Udaipur without octopussy, we're not fussy

Udaipur, week 7 into the pursuit of Rajasthani culture -pop and folk alike-

We spent a total of 5 days in Udaipur and its smooth lakeside. At the start we weren't recording much. Rather using our time on to do some fruitful editing (Maarten especially, since we had quick enough internet again) whereas I did less. Except for scouring and ripping the radio. Since we left Puskhar it was nearly impossible to find clear frequencies in Kota and the smaller cities. With multiple stations at the dial again, recording time once again! Modern Rajasthani pop, old folk, bollywood, slow raga's and bizarre remakes of western hits into bhangra style, yup all there. And check out this radio pop rip, recognize anything? ;)

Radio pop goes Europe

Udaipur has nice areas around the lake which are refered to as 'ghats'. At the same time the ghats are quite touristy for obvious picturesque reasons, but mostly as Udaipur is regarded as India's most romantic city and it attracts a lot of Indian tourists just for that. Perhaps it does resemble something of Venice, with a Rajasthani charm thrown into it.
We didn't really explore the famous sights, temples nor the 2 big palaces in the middle of the lake, so that's where this tourist talk stops. In February we'll go back and see more, without the project on our mind -hmmm, I wonder-.

Oh yeah factoid. The Bond movie Octopussy has been filmed in Udaipur, especially in the 2 lake palaces and one of the mountain palaces. Every hotel rubs this in your face by showing Octopussy at 7pm sharp, night after night after night. We didn't see it. Dinners took more of our attention. And sometimes we got candlelit, oh wow ;)

One evening we stumbled upon the Tibetan market, a bit away from the ghat area. Instead of finding special Tibetan handcrafts and local produced wares that we expected, only normal generic winter clothing was for sale like once could get in every local shop. It was just a winter market for warm, fleece or thick cotton clothing and the only thing Tibetan about it were the Tibetan immigrants behind their stands. Oh and that every item of clothing had a tag atacched to it, saying *Tibetan market, free Tibet -and so on-*. That's all there was to it. Bargaining wasn't the bizz here, so the signs told us (see below hah). Hmm, how's that for a little yet good social scam to have the honour to buy from temporary travellers. Beyond all this context, I still bought a thin scarf, leaving the Tibet-tag on it. We talked to some Tibetans and all of them actually speak good Hindi and live allover India, from up north to down south. We wanted to buy a warped cheap-ass keyboard which gave the most distorted sounds on a China produced toy ever. It was an Indian stand filled with everything plastic and possibly toxic by all that shine.
Naturally, they also held themselves to the no bargaining scheme. Bleh.

We didn't encounter musicians as we had hoped, although there were several ravanattha players walking around the lake. We didn't record them for the repetition -and out of honour for our teacher too-, but their style was quite nice to hear. They played in a lower pitch that consisted of a different tuning alltogether. Alas, we didn't talk to them either so that we have no info backing up the method of their style.

There was a local cultural programme every evening in the city palace museum and though we got in halfway through the show, we got some recording done. It was a tourist filled place, so the variety of the songs was narrowed down to just the familiar ones. I'm sure we even felt ourselves being a bit jaded at that moment, by perhaps knowing too much about the superficial selection of Rajasthani songs as they are always presented to tourist crowds. For me nothing new music-wise, but Maarten got some nice footage of Kabeliya dancers, one dance in particular where a small and stocky mid-aged woman was dancing with 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-lost count earthwork pots on her head, while standing on glass shards. Amazing.

The day after I was walking around and met a holy baba wanderer -at first glance-with an Ektara in his hand. The Ektara is a 1-stringed instruments made out of a big palmnut and a long round neck. Its sound is like a plucked *twang*, vibrating with the body and the soft added pressure of another finger. Actually the picture on Wikipedia is wrong, as it shows a Bhapaong/Bhaoing stringed bucket which sounds similar to the unexperienced ear.
The player was from the Jogi caste, the spiritual sub branch of the Kabeliya caste where the musicians travel as spiritual performers, singing holy songs. He was small, greasy long haired and thinned to the bone and was handicapped by a large hunchback that deformed his upper body by the shoulders. Nevertheless, his playing was amazing and he started with instrumental pieces, plucking the string with one hand and clapping the shruti's in the other (by the way, shruti's is the general term for anything that clangs, like bells). He onyly spoke marwar and not much hindi, so he didn't understand what I was trying to say in vague hindi. Luckily one of the boys working at the hotel helped so I could get him to sing one song. Not just some song, because his raspy voice was amazing and complemented the ektara perfectly. What a sound, goosebumps allover! Below an excerpt of it :O
A pity that I was on my own, so that this was only recorded in audio and not filmed. I asked him to come back to the hotel the next moring and promised more money, but he didn't turn up. Perhaps next February when we're back in Udaipur -see there's the window, opened again-.

