Clever concubine

In 860 when Jaisalmer fort was begun to built, they also built a water reservoir, Garisar lake. In 1340, it was reconstructed, but its builder, Garisar, was murdered shortly after the reconstruction at the lake side, where he loved to stay. Chhatris in the middle of the lake seem to be floating on the surface.

The lake was used by local women for washing and they carried water in pots into town to drink. In 1909, Teelon, a beautiful local prostitute, who had a smile "as if honey was falling from her lips" started to built a beautiful gate. However, soon complained with the Maharwal that it would be a bad omen that all the people who went to the lake had to pass through a gate built by a prostitute.

The Maharawal ordered the gate to be demolished. However, with the help of her admirers, Teelon quickly had a temple for Lord Vishnu built at the top of the gate. Nobody would dare to tear down a temple of a God. So Teelon's gate was saved. 

Jaisalmer havelis

An haveli is a town house, usually of a rich merchant. Sometimes different parts of a family add another house to a already existing Haveli-complex. The Patwa Havelis, for example, are five houses built by different brothers between 1800 and 1860.

The Patwa's were merchants. They traded opium, gold, silver, perfumes, spices and dyes with Afganisthan, China, Calcutta and Madras. They also owned elephants, camels, horses, and soldiers to protect their commodities.

At that time, Jaisalmer was located conveniently on the trading route from east to west. With partition into India and Pakistan, the city lost its western connections and its commercial importance.

This Haveli was built by Salam Singh. Between 1841 and 1881 he enlarged the haveli of his father. Both he and his father were prime ministers of the Maharawal. Salam Singh's intention was to raise the tower to the height of the fort and built a bridge so that he could enter the palace without passing the gate. At that time it had 9 stories, 2 had to be removed after his death because the Maharawal did not want to have a building of a comparable height of his own palace. 

Salam Singh married 7 beautiful women and had 2 more concubines. However, he also had numerous people killed and whole villages vacated, robbed numerous people and accumulated a lot of wealth. Some say out of revenge of the murder of his father by the son of the Maharawal.

There are more town houses which look like haveli's. Not all of them are in such a good shape. This gentleman invited me to a tour of his house. Part of it had already collapsed.

Of course he liked to collect some money for the restoration of this house. For example by selling these old, dust covered bottles

The rest of the house looked similar. The bricks or better stone blocks of the houses are not joined by mortar, but they have tongues and grooves, and are held together by iron clips. To renovate a house, it would be easy to number the stones, take the whole thing apart and built it up again. The ornaments are screwed in and can be removed easily or replaced by others like lanterns. The stone-masons who made this must have been real artists...

 

All the renovation works are done by hand. You can hear the stone carvers chiselling in the streets and their work is well appreciated

Jaisalmer fort Jain temples

In the center of the Jaisalmer fort, there are 8 Jain temples. The oldest temple dates back to 1473. The Jain religion originated together with Buddhism in the 6. century before Christ by Mahavira, but has more similarities to Hinduism.

One of the main principles of Jainisms is the absolute non-violence.  There are Jains who swep the floor before their feet to not step on any insects while walking, or wear a mouth cap to not swallow insects by accident. For this reason agricultural or military business is not allowed for Jains. A lot of them are academics or merchants and belong to the wealthiest part of the indian population   

The temple pillars, worshiping place, ceilings and walls are full of carved statues. Besides the main statues are about 8000 tirthankers (religous heads). They are not only simple art, they also have meanings which are very deep. The smallest statue is only the size of a rice corn

 

 The statues convey a message about happiness, love, sex, prosperity, motherland, solace and dedication, but also aspects of daily life

There are also a lot of statues of nude women. The simple logic behind it is that religious wealth, sex and salvation are all part of the human life. Absence of sex will make a person feel restless and incomplete.

 

The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different (Gandhi)

The fort of Jaisalmer

Jaisalmer is a real desert town. From far away, the fort can be seen hovering above the desert. The fort was found in 1155 by king Jaisal.

In contrast to the other Radjastan forts, the one of Jaisalmer is actually inhabited. There are a big number of guesthouses and stores. However, in ancient times, water in this dry area was very well conserved and reused up to five times. Nowadays, much more water is used and runs away through an insufficient sewage system.

The high amount of water running away causes the foundations of the castle to collapse like a sand castle on the beach on a rainy day. Two of the bastions have already collapsed. Lonely planet even recommends to not stay in the fort until the sewage system is repaired.

Inside the castle is the palace of the maharadja of Jaisalmer. He does not live there any more, but in another palace in town, which is also a luxury hotel. However, he owns the whole fort and apparently he wants to get the inhabitants out of the fort area to use and exploit it for touristic purposes all by himself

The palace museum also contains a gallery of portraits of all the Maharadjas. Here two who reigned from 1557-1630 and 1650-1659.

Old Delhi railway station and the Jaisalmer express

Indian railways transports 14.000.000 passengers a day in 14.000 trains. There are 6856 stations, 4 gauges, and they are the world's biggest employer. You can rent a coach and get yourself ferried around the country and parked on side tracks for sightseeing overnight stays. You can easily buy tickets on-line... if you find out how to pay (AXIS PG works for european credit cards, the others don't).

