Friday 27th October 2006: Udaipur

Friday: a day of meets and mellow fruitfulness (will you ever forgive me?). At Tapan's bidding, I came back to Udaipur first thing so I could meet him and discuss the project in more depth. This in itself would have been cause for significant celebration, but any Tapan-derived joy I might have felt was immediately eclipsed by the far greater joy of discovering that Dilip is once more among us! It turns out that his family visit to Indore was less protracted than feared, and he has already been back for several days. I was able to corner him in his office and give him a potted summary of the project so far. He seemed reasonably impressed - enough, at least, to entitle me to a feeling of satisfaction that it hasn't been all that bad a start. He also explained something that has been troubling me recently: why does a Joint Forest Management microplanning project seem to have so little to do with forests, and so much to do with everything else? The former issue is largely a question of experience - my lack thereof. Much of the technical part of the report concerning actual forest management will have to be completed by others more qualified than me. My focus has therefore quite correctly been more on areas outside the forest which brings me on the latter point. The Forest Department in fact sets aside a certain budget for "non-forestry activities" in villages such as Maal, and it is hence necessary to focus part of the research onto the potential beneficiaries of such activities.
  Dilip seemed on typically dynamic form, and managed to insert the words "bifurcate" and "inculcate" into our conversation with every appearance of ease. He also complimented me on my "mind-blowing" Hindi, in response to an off-the-cuff comment I made about buffaloes. These gems aside, however, I can't help but detecting a slight coolness in his manner. Perhaps despite his apparently favorable response to my initial efforts he is actually a little disappointed. Who knows what great things he had imagined me capable of? Interestingly, and in all honesty a little annoyingly, he seems to be enormously impressed with Ellen. Given the high esteem in which I hold her myself, I can hardly blame Dilip for reacting likewise.

Dilip

   Later on I managed to track down Tapan, who seemed to be spending his day scurrying from one interminable meeting to the next. Despite traces of the petty bureaucrat about him that irritate me, I am slowly beginning to warm to him. Today I even managed to draw him out briefly on the subject his personal life - a blamelessly blissful arranged marriage with a brood of beautiful babies. On the more mundane matter of the microplan he was predictably efficient in helping me to draft the formal survey that I am to carry out next week.

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This evening I went to a Rajasthani dance performance in the upper courtyard of the Bagore-ki-Haveli. This is a nightly occurrence and totally geared towards tourists which, if I cast my prejudices forcefully aside, does tend to mean things will be fairly professional, even if less genuine. This certainly was professional, albeit with some amusing blips, such as when the unseen and not very fluent compère announced one dance and then, after a confused pause, apologised that his dancers weren’t perfect and so would be performing a different dance. This they did, following which the compère announced the earlier dance again, absolutely verbatim, and the dancers, apparently now perfect, danced it without evident difficulty.
   All the dances were very good: the first was a solo by an exotic young woman with a pot of fire on her head, the second a trio of women striking thirteen little cymbals attached to their costumes in various places. The last, however, was truly remarkable. From the desert in western Rajasthan, it was a reflection on the practice of taking huge numbers of pots to the well in order to have a good supply in case of later shortage. To the ongoing background of extraordinary folk music – plaintive singing accompanied by jumbles of notes played on the harmonium bolstered by complicated rhythms on a drum that looked like a South Indian mridangam but sounded quite like a tabla - the oldest, and presumably most experienced, of the dancers came on and danced gracefully for a bit before a man offstage placed a large pot on her head. With an almost imperceptible increase in tension, she carried on dancing, until the man came on and placed an object covered by a cloth in front of her. Very slowly and elaborately she lowered herself until she was in a reclining position next to the mystery object, gesturing around it with her hand seemingly forever before (pot balanced perfectly on her head throughout) she grasped the cloth with her teeth, gingerly lifting it up to reveal… a flower! (Some symbolism here, surely? The flower in the desert).
   Buoyed by this, she carried on dancing, ever graceful, ever accompanied by the part-mournful, part-joyful Rajasthani music, which reminded me that gypsy origins have been traced according to some theories back to Rajasthan by studies of gypsy culture, including music. After a while she moved off to the sidelines, where the man placed a second, slightly smaller pot on top of the first. Totally unperturbed now, she carried on dancing while the singer sang of “paani… pichola paani” (water from Lake Pichola) and the man appeared again with a small bronze plate which he placed on the floor in front of her. In due course she put one foot, then the other on the plate, although it was too small, and jerked around for a bit before deeming this second labour over. Not long after taking away the plate, the man placed a third pot onto the growing pile, so that the height of pottage now must have been a good two thirds of the dancer’s own height. It did not seem to interfere with her graceful steps -  what amazing control of posture these women must have, especially considering in the “wild” these pots would be full of water and carried long distances back to the home.
   The third task consisted of walking over shards of blunted glass, followed by the addition of three more smallish pots, the effect of the overall six being now not unlike a gigantic tower shell. Almost unbelievably, the taskmaster waiting in the wings added three final pots to the monstrous pile, making a total of nine, more than doubling the dancer’s height for a few minutes while she whirled round faster and faster to the fascination of the visibly tense audience. Finally, her assistant removed all the pots, and there was palpable sigh of relief while the dancer, smiling broadly, did a few final twists and turns before finishing the dance looking happy and unburdened. And I must say, the whole thing does reek of the oppression of women in village life, making it something more than a bit of uncomplicated fun. This is strongly reflected in the rich emotional ambivalence of the music, which cleverly mirrored the drama of dance.
   Later on, for a total contrast, I joined the girls for thali in the Hotel Natraj. Meaning plate, a thali has virtually limitless possibilities as a meal, and varies widely throughout India. So far as I have seen in Rajasthan, it generally involves chapatti, dal, various vegetable dishes and rice, and may also include papad, fried delicacies, buttermilk and sweets. In South India, rice is more prominent, and the vegetable dishes are rather different from in the north. In Tamil Nadu, it is known as “meals” and eaten off a banana leaf, in contrast to the metal plates and dishes of north and central India. Tonight's has been definitely one of the best thalis I’ve ever had, with excellent rotis, dal, tasty vegetable dishes, a rich potato mush, kedgeree of a sort, papad and rice, all washed down with delightful buttermilk flavoured with salt and cinnamon.

Next Post - Sunday 29th October 2006: Udaipur (will be posted Saturday 29th October 2011)