off to the country

We head off to see what we’re told is the “second largest fort” and the "second most important Jain temple" in India, but our drive through the countryside to get to each is anything but “second best.”  

                      

According to the recent census, 70% of Indians—or about 74 million people--live in the villages, and many of the conveniences enjoyed by modern city dwellers have yet to make it to rural areas—chief among these: plumbing.  Without this infrastructure, water is more a communal than personal experience.  

Each day, women, often with young children in tow and carrying a baby in a sling, converge at the village pump to chat and wait their turn to fill a large earthenware or stainless pot.  Done, they hoist the urns to their heads and balance them, hands free, for the walk home.  A lot is carried on the head over here, by both men and women, and not just in the villages.

In some of the villages, we’re told the use of the communal pump is allocated by caste, with higher castes having better pumping times.  

Even in the larger towns, water is precious and often runs only intermittently.  We are in Jaisalmer on a rare "water morning," and the narrow streets are covered with a web of hoses, as each family hooks up a pump to fill their large rooftop tank. 


Back in the village, farmers use bullocks to draw up water from wells and into an intricate set of canals to irrigate their fields. 

Tractors are rare, so most fields are plowed by hand by the husband with the wife following behind to sow the seeds.

The landscape changes drastically with the slightest shift in the water table—at one bend, a rocky, arid desert; around the next, a cultivated field of seemingly rich, fertile soil.  



Even in the harshest conditions, the saris sure beat Oshkosh b’Gosh overalls as a fashion statement.

Once we arrive at Kumbhalgarh Fort, it’s hard to believe it only got second. It was captured just once, by Akbar the Great, when he poisoned the water, but it was retaken two days later.  Maybe Akbar should have thought through the challenge of holding onto a fort on the top of a mountain with no water supply?    














This place is enormous; the surrounding walls measure 35km, and we pass on the opportunity to spend the two days our guidebook suggests it will take to circumnavigate. 







                                                      On to the runner-up Jain temples!

Every surface of these three, multi-storied temples is intricately carved with figures, flora, fauna and geometric designs.  We slip off our shoes, enter the great hall, stand agog for a few moments, before we are met by a stream of holy men who offer to take us on tour, be our personal guide, show us secrets.  We politely demur and believe we've eluded the phalanx, when around the next column, a tall priest in saffron robes greets us with a deep bow, and in the finest King's English, he informs us that he is the master priest of the temple and that we should, under no circumstance, give money to any other robed man.  He then asks if he may bless us and breaks into a chant that rises and falls for a full 5 minutes.  By the time he is done, a small crowd has gathered to watch him tie ribbons around our wrists and decorate our foreheads with small smudges of red powder, a blessing bindi.  Having been warned at previous Jain temples we have visited, "Do NOT pay the holy men!" we thank him for his efforts, mumble something about seeing him on the way out, and sneak off as he's being photographed with the next set of tourists.  We spend the next hour wandering the maze of columns, courtyards, and arcades in awe at the workmanship.


Nearly a week has passed without disaster befalling us, which we're taking as a sign that stiffing a holy man may not be as inauspicious as we feared.   And while both Kumbhalgarh Fort and Jain temples may be second in India, they're first in our book!