The evening I arrived (3/3) was the first day of Holi and all over Bhuj dung-fuelled fires were being lit, and people would process round them. I understand that this is also a prime time for newly-weds to “reaffirm their vows”. The next day was Holi proper, and after being outside for half an hour I concluded that, since everything was shut and my face and clothes were already covered with brightly coloured powder, there was no real option but to join in the fun.
The earliest revellers were little kids armed with bags of coloured powder (pink and green apparently the most popular colours) or spray tubes. They had no compunction in running up to me and smothering my face, hair or t-shirt, generally with a cheeky “Happy Holi”. Later, teenagers and adults joined in – gangs of monstrously-coloured boys on motorbikes, gaggles of girls, some giggling, some cross, older men with a streak of pink on their forehead or a hint of green in their hair, matronly figures with long pleated hair stained with colour. I fell in with a party of boys and men and joined their group for a time before it was suggested we go back to a room belonging to one of them, Ritesh Goswami, for drinks. Drinks involved fairly serious quantities of rum and things got slightly out of hand when some of the party starting muttering about 1947, while brandishing a cricket bat a little ominously, if vaguely. Some of the less drunk companions told me it would be best if I left. Ritesh gave me his contact details so that we could meet again. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon sitting in the shade and drinking water, at one point accepting a lift with some prison officers, with whom I drank tea outside a crowded shack, hoping that they would not discern the illegal liquor in my breath.
Holi
Credit: imovies4u.com
A slightly tired normality was restored the next day, and I was able to explore Bhuj in a less exotic fashion. As a town I found it consistently confusing and never really developed a mental map, which is odd, as I think in reality it has a fairly simple layout. Much of the town’s original buildings were damaged in the notorious 2001 earthquake, so it is a curious mixture of modern houses, piles of rubble and an old-fashioned street plan.
The biggest draws, in my opinion, are the large artificial lake (Hamirsar Kund) and the palaces of the Maharaos of Kutch, a Jadeja Rajput clan who ruled Kutch as a princely state until 1948. Of the former I shall say nothing except that, sitting by it on my first evening I was surprised by an immensely long flight of bats. The most striking of the palaces is called the Prag Mahal and is a huge, somewhat Indo-Gothic monstrosity with a peculiar resemblance to Keble College, in Oxford. It is red brick, with plenty of little yellow columns and a sloping-roof façade at the front and a huge clock tower. Inside, it is equally extraordinary and impressive, with an imposing staircase and plaster panelling painted to look like wood, adding to the Oxbridge effect. What is clear throughout the palace, but most of all in the surreal Durbar Hall, is a love of Greek classical structures, most notably Corinthian pillars. The Durbar hall has a bare expanse of dusty floor, only interrupted by a handful of musty old chairs that have obviously seen better decades. I would describe the decor as “Helleno-kitsch”, with Corinthian pillars aplenty, grey-and-white miniatures depicting Greek myths and a team of gold-skirted Adonis figures holding up scrolls midway up the wall. Add to this a few family portraits and numerous stuffed animals all round the room, and you have the eerie scene, eeriness intensified by the today’s durbar of a hundred pigeons whose throbbing calls are magnified by the acoustic to an unearthly degree.
The older palace, the Aina Mahal, has a beautifully intricate, earthquake-damaged exterior, and also bows to European influence in the form of numerous small portraits of European ladies and Rococo mirrors. Alongside these hang miniature portraits of Mughal emperors, who are given Mongoloid features (which they presumably would have had). It was in the palace compound that I met Janine, a Canadian girl of about my age who told me she wanted to hire a taxi to explore some Kutchi villages. She had already found one companion and was now looking for a third. With some initial misgivings I agreed to join them, as I was also interested in exploring villages, and a shared taxi seemed to be the most convenient and economical way of doing this. We met for lunch at Janine’s hotel, the Annapurna, to finalise matters. The third member of our party turned out to be a Swiss guy called Marc who had already been in Bhuj a week.