So I got an e-ticket for the train from Old Delhi to Jaisalmer, a journey of roughly 18 hours, in class 2A. In front of the occupation lists I befriended Bruno from Belgium, who was on the same coach.

Class 2A is a sleeper with 2 beds above each other, in compartments (without door) of 4, and 2 other beds parallel to the track. The list of occupants during the journey is also posted to the side of the coach

Tea is served regularly, you can chain your luggage to the bed if you do not trust your companions (even Indians do it and the locks are of course sold in the station) and at a certain point somebody takes orders for dinner, which is edible.

If you have complaints, these are the places. I do not know whether they ever read it.

You can drink water in the station, but it is probably saver to pay some rupies to have a tea...   

I slept surprisingly well .... since the compartments do not have doors, there is no rattle like on the german couchette cars

There are always tea and food sellers on the stops on the way... and you are frequently invited for a tea by your travelling companions

A lot of the old stories are not true any more. There are no people on the roofs, it is not possible to enter the car by the windows, and the stations are islands of tidiness. And do not believe these ticket shops in the towns, who always want to sell you a bus ticket or a car hire. There are always train tickets available.... even on the last day, because there are special quotas, also for tourists, which are rarely ever used. And, in an case of emergency, there are also a lot of slower local trains, which are never in any guide books, but which are sometimes not much slower than the express trains and you do not need any reservation. And.... they are incredibly cheap

The exceptional holy cow on the platform is not accepted as traveller....

A home away from home

Delhi and most other big and even small Indian cities tend to be chaotic and therefore it is nice to have a save heaven to retire to. This is the place in Delhi. A fantastic room on a roof top terrace, tea kept hot in a cover when you come home tired and a hot water bottle in your bed, because winter nights are cold. And dinner almost succeeded to convert me to a vegetarian.

The great railway bazar

 

If you want to travel around India by train, there is one book to read: Pauls Theroux's "The great railway Bazar". The book was first published in 1975, so a lot of the curiosities described in there are long gone. However, you can still imagine very well how travelling by rail in India was back then if you visit this museum

This railcar is very much like the one described by Theroux in the passage about "The Kalka mail for Simla". "This was a white squarish machine, with the face of a model-T Ford and the body of an old bus.... it had the look of a battered limousine... But considering that it was built in 1925 (as the driver assured me), it was in a wonderful shape". 

The luxury of the sleeping cars described by Theroux is also gone... except of the special and incredibly expensive luxury trains like the "Palace on wheels" After most of the tracks changed to broad gauge, the meter gage coaches ended up on a forlorn side track of the museum  

These two engines show the different between the meter gage and the broad gage tracks. Most of the main lines are converted by now, but it is still possible to use a sleeper on the meter gage.... as we will see later.

Even more luxury provided the special cars for celebrities like the Maharadjas and the British Viceroi. Here the car of the Maharadja of Baroda, which was already fitted with axles to change to different gage lines.

Accidents happen frequently and this little narrow gauge car was used for accident relief on the Simla line used by Theroux. The letters are in English on one and in Hindi on the other side. Big accident relief cars are to be found ready on many of the big stations in India. There are several hunderd deads in accidents every year.... but compared to the about 80.000 on the roads this seems to be marginal.

It was a cold Sunday, when I was visiting, therefore the museum was almost empty and the spectacular monorail steam engine was not working. Employees were lighting little fires to keep warm.... since the boilers stayed cold for a long time....

The "Satjagrahi"

Needless to say that Mahatma Gandhi is the most prominent and venerated personality of modern Indian history

The last 144 days of his life, Gandhi spent in Delhi in this building called Gandhi simitri, which is now not only an excellent museum to document Gandhi's life, but also has an interactive exhibit, which is designed to teach the principles of Gandhi's theories to the visitors

One of the principles was simplicity. This bare room was Gandhi's working and sleeping quarter. Even when visiting cold London in 1930, the already old Gandhi was only wearing his sandals and dhoti, the simple white dress. His politics was based on non-violence and the main measures were hunger strikes, protest marches and non-cooperation   

In the afternoon of 30th of january 1948 Gandhi left the house for his usual meditation in the garden. He was shot by an Hindu activist, who thought Gandhi was weakening India by payments to Pakistan. One of the most non-violent politicians ever ended his life by violence. His last footsteps were cast in stone.

This frame shows Gandhi's only possessions. As usual for Hindus, Gandhi was cremated and in the best tradition of Radjastan maharadhas, a cenotaph was erected at his cremation place.   

Closeby, smaller memorials were built for Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. Except of Nehru, all of them died by force.

Gandhi also found three Ashrams, places to teach his political principals. One is at his former living quarters in Ahmadabad. Apparently Gandhi's heritage does not bear heavily on the citizens of this town of 5-6 million, because it is the place of frequent racial and religious riots which killed thousands of people since Indias independance

One of  the more simplistic teachings of Gandhi were that everybody should learn how to and spend some time a day spinning. Here his spinning wheel at his home in Ahmadabad

If you are a fan of quotes, look at
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mahatma_Gandhi/
"Satjagrahi" means "seeker of truth", which was Gandhi's mantra