Jogi wanderer - Ektara Baghwan (God) song

On the night of the touristic cultural programme, we had spoken to the musicians about their traditions and ways of teaching. Ashok, the tabla player of the Rao caste (musicians and painters), was most open to us because of his good english and we saw him more during the next days as Maarten took up Dholak lessons and also bought one.
Ashok interested me in an antique harmonium, as a relative had a harmonium restoration and repair shop in the city. The shop existed since the 1920's so he assured me no bad quality of make came from here. An hour and some tarnishing and chai drinking later I had an old restored harmonium with me on the motorbike ride back home. yay.
His brother -and neighbour- Lalit, also played a variety of instruments. One room was more a place of collecting Rajasthani and classical Indian instrument, as he earned a bit of extra money with trading instruments besides being a tabla teacher -alike his younger brother Ashok-. Lalit played the Santoor from Kashmir, the zitherlike instrument like the eastern European Cimbalum (ah yes yes Pascalou :)!!!). 96 strings stretched over a wooden body and he played it with 2 ivory bone sticks while another relative peddled the tabla. Albeit not Rajasthani music and rather a fusion of classical Indian music meets Kashmir, the sound breathed a perfumed Persian air.

In one of the evenings after visiting Ashok, we walked past a big courtyard place filled with people. Catering tables and gourmet dishes, running kids, chattering adults. It again ment some celebration so ofcourse we checked it out and this time it wasn't a wedding (no stage nor entertainment) but a babyshower for a newborn son. Soon enough we were led into the courtyard by a local, as it always happens, and we got plates of good spicy food. Happy times. We at least wanted to congratulate the family of the newborn, but they weren't even there! All these people; relatives, neighbourhood friends and unknown wanderers..buty the organizers were still amiss and would only arrive hours later. The Indians never cease to amaze us.

Another music stumble-upon the next day, as we started to get active by luck and persistence. Whle driving around the hustled city on a rented bicycle, I came across a building of All India Radio, the one national state radio. 'Weren't they based in Delhi?' I thought. I talked my way sneakily inside at the guard booth by claiming I had an appointment. Skin color or nationality can get a white foreigner go a long way, positively discriminating as it is. I talked to the station manager on duty and learned that this was the Udaipur branch for folk music of the Marwar region, for which they once a month provided a special hour to AIR hq in Delhi. As our time in Udairpur would soon be over, there wasn't much to arrange on such short notice in ways of specific Udaipur music -which are 3 kinds: gorband, devotional and one I forgot right now-. Next to us sat a middle aged man with red painted hair. Many older Rajasthani men like their hair painted red, we don't yet know why. He introduced himself as M.M. Ali (one of the M's standing for Mustli) and clairvoyantly told me that he had a musical group and was under contract with AIR Udaipur. 'Just come tomorrow at 7pm to the university auditorium and we will play for free for you and your filming friend, we'll have dancers too', he said and wrote it down on a scrap of paper. Quick headscratch, s-s-s-say what? We drunk a chai outside and he assured me of our appointment tomorrow evening.

So ofcourse we went. Arriving through the university gates we found many people spilling into a big hall. 'Is that really the auditorium?'. Yes. There was a convention going on for the steel engineering industry and a Rajasthani cultural programme was to be offerend to the 1000 guests as entertainment. On the side of it there was a big catering tent where glorious high class food was again being prepared -as we seem to encounter more than enough- and we wandered in, looking for a quick bite for our growling tummies. Some young engineering students started talking to us, asking where we were from and when the answer Holland fell, Phillips was an easy name to use, so we pretend something that we weren't. ahem. Food, yes.
We got into the auditorium, quite filled with only Indian people so all heads turned to us. oh oh. M.M. Ali and his group of musicians was indeed sitting on the stage and tuning up. What a promise! He nodded to us with a content look for showing up with camera, our end of the promise. He himself played the harmonium while others played the tabla, dholak and clarinet -an unusual instrument in Rajasthani folk, unless a musician is of the islamic caste-. Although the music was again presented in the same pallet of famous Rajasthani folk songs, the clarinet added a different air. The dancing however was above our expectations! Several female Kabeliya gypsy dancers in shining dresses and bells allover took the stage and owned it. Near the end one female dancer, the best of them all, danced with 4 burning pots on her head. And while stepping in glass. Awe. Amazing performance and at the end we thanked Mustli sincerely as he thanked us. He took us under his red-haired wings and guided us into the catering tent where we had an abundance of fine food to pick from. We ate together with the musicians and the Kabeliya dancers as if we belonged to their posse and then M.M. Ali waved us goodbye. We were fullfilled in many ways.

