More Desert

Even in the desert there are always people walking, working, squatting, bent at the waist farming. A shepherd with a flock of sheep, a woman in red sari and gold jewels walking an endless dirt path, a couple of children playing high in the dead trees, cows sniffing though fields of nothing but sand, rock and plastic garbage (the only kind of garbage here- every last bit is used). It's a strange, eerie landscape this desert. Walls of brush or mud are built everywhere offering evidence that these plots are famland, now dry and sandy, but probably green in the monsoon. Even now, in mid-January, it's pretty hot.

Village Safari

On the road and on the train we pass fields of mustard, bright lemon yellow flowers alternating with fields of short green wheat or cumin. Where there is underground water these are the crops of Rajastan desert. Where there is no water, millet, sesame and lentils are grown. We visited a farming family and a woman showed us how she grinds the millet and makes chapati. The chapati gets a greenish tone and tastes like dense, grainy bread. She also made us chai tea. She is a widow and her mother has also died so, as the Indian traditions say, she went to live with her father to take care of the house, cooking and cleaning. She also works in the field. Her fater has one eye and is addicted to opium. He made us opium tea by crushing a bit of opium with water in a carved wooden bowl, then pouring the liquid through a spout into a sheepswool strainer. He blessed it several times then poured it into our right palm which we drank from.

Their home is a traditional mud house which consists of several cells or detatched rooms. The floor is hardened cow dung and just one small part of the floor was poured concrete for cooking inside. The mud walls, at least 1 foot thick come up about waist high then a thatch roof sits on top, supported by one large trunk and tied with twine. A courtyard, swept clean and partially shaded holds together several indoor spaces.

These people are from a tribe that doesn't believe in cutting down trees. The story goes: A woman worker was instructed to cut down a tree and she explained that her guru would not permit it because it is against her tribe's beliefs. She embraced the tree and said if you cut down this tree , you must kill me first. So they chopped her head off and then down the tree. The maharaja had ordered hundreds of trees cut down for building furniture in his palace, but others followed the first woman and embraced the trees to prevent their felling. 363 women lost their lives in this incident, now known as the Chipko movement. We traveled to a modest white temple and walked a path through a sparse forest of Khejeri trees, peacocks, antelopes and cows. On the trees were hung signs with string that read in Hindi, "where there is forest, there is peace" and "where there are trees, there is no pollution". To the left of the temple are where the 363 women are buried, against Hindi trational cremation since they won't burn the trees. A humbling experience to say the least.

On the Road: Rajastan

Early morning bus ride through Rajastan from Udaipur to Jodhpur. The landscape changes from green to brown, and farm to desert. But even in the rocky desert where everything seems dead, people work patches of bright green in the valleys where they can channel a bit of water for irrigation. It's a hard life living in such an inhospitable environment.

Adalaj Wav Stepwell: Amdavad

This stepwell just outside Amdavad was built in 1499 and is beautifully, ornately carved. We entered from the side and walked down one flight of steps and was impressed. Then we turned 90 degrees and realized that it kept going and going down into the ground another 4 stories. An old Indian man volunteered himself to show us around (for a fee of course) and we climbed all over the stepwell on narrow balconies and tight spiral stairs which I almost slid down. The temperature inside was much cooler and our guide told us that during the monsoon the water level goes up to just one story underground.

Street Life: Amdavad