And so it was that the next day we set off in a charming old Ambassador, with a cheerful driver whose name eludes me, north from Bhuj towards the Great Rann, the seasonal water body that separates Kutch from Sindh, in Pakistan. After an hour or so of driving we reached a village called Dhorda, which our driver told us was inhabited solely by a Muslim community called the Mutwa. These Mutwa spoke Sindhi, which is actually very similar to Kutchi, the dialect spoken throughout Kutch, and were famous for their mudwork decorated with little circular mirrors, used to adorn the inner walls of their houses. At first my heart sank as we were ushered into a beautifully clean, round mud house painted white on the outside and full of handicrafts, the sina qua non of the textbook Kutch experience. Surely this was a showpiece, I thought, noting the extraordinary display of crockery – cups, glasses, teapots – neatly arranged on a shelf that ran round the top of the inside wall, just underneath the conical roof. And, yes, I believe it was a showpiece of sorts, but on inspecting other houses – houses that we weren’t shown immediately, and perhaps were not really expected to show an interest in – it became apparent that they all followed a similar plan: round building, neat display on the shelf below the ceiling, maybe some mirrored mudwork. The women were wonderful, in bright tops with mirrorwork, colourful skirts and headscarfs and copious bangles
Janine and I had a reasonably intelligible conversation in Hindi with a woman called Bopli. She showed us a book by a Hyderabadi author about Muslim women in India, which had a chapter devoted to her! Later on Janine told us that she had talked to a girl who had told her how her grandfather had encouraged her to use contraceptives, very rare in villages like these, and was as a consequence ostracised by the rest of the women in the village. I asked a man where the nearest school was, and he turned out to be the government-appointed teacher, a pleasant, self-effacing man from Bhuj who spoke a little English. He walked with Marc and me to the very nearby school, a collection of pre-fabricated huts, and later joined us as he needed to get to Bhuj that day.
Dhorda is close to the Great Rann of Kutch, the famous salt desert that separates Kutch from Pakistan, flooding in the monsoon to leave Kutch an island. We were, naturally, keen to visit said Rann although there was some difficulty in our getting permission to do so. Marc name-dropped the owner of the Annapurna Hotel, who owns a bromine plant nearby, and the connection worked its magic, allowing us to hop in a jeep driven by a man amusingly called Abdul Kalam (the name of the President of India). Our own driver came with us, as he had never been to the Rann before and was eager to see it.
Although it was not the pure white plain that I was expecting, the Great Rann was still satisfyingly otherworldly, an endless expanse of brown mud, interrupted in part by large artificial pools of liquid, some greenish, some reddish (perhaps bromide). The edges of these pools were embedded with salt structures shaped like coral, but the colour of snow. Looking towards the horizon, the brownness of the mud was lost in the whiteness of the salt, so the apparently limitless stretch of land looked a little like a vast beach with an advancing breaker which remained strangely stationary. The only features that broke up this landscape were a number of abandoned jeeps, transmuted by a mirage so that they appeared to float a few feet above the surface. The jeep we had come in, nearby and unquestionably earthbound, nevertheless looked eerily like something out of a film.
Later, back in our own jeep, we headed onto to a second village, Hodka, and third, Bhirendiara. Both of these were occupied by Harijans, which in this case referred specifically to the Meghwal or Marwada, a caste of Rajasthani origins. The women were notable for their heavy silver neck rings, worn even by small girls, as well as equally colourful clothes and at least as many bangles as the Mutwa. In both villages, as in Dhorda, there seemed to be a set procedure for welcoming visitors, ushering them into certain houses and displaying endless beautiful handicrafts – wall-hangings, door hangings, cholis (women’s tops) and other items of clothing. In Hodka, the man we talked to told us how he’d been to Japan, Germany and other countries to sell Hodka embroideries in craft fairs. This seemed surprising at first, although on rational reflection it is perhaps not very surprising. Kutch has long been internationally famous for its handicrafts, and with scores of NGOs helping to set up cooperatives and marketing schemes and state government-run emporia and facilitating sales in the big cities, especially Ahmedabad, Delhi and Bombay, selling abroad is a logical next step. And who better to sell them than somebody from the village where they were made? All the same, hearing that this man had been to Europe struck me in the same way that hearing of the four Maalians working in
Kuwait had done!
Meghwal women, Hodka
Credit:www.wunrn.com
It was only in the third village, Bhirendiara, that I felt able to establish any real connection. This was with the brothers Arjun and Naran who took me to visit the reasonably well-stocked village shop, apparently maintained by daily trips to Bhuj. They explained that none of the villages have any arable land, and so rice, maize, wheat etc. are brought from Bhuj on weekly trips. Cows and buffalo are kept,
however, for milk. The brothers introduced me to a friend of theirs, Dana, who at my request sang a guttural Kutchi folk song that, to my ears, could have just as well come from Surinam or the Gambia.