Oh yeah, at these catering places the Indians always eat while standing. It never seems obvious to them to have chairs. So there aren't any.

Ok bye to Udaipur and we would take a morning bus to Jodhpur.
Ps, hello to Cassienne (who we again met, at the same hotel by chance) and to Josh from the Windy city, have great travels both! :)

pics of inside Chittor fort, temples and Indian tourists...

far away view

body afloat!

inside Chittor






the Jain temples inside





Maarten took some nice portrait shots of Indian tourists.

Chittor suicides and floating bodies

continuing the Rajasthani trail southwards.......

In the early morning of day 3 in Kota, we took the train to Chittaurgarh (or otherwise known as Chittor). We had a real nice ride as the sun was shining and we rolled into different landscapes. Dry riverbanks, cutting ravines, small flows, green rice fields and yellow lands. As with every Indian train, the doors could be opened at will and some people sat down there to enjoy the view and fresh air better instead of looking through the bars of the window seats. We did the same, squatting down and looking out past all the horizons and take in new views. We did come through Bundi again, as well as the waterfall, so that was not new. If only we had known the route....

Chittor has the largest fort of Rajasthan (perhaps of Asia?) with its 28 square kilometer size on a mountain plateau with walls going all way around. Founded around 800 AD, the medieval history of the place and its Rajput inhabitants is quite grim. In the space 200 years the fort was 3 times surrounded and won over by greater armies. First the Pathans (the old Afghan rulers), then the Shah sultan of Gujarat and lastly the mughal emperor Akbar. It's believed that at least 50.000 Rajputs got killed in the combined attacks, if not more. Not just by the invaders, but more so by suicide which is called 'jauhir'. This Rajput style of suicide involved the last thousands of men riding out to an impossible battle and fight till death, while thousands of women and children would throw themselves alive into a huge funeral fire, not to fall into the hands of the enemy. How's that for hardcore sacrificial dedication.

We rented bicycles and it felt great to drive around, peddling our lazy asses for the first time since we had left Holland. Also we were freed from taking taxi rickshaw's, so that we now could explore a town quicker and with more fun added to it. The bikes were heavy though, made of iron and old fashioned parts. In a hilly town, where the fort lies 2 km's up a steep climb, it surely makes you work to get moving. On the first day we only reached the 3rd of the 7 gates while everyone passed us with vehicles that left nice thick fumes. If you're gasping for air, clinging to the steer of a heavy bike, you don't really want to inhale polluted air. Yuck. It literally made us nauseous. 2 Indian teenager girls on foot gave us a strange look, these tourists trying to go up by heavy bike. Perhaps it had impressed them as when they caught up while we were catching our breath, they openly started flirting with us in a way that the normally prudent Indian girls don't do. We got there a bit too late as it was past 17ish and the fort would close soon, so we had to come back. When we were cycling the next day, we passed the bridge over a dammed lake and saw a body floating. At first we thought it was a puppet, cos it looked like one. Puppets though, are not wrapped in shrouds or have fish around them, eating little bits of it/him/her. Just a minute after that we saw a funeral crowd with several men carrying a straw bed with laying on it an elderly man. Such is life, or the end of it.

