From the Pink City, to the Blue City to the Golden City - Situated on the eastern outpost, a few hundred kilometers from Pakistan, Jaisalmer is a sleepy little town on the edge of the Thar Desert. The town clutters in and around the fortress made famous as “Shonar Kella” by Satyajit Ray.
It was the first time I was having spiced coffee in India. The experiment with cinnamon coffee in Budapest had been a disaster, but the cardamom in Jaisalmer was refreshing. Loitering around in the streets, I realized that every other shop was selling a camel safari in the desert. It was by chance that we discovered we were in Gopa Chowk, the entrance to the fort. A man with shining eyes and a great moustache smiled at us from inside the office of Sahara Travels. It was a meeting I would not forget. Mr. Bissa was very down to earth, and was so confident of what he was offering that without hesitation, we ended up booking a camel safari worth 1000 rupees each. Later he confided in us – with all modesty - that he was indeed Mr. Desert, the face made world-famous through various advertisements about Rajasthan, and in that famous Coca Cola ad with Hrithik Roshan.
The fort at Jaisalmer was much different to the others seen so far:
1. It still houses residences inside the walls
2. There’s too much of tourism. There are more Italian restaurants and German bakeries here, than can ever be found in Baden Baden. Everyone speaks a multitude of languages – none of them Indian. It was a surprise to hear women dressed in traditional Rajasthani costumes and selling jewels on the street talk in immaculate English!
The sleepy town had just turned cosmopolitan
Our safari started at 3:00 PM. Our destination was Keswa Basti, a quiet and serene location, a long way away from the bustle of the ultra-modern Sam Dunes. To reach there, we had to travel by jeep for about 40-odd kilometers, followed by a two hour camel ride. We also stopped by at Kuldhara, an abandoned village, made famous in that "Rangeela" song in which Jackie Shroff chases a bare-naked Urmila. There was nothing much there except a few broken down ruins. Not even Urmila.
Little Daniel and Dilawar Khan (for the sake of foreigners, he states his name as ‘Abdullah’), were our expert camel drivers, to keep them under check if they decided to head off on their own. At first it was a bit awkward to sit on the beasts, but soon, I got used to it. The beasts seemed to be disinterested with the whole affair and kept going as if they had some inbuilt GPS. By evening we reached the dunes. As Mr. Desert had promised, there was no crowd oohing and aahing around the place. It was just the two us, two German students Arne and David, with Lilu – Mr. Desert’s deputy, his aide to assist us through the night and the occasional camel. There were no tents or mud huts out there. We were to sleep on the open dunes under the watchful eyes of the stars overhead.
To our pleasant surprise, the students turned out to be from Mannheim. As the sun set on the dunes, we sat and discussed on a variety of topics ranging from music to the financial crisis, from soccer to Indian culture. A sumptuous dinner of rotis and rice was served around the campfire. It was as if we were back in the time when camel riders camped in the desert for the night.
It looked like a bright firecracker, except that there was nobody around to light a firecracker in the middle of the desert. It was the brightest and the most splendid shooting star I had ever seen – even better than the one shown in “Kuchh Kuchh Hota Hai”. As we lay down to sleep, the stars glimmered above. Never in Bangalore would I behold such a sight!
Pic(k) of the Day:
Footsteps in sand...
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