On the way back we dropped the friendly teacher back at his home in Bhuj, and his two wives prepared a wonderful rice dish and delicious appalam, which have the texture, but not taste, of prawn crackers. I met up with Janine and Marc the next day but one for a trip to Mandvi, a port in the south of Kutch. This is a predominantly Muslim town, with a tradition of shipbuilding that still continues. We were able to see huge ships being constructed out of large wooden beams using pulleys made of chains. We were even able to clamber inside these great unfinished cathedrals of the sea and up onto the decks-to be – tremendous fun! All the ships seemed to be bound for Dubai initially and then on to ply the East African coast, although we couldn’t understand what their cargo was going to be. We also had a delightful swim at a long sandy beach lined, not unattractively, with wind turbines and visited the Vijay Vilas palace, current residence of the Maharao’s family. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Janine and Marc as we had assumed we would meet again, but didn’t.
Vijay Vilas Palace
Credit: holidayiq.com
Apart from these two, I did most of my socialising in Bhuj with the crowd I had spent Holi with. Ritesh (23) belongs to a family of priests and himself does odd jobs in his family’s temple. He spoke almost no English, but we managed to converse easily in Hindi. His friend Ashok worked in a mudwork boutique, which I spent a fair bit of time in watching the progress of a panel of Krishna and his gopis commissioned by the owner of a soon-to-open Bhuj hotel. He was, like Ritesh, a very likeable character and, I think, rather more intelligent. At any rate he was a great conversationalist (we spoke in a melange of English and Hindi) and he told me some interesting things. In an echo of Prakash, he derided the current Maharao (a figurehead of course – real power was lost in 1948, just like in all the other princely states) as a “nonsense man”, although conceded that the last active Maharao had been a good ruler, despite having had both a Kutchi wife and an English wife.
Ashok also told me about the earthquake, which enabled me to understand a little better quite what a devastating event it was. When the quaking started, people had no idea what was going on, and many in their panic thought Pakistan was finally invading! After the night of horrors, people emerged from their houses, or wherever they had been hiding, to be confronted with rubble and bodies everywhere (10% of the population killed according to the Lonely Planet). His own house collapsed completely. Many people thought that that was it for Bhuj and that they would have to leave and start again somewhere else. As it was, many women left and stayed with their families in villages, while their men stayed in tents for the next six months, while aid poured in from around the world – hourly planes arriving in Bhuj airport for a time.
Somehow, then, people managed to rebuild their lives physically and mentally. Ashok told me that Bhuj enormously expanded in size in this process and much of the outer part of Bhuj was built at this time. His own family had gone to relatives in Ahmedabad immediately after the quake and came back at some point afterwards. He thanks God that nobody in his family was killed, although he lost some friends. It is still difficult to imagine the reality of all this, still less the reality of ongoing human-manufactured crises such as in Afghanistan and North Korea. The earthquake still looms large in people’s mentalities, not least as a measure of time and change. A lot of sentences in Ritesh and Ashok’s conversation began “After the earthquake…”
As well as having a meal with Ritesh, and drinking again with him and a friend (apparently alcohol in Bhuj has to be bought from the military at extortionate black market prices) we also went on a trip of our own – Ritesh, Ashok and I, on one small motorbike. We drove out to Mundra, another small port, described rather cryptically as the “Paris of Kutch”. The road out winds it way through alluringly barren hills and plains, covered only with acacica, save for the occasional brilliant flash of orange. This was the kakra tree which, judging by its leaves and flowers, belongs to the pea family. The flowers, called kesura, are crushed in water to produce an orange liquid in which people bathe their skin to reduce infection. After lunch in the rather bland and distinctly un-Parisian Mundra, we went to Ashok’s family’s farmhouse, very much in the “back of beyond”. There was a field of wheat, a field of soya (much of which found its way to Greece, the family told me) and a field of cotton, as well as a rubber tree and a tree called the umra, the wood of which is used for the Brahmin yagna ceremony, where a fire is fed all night with ghee and other comestibles. From here we visited the sea, firstly at a desolate, grey beach next to some salt pans. “This is a very out of station place”, said Ashok “And you are most certainly the first firangi to have come here”. I could not share his conviction here, although it is a tempting thought to have gone where no white man went before. Ashok told me that there was a notorious madrassa near here, a breeding ground for “high profile terrorists”.