We started climbing the steep road again up to the fort and this time I managed to get to the 5th gate out of 7. Again with the same result of nausea by fumes and trembling muscles. Maarten was more wise to step off before me. Once inside the fort, we cycled around, getting jeers from many Indian tourists who laughed at the cycling foreigners. We saw some palaces and many temples inside out, but not even all as the compound was 28 square km's and we didn't have enough time for it as we had to catch a train to Udaipur in the early afternoon. At a nice carved tower and surrounding temple gardens, local people were selling fried corn that could be fed to cheeky monkeys that were waiting for you to give it. The Indians were doing it, so why not and so I fed some monkey and made them grasp it from my palm. I even shaked a monkeys hand to tease him, but not for long as it got angry at me and instead stole a whole packet. haha monkey 1, seb 0.
Chittor was a nice place to stroll around, a bit like Bundi but more impressive with the impressive fort. Those who love forts and bloodshed history should never miss it.

In the evening we took the train to Udaipur -the lake and palace city-. In the dark, a train ride quickly becomes boring as the diverse landscapes flash by and are unseen and hidden away by black skies except for some moonshine and clear stars. At a certain station the train stopped for a while and I went out to get us some chai. As soon as I had purchased 2 steaming hot cups, while the heat was burning my fingers through the thin plastic, the train whistled that it would leave and no sooner than that it started to roll. 200 meters away from my compartment, I started running towards the moving train while chai poured over my hands like livid lava. *ah forget it*, so I threw the chai down on the platform and other folks were running with me with their smarter and colder wares. I followed Maarten's shouts in the near distance and managed to jump into the open doorway of the train easily enough. Pure boyish excitement at 30 kmph!
Upon arrival in Udaipur station, everyone was crossing the platforms by jumping on the tracks en masse. Who cares to follow annyoing staircases anyway, with luggage to pull up with you? A big group of 20-something gyspy women and children were pulling themselves up to the platform with overloaded bags, cloths and whatnot. I helped pulling a little kid up and when he saw it was a white gora that was elevating him, he got kinda scared. The mother other females were laughing their heads off, baring their golden teeth in grins of unbelief and cheekiness. Ofcourse they took the chance to ask me for money, cookies and so on. It never hurts to ask, is the every day motto here that you encounter. At least it's earnest.

Video's and sounds shall be uploaded soon enough. -Right now we're in Jodhpur and we might be quite busy recording sessions the next few days-
A more detailed account on our 5 days in Udaipur will follow, as this time we DID manage to record some genuine folk sounds and dance scenes! :)

Ok, some photo's of Kota and train to Chittor

Kota life.....









Indians just love photoshop. In Kota, the electricity plant chimneys of the are somewhat of an attraction.

breakfast in Kota, newpaper style

from the train to Chittor

Kota zarur

Nearly a week later. Our state of wandering is going on, moving from place to place (see the newly added map).

On our last day in Bundi we rented a geared motorbike and went around the lake area, which revealed great views on hills and exotic vegetation. We went past a palace where Rudyard Kipling had written part of his 'Kim' book. Not that the lakeside palace was so special, but the lake filled with lotus flowers was. On the way out of town a crowd was passing the road and had to slow down. Only then we saw that the men were carrying a small body wrapped in a blanket. A childlike arm stuck out of it, lifeless and pale. That piece of fray skin revealed more than anything else on that moment, while people silently followed the line.
We drove through various small towns, with kids running out and waving to us and some local people looking flabbergasted at you. We stopped for chai and some fried sweet things and straight away we were surrounded by local boys and guys who were asking our names, our country, profession, age and so on, all with kind and sincere intentions of knowing who you are. The usual, if you ever get used to that (depending of the situation). We were sitting there at ease, enjoying the chatter and activity. I caught the sight of Lohar gypsies on the side of the road (Lohars are a poor caste who are semi-nomadic metalworkers), where the female was slammering down a heavy hammer on a metal piece while her husband held it straight. The kids were half-naked playing around this scene, as one will see with many gypsy families. They posed for us -see photo's below- and as they asked for money we gave them some notes and change. In another small muddy town we had some warm food and sweet coconut ginger mash, which costed us 15 rupees together (just 30 eurocent). Prices are always swinging back and forth, from city to town to village.

