see a bollywood movie. We were due to meet at around 7pm, but our leader was running a bit late, so we waited sought out a place for a drink and had a warm Kingfisher to pass the time.
If you stay in one place too long you are bound to be surrounded by people – children and women begging, people selling puppets (I really don’t get the puppets) and bangles (Kate bought a pack which has slowly been disintegrating each time she removes them from her arm). The movie entrance had a clear line of partition between the sellers and the middle-class movie goers. The line was enforced by a Ray-Ban wearing security guard who was partial to a photo with us – he would ask the guys in the group myself included to come into the light (round the corner) for a good photo. Although this is odd and felt it we had a fair bit of time and everyone was quite relaxed, so we hung around for a bit of a chat with both sides of the line. It all fairly elementary (as I speak little hindi and they speak little English) but there are plenty of smiles.
After hanging around out the front of the movie cinema, we went out for dinner at a thali place. A thali is a plate with inbuilt sections to hold very small amounts of various dishes. Upon entering the restaurant we were welcomed by 20 personal waiters who invited our 12-stong group into the kitchen to watch how things were cooked. There seemed to be about 50 cooks. One to make the dough, one to roll the dough, one to pass the dough to the cooker, one to cook the dough, one to take the chapatti off, one to put the chapatti on a plate, one to take the chapatti to the customer . The head cook was a heavily moustanched man with a belly like a sack of flour. Some people took part in the cooking.
We ate our dinner, which was delicious, and very spicy. Another thing about eating in Indian restaurants is that you are rarely alone. This was an extreme case, but as we ate, the 20 waiters just stood around our table watching us, every 30 seconds or so, one from the flock would approach and ask ‘would like some more sir’. I find it quite unnerving eating in this way.
The restaurant was just beside the bollywood cinema. The cinema itself is famous in Asia (it is called the Raj Mandi). Our movie was at 9:30 so we had to hang around for a while again. Someone we did not know vomited out the front of the cinema and then moved on. We have seen many sick locals here and Vinit said he often gets sick.
The movie was titled ‘blue’. The Raj Mandi was a huge, imperial style cinema with an expansive foyer covered in patterned blue carpet. The theatre had a proper maroon velvet curtain and an enormous, domed ceiling.
The movie made me realise that crap Hollywood movies like the fast and the furious are actually sophistacted and deeply intelligent treatises on the human condition. Blue was somewhere between a midday extreme sports program and a soft porn movie.
The plot?
A young, filthy rich go-get-em motorbike rider in a white shirt is employed by a hook-nosed, filthy rich motorbije rider in a balck shirt to transferr $50 million to the airpot. He drops it when a truck explodes near him. White shirt flees to Barbados to enlist the help of his chubby, filthy rich brother. Black shirt follows him and violently attempts to get his money back. Instead of selling his $100 million dollar boar to bail out white shirt, his brother decides that the most logical solution to the problem is to go in search of Indian treasure lost in 1947. That way they can maintain their lifestyle and have plenty of scenes of women in bikinis. In the end the treasure is found, black shirt and his goons are killed, but white shirt and his brother are betrayed at the last minute by a mutual friend.
I may be underselling the plot a little, the entire movie was in Hindi, but somehow I don’t think so. It really was just there so that the scenes of half-naked women, the exploits of the uber-rich, and judicious placements of Heineken bottles could be classified as a ‘movie’.
The moral?
Women contribute to society by flashing their bums and man contribute by relaxing beside the pool staring at womens bums when they are not out blowing up trucks and searching for treasure.
This is just one movie and I’m sure its not representative of all bollywood movies. It is interesting to see, however, how the modern india is represented through the bolloywood frame.
What is most incredible is the gap between the cinema and reality. In any country cinema is reflective of the dreams of its society. But nowhere can I imagine that the dreams are so distant and the reality so crushing. From this virtual, air-conditioned world of sex and opulence you step over the breach, smack into dusty faced, straw-haired children, confused about whether to ask you for money or ask you to play with them.
The next day was my birthday and I will do a separate post.
Thankyou for you e-mails. We love them. It makes us so happy to hear from home.

Low battery. We love you all and will post part 2 tomorrow.

Love Kate and Charles.