We then headed off down the coast to an extraordinary temporary Muslim fishing village. This was a great colony of shacks, each of which had a private wooden fence on which rows of fish were hung to dry. The ground was also covered with drying fish and prawns. The beach here was a long strip of grey sand, with a brown sea filled with medium-sized boats. Most of the children here were intrigued and terrified in equal measure by my appearance, suggesting an unfamiliarity with white faces.
Ashok and Ritesh not only helped me purchase a train ticket, but came to the station to see me off this morning, their last minute appearance a tonic after a more than usually stressful Indian station experience. Their hospitality and friendliness have been overwhelming, even by Indian standards, and I am conscious that as I approach the City, I am unlikely to find such friendliness again before I leave India.
Another amusing experience in Bhuj cannot be let slip. There is a Rama temple by the lake that I passed on numerous occasions. Once, on hearing chanting, I decided to go in and listen, the intention being to sit quietly in the corner, observing but unobserved. This was not to be – on one side of the hall was a group of women and on the other a solitary priest, engaging the women in a call-and-response routine accompanied by a little jangling cymbal. No doubt welcoming the chance to address
the gender imbalance, the priest beckoned me over and invited me to join in, firstly with his chanting, and then with the cymbal-jangling. Slowly, he eased the microphone towards me, so that I became the lead singer on the male side. He leant over: “You must now try and avoid taking meat and hard drinks” he murmured, which I thought was a bit thick given the brevity of our acquaintance. I muttered something non-committal and focussed my full attention on the task in hand.
“I will now proceed to my home to take some refreshment for some time,” he told me firmly. “You will please remain.” He got up and left the temple. Panic enveloped me – would I remain trapped in this place, chanting for the rest of my life? Luckily an old woman entered and, seeing my plight, took pity and came and joined my side. After a tactful pause I eased myself gracefully out of my new role and hurried as unhurriedly as possible out of the temple.
A word about my fellow travellers at the City Guest House, and then I shall be done. Many of them were French, including a jolly, sunburnt lady called Celine, whose daughter was working in a Jaipur NGO, and a young woman who was half-Malagasy. There was another French guy, a little older than me, who had been to Madagascar, so we all talked Madagascar one evening, even singing some Malagasy pop songs the three of us knew. There was Alan, a friendly early-thirties hippie from Bristol, who was interesting and good fun, although was given to long introspective rambling at times. Jackie was a vigorous middle-aged Englishwoman with a very Oxford bass voice. Somehow she and I failed to hit it off, which is a shame as she seemed like a marvellous character, full of ideas and opinions, many of which were no doubt rather loopy.
The most intriguing group was an odd trio - two guys and a girl - who I had initially taken to be French. It turned out that the guys, dreadlocked pot-smoking and rather difficult to engage in conversation, were Parsis from Bombay who now lived in Germany! One of them was married to the girl, who I am reasonably certain was French, or perhaps Swiss. Perhaps, as a community who have produced a gay pop star (Freddie Mercury) and a famous conductor (Zubin Mehta) being a Parsi lends itself more easily to phenomena such as hippiedom than other Indian groups do?
And so I’ll put Bhuj, and myself, to bed. I had a wonderful time and only wish I could have stayed longer to explore the village culture in more depth. There are interesting Jat communities, whose women wear huge nose rings. Some German researchers have speculated on Germanic origins of the Jats, a theory which Marc and I mocked ad naseam! Also intriguing are the Rabari, who wear black and may have Iranian origins. Although I saw both Jat and Rabari women in Bhuj, my only serious attempt to find out more, a visit to a town called Anjar, was an abysmal failure. If I ever return to Kutch, I can try and pursue these goals further. However, I am glad to have visited Kutch at this time, as I have a suspicion it may become the next backpacker destination, especially in the likely event that alcohol is legalised in Gujarat. And in any case, capitalism, globalisation and neo-liberalism are edging in. There is already a planned town in the south called Gandhidham which has attracted wealthy investors from all over India. After an endless journey through northwest India, and an endless procession of snack-vendors, book-sellers, chaiwallahs, drunken Nepalis and eunuchs, I shall arrive in Delhi, something I am greatly looking forward to.
Hey Hi, This is Sam(Sachin Shah ) from Mandvi-Kutch, It was really nice to hear from you about your Expeience in Kutch and surrounding Villages, i my self belong Kutch Mandvi, would like to give more info.
ReplyDeleteYou Can contact me on sam774752@gmail.com