7. Mandawa

I left off last time at the end of the Saturday night music part of the Jaipur Literary Festival which I had been attending with my volunteer colleagues, Alex and Federico, as well as visiting representatives from Tushita Travel’s Dehli office, Dheeraj, Sumedha and Karthick.  The latter were scheduled to return to Delhi via Mandawa on Sunday and I delightedly accepted the invitation to go with them that far.  

And so I embarked on my first road trip in India in the company of these three very charming individuals.  Eventually we left urban Jaipur and were driving through countryside interspersed with small villages and some lush green farms.  Eventually, there were rumblings (mine included) about lunch and in my mind, I envisaged stopping at some sort of roadside eatery - you know, the kind with tables, a menu and restrooms.  It was definitely roadside but there ends any similarity, as you can see from the first picture.  Its a bit of a dodgy is my first reaction.

There is conversation and food is obviously being ordered (good lord) and from somewhere a table and chairs are produced and installed behind the building you see in picture number one.  When glasses, plates and cutlery arrive, its allowed as how we won’t be using the glasses, and from the bottled water, they begin to wipe down the plates and cutlery and I follow suit.

There conversation raging in my head at the time and it went something like this - in no particular order - but very definitely at warp speed:   “OMG!….this is exactly the kind of eating the immunization doctor advised “we highly recommended you don’t do”…why are we stopping here if even they don’t like the state of the utensils?….why, for the love of all that is sacred,  is the prescription diarrhea medication safely sitting back in my room in Jaipur where it can be of absolutely no use….maybe I just won’t eat….maybe you’ll just suck it up….”.  In the end, I had lunch of course.  To do otherwise would have, for me, been rude and, why bother leaving home if not to try new things.  And to top it all off, while there have been some minor revolts of the system since I arrived, this was not one such occasion!

Karthik is a man after my own heart in that no meal is complete without dessert so the necessary provisions of cookies and chips were purchase and we piled back into the car.  Our next stop was in at the Dr. Rammnath A. Podar Haveli Museum in the village of Nawalgarh www.podarhavelimuseum.org.  I had been told that I would love “havelis” and that turned out to be something of an understatement.  Haveli’s are private mansions, usually with historical and architectural significance and are are noted for their frescoes depicting images of gods, goddesses, animals, scenes from the British colonization, and the life stories of Lords Rama and Krishna.  Through succession many havelis are now owned by multiple family members who cannot come to agreement on what should be done with the properties so, sadly, many stand empty and are subject to decay.  

We are the only ones visiting the haveli at this time so we roam from room to room at our leisure and take in the information of a guide.  One of the rooms houses model displays of wedding attire and I learn they depict typical styles by class.  And from that conversation I learn that only recently in India can a person move outside the social strata they were born into by occupation but still, never in marriage.  There is even a lesson on making a turban which Karthik models very handsomely.

Back in the car, the landscape changes again and luckily since my friends are on a working trip, we get to stop for some pictures.  A short time later I see signs that we’ve arrived in Mandawa but when we turn into the parking lot of the Mandawa Castle, I think we are visiting another example of a haveli.  But, wait a minute - the suitcases are coming out of the car …we’re staying here?!!!  More conversation raging in the head as I follow mutely into the lobby of the Mandawa Castle, now a hotel.   You can see for yourself how spectacular it was.  As the check-in formalities are  completed, I marvel, mouth agape, at the exquisite lobby area and as we are shown to our room, scampering up and down staircases, around a beautiful courtyard, up again to a beautiful vista of the town, I’m snapping as many pictures as possible in the waning sunlight and deciding I’m going to be a travel agent in my next life!  Whatever possessed me to spend my career sitting at a desk seeing the sights of the world in the meagre 2-3 vacation weeks per year we had?, I’m asking myself.

As soon as we can stop admiring our room, we join a guide for a walk-about of Mandawa.  Since its a small village of about 25,000 and not really close to anything major, I’m amazed when we stop at a shoe shop and the owner proudly shows us the mention of his shop in an edition of a Lonely Planet magazine.  I can’t help but think how lucky I am - I’m halfway around the world from home, with friends I’ve only just met, in a small village and somehow I have the good fortune to end up here.  

Dawning darkness soon makes it difficult to appreciate any more of the havelis so arrangements are made for the following morning - me to be picked up at 7:30 am to catch the bus back to Jaipur; the others to complete their research on Mandawa and we return to the Castle for dinner.

It was a nice dinner - a buffet and minstrels - until the minor catastrophe.  Just as a waiter was coming up behind me with a tray of lassi, I was describing what a “jolly jumper” was to Sumedha and demonstrating that it hung from a doorway….my arms went up and down came the tray onto the table and into my lap.  There was some scurrying to be sure and for me the realization that I had no change of clothes and was now significantly doused in a yogurt based drink.  As Dheeraj had done so many times over the previous few days, he quickly organized things such that my clothes would be laundered and returned by morning and, thankfully, he ensured that the poor unwitting bus boy not lose his job over the mishap.  The good part was that I got to make use of that gorgeous washroom!

The next morning was vey cool and damp (as were my clothes) but when the Guide arrived me and asked if I could go on his bike, I jumped and in no time, there I was, in dense fog, careening through the streets of Mandawa on a Hero Honda.  I only wished that the bus stop was farther away than it was! !  My first ride on a motorcycle in India!! 

I was duly ensconced in a seat on the bus, the Guide took his leave and off the bus set.  At the next stop someone got on that I recognized!!  It was so unexpected, I could hardly believe it but one of the guides that I had spoken to the previous day at the Podar Museum was taking the bus to work, so I had company for the first half of the 3.5 hour trip.  And, small world that it is, he turned out to also know Veenaji and Gadjuban.  To be sure I wouldn’t forget to pass along greetings, he entered his name into Contacts on my phone and insisted on taking a picture of us with my phone!

There had been some concerns expressed about my going on the bus alone - buses not exactly the same as Greyhound, but honestly I had not a moment of concern.  The one thing I’ve learned about the people in India is that they are warm, welcoming and giving.  They are not constrained as we are about “personal space” so even on this kind of journey the bus is full to overflowing with people standing in the aisles and the bus does not always come to a full stop before someone is jumping on or off.  When my borrowed cell phone rang and Gajju bana asked where I was, I had no idea - but I passed the phone to the conductor (who spoke no English) and he gave all the information to Gajju bana.   He made sure to tell me when we arrived at my stop in Jaipur and when he saw me waiting for my ride, he came over, asked for my phone and made a call to see what was going on and waited to see me into the car.

I was in fact met by Veenaji and Gajju bana's  lovely son, Pierre and since it was early in the afternoon, I asked him to drop me off at a store Sumedha told me about where I happily spent the next hour shopping.   The store was across the street from the large and beautiful Central Park and it was Republic Day in India so there were lots of people enjoying the park.  After taking and, having my picture taken, numerous times, I jumped into a tuk-tuk for a short ride back to Tushita House and the end of my amazing road trip.