Saturday 2nd December 2006: Udaipur

I have spent a lot of today reading Maharana, a whimsical history of Mewar written by a polymathic dabbler called Brian Masters. It has been interesting to build up a more historical picture of the area, helping me to better appreciate what I have already seen, and also giving me more of a focus for what I still want to see. In particular, I long to go to Chittorgarh, the fort which served as Mewar’s capital until the founding of Udaipur. Apparently, under Maharana Kumbha Singh, Chittor was a cultural centre, a “Florence of Rajasthan” as Masters puts it. I also want to see the temple of Eklingji, the family Shiva deity who was seen as the real power over Mewar, the Maharanas being merely his earthly representatives.

Maharana Kumbha Singh's Palace

   Masters is evidently a lover of the titbit, and one will have to be reproduced: at the famous battle of Haldi Ghati, where fiercely Hindu Maharana Pratap Singh (on his legendary horse Chetak) fought the Mughal army, Pratap’s general was a Pathan and hence a Muslim, while his opponent Akbar, supreme ruler of the glorious North Indian Islamic empire, had Maharana Man Singh, the Hindu puppet ruler of Jaipur, as his general! Let no-one write off the Mughal expansion as a simple clash of faiths!
  Over chai this afternoon, Prakash and I had an interesting debate about the battle. From what I have read, it appears to have been rather inconclusive. Initially Pratap retreated and was borne to safety by the now three-legged Chetak who promptly died, immortality guaranteed by becoming a household name, both as a horse and as a roundabout. But then he proceeded to wage a guerrilla campaign for years, slowly wearing down Akbar’s forces, who eventually retreated themselves, leaving Pratap to rule in peace for the last ten years of his life. Brian Masters interprets this as an unconventional victory for Pratap, and Udaipuri tradition holds that Mewar is the one Rajput state that Akbar never managed to subdue. Prakash, who is a great cynic where the Maharanas are concerned, vehemently disagrees with this view.
   “How can you compare Pratap with Akbar? Pratap was an idiot, yaar. Akbar was a great ruler. What do you mean he never ruled Mewar? He took Chittor so of course he ruled Mewar! How else can you rule Mewar?”
   “But surely the victory was rather inconclusive?”
   “What do you mean it was inconclusive? How could it have been inconclusive?”
  “Well, in the book I was reading, the author suggests that Akbar won initially, but Pratap managed to grind down Akbar’s forces so that he had to retreat.”
  “All these historians rely on sources that try to glorify the Maharanas. This is not an objective study. They were mostly buffoons, these Maharanas, not great heroes. They were preoccupied with themselves and didn’t do anything for the common people. You can’t compare them with truly great rulers like Akbar.”
   He has a point, of course, and his cynicism is interesting and refreshing after the sycophancy of the tourist-board literature that one is exposed to at every turn in the old town. He is also much better informed than I am, but despite this I am still not convinced that Akbar can be said to have “taken” Mewar just because he occupied the capital. Unless he achieved total control over all parts of the kingdom, then the sovereignty was probably less thorough than it had been in other Rajput kingdoms. On the other hand Prakash claims that Akbar actually ruled Mewar in the conventional sense, and that any “inconclusiveness” about the situation has simply been fabricated by biased historians. I’d like to see what Akbari sources say.

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Last night I had an intense musical experience. The occasion was a debate, followed by a concert, followed by a dinner at the Vidya Bhavan auditorium up the road from here. The star act of the concert was the head of the music department of Udaipur university, Dr Nirmal Khandelwal, who sang and played the harmonium, alongside his pupil Sunil Mehta. They were accompanied by an excellent tabla player. They gave us three remarkably beautiful ghazals, the first sung by the pupil in an expressive, muffled voice, the second by Dr Khandelwal himself and the third a long, emotionally rich duet. What a voice he had! He was a consummate performer who could rein his voice in to a delicate pianissimo or blast out an endless, harrowing high note. I feel obliged to say that my immense pleasure at hearing this music might have been even greater had I understood the meanings of the songs. The little I did understand was thanks to the event organiser, Nandji, who sat next to me for a bit and translated – “Take my money, take my house, take my possessions, take everything from me, but leave me my childhood” (this at one of the most musically powerful parts of the duet). Throughout, the harmoniums provided strange and rather unsettling figurations, constantly adding energy and colour.
   This kind of music is very different from the western classical tradition, where key changes and quite stark changes in mood and texture are common. In these ghazals and Indian classical music the background drone is provided by a tanpura (a string instrument that is plucked to give an ongoing chord) or, frequently, an electronic tanpura. Either way this means that the music hovers obsessively round one key. Rather than being boring, this creates a feeling of delving deeper and deeper into a world…

Next Post - Sunday 3rd December 2006: Udaipur (will be posted Saturday 3rd December 2011)