Oh yeah, in the early evening we record a session with a local wedding band, especially for the fact that they had a violin player who also was the leader of the band. Mumad kept the band tradition of his family alive that his grandfather started in the 1940's. Islamic by its roots, the band therefore since adapted the use of other instruments such as the violin, which you otherwise don't encounter much. Rajasthani folk and wedding songs while the violin adds a different dimension to it. However he didn't play the violin acoustically, but electrical. Hooked through tangled wires onto a car battery and connected onto a rattling PA system. The levels were way over their limit on the highs and mids, since they just loved to set the echo full on. The recordings sound exactly as ear blistering as we experienced it live, so at least we can share that experience with you all. Whenever we edit them and put em here in a while. In the end, more and more people kept joining in to play. First it was just violin and tabla, then another drum, then some clanging shrutis, then a singer came along with a full echoed voice and soon the keyboard was dusted off to complete the sound overload. What should have been *just a few songs on violin* became a spontaneous session for more than an hour. The guys were all eager to put on their best showcase and giving us more than we bargained for. We had problems getting away from them, rather because they wanted to listen the recordings over and over, see the photo's over and over -even when badly taken- and so on.
We did escape as we had our bus to catch.

After this relaxing small town atmosphere of Bundi we went down to Kota., a big city where no tourists go. Simply because there isn't much to do that would interest the average tourist. Off we went in one of those squared loudly humming buses that you see/hear driving everywhere, filled with Indians and hardly any tourists. The driver and his ticket controlling buddy had taken a fancy to us and we could sit upfront with them (every bus has a vertical positioned 3-seater, facing the driver on the side). Sitting upfront is a good thing, as we heard from other tourists who regularly avoided the luxury tourist buses. Not really for the view -actually, seeing too much of an Indian driver might not be good for your nerves-, but more for the relative comfort that you find in not feeling the bumps anymore on the hard wooden seats elsewhere in the bus. Trust us, if you have to travel for a few hours, you'll be happy to step out unshaken.
For that, you do have to witness all the maneuvers that your designated driver makes or see what's coming at you in a similar fashion. I made a game out of it.

For the sake of fun, let's call it 'Ghostrider', the rules being these: to award points for the driver for every risk succesfully takes in overtaking someone while the nearing verhicle (be it truck, bus, motorbike) has to slow down or back off and therefore bows down to his road rage. Score! But the drivers in the other lane (ie. the opponents) can also score back by intimidating him in the same way and having their risk pay off for them as a team. So, is your driver right up his skill or does he constantly get the bad karma lid on the nose? If you have the willpower for this waste of time, I reckon it can be an interesting match. Especially during a looooong drive over bad roads in the dark. Do get the front seat at least, to become a bemused spectator in this wacky race of life. How's that for anticipating an otherwise ramshackle bus ride?

Kota, unfamiliar and unhyped, our trip being justified because we somewhat had daydreamed to get some recordings of Kanjar city gypsies. A plan made out of notions from a book and nothing else to back it up with. We asked around but in the 2 days we were there, we had no luck in finding the dancing Kanjar. Nor did anyone know about them, or wanted to. We could have asked gypsies and at roadside tentcamps, but it didn't happen. Except for some tapes/vcd's of local Hadoti electrified folk music and some filming Maarten did, we didn't do much. We did feel that the people of Kota were not used of seeing whites, especially the kids. We got stared at all the time, more from a silent distance than in the jeery way that we otherwise encounter in any big city or tourist hub. That felt strange, but nice too as we had less hassle. At some point after we had walked along the dammed river and over an open sewer cascade, we came into a local area where kids where playing some rough form of street cricket. When they saw us, they were allover us and looked at awe at these bizarre white folks. They probably had never seen a white person in the flesh and some were afraid of us, hitting us playfully with cricket bats. haha. The cluster of 20 kids followed us for quite some time, causing a little parade on our heels with other adults joining in while we walked through the islamic area. Bizarre fun, not a feeling of hostility in the air, just plain curiousity.
In Kota our room had a tv for the first time since Ajmer. It's awfull that when we don't miss such a thing at all during our travel, we watched it like dummies because we could. So we saw reruns of Seinfeld and some crazy Japanese game show. It could be worse. Like reruns of Friends that it showed -shudder-.

Perhaps we lost time in Kota for nothing, but we could relax a bit and feel as if we were in a real Indian city that did not fuel itself with tourism. That way we got no bother at all from touts, commission sharks or other folks that just wanted your money, but we were among normal people like as in a small town. A busy small town with too much traffic and pollution that is.

Below pics of Bundi and some last Pushkar pics.



Bhopal looking sharp


Walk with Rampal and Sita to their tent and their family.







Bundi views














Waterfall scenes





the little villages and lands around Bundi







the Lohar gypsy family, some portraits





the Paras New Band, tuning up the violin.