Photo essay – Doors, gates, and the occasional aged grill

The world is full of doors and India is no exception. They come in all colours, tones and textures, but it is those that are weathered and worn that frequently are the most attracting. Every broken panel and rusting bolt and hinge projects its own declaration of beauty, and each one cries aloud its historical narrative. Many do it in colours that age does not damage, rather being enhanced by it; achieving what the Japanese would recognize as ‘restrained elegance’. There may even be a word in Sanskrit that precisely defines the condition.

You cannot walk through the streets of India without colliding headlong with their diversity. Many, admittedly not all, but many, are painted blue. There is significance to this, for universally the colour ‘blue’ bespeaks welcome, restive warmth, and love. It is a colour that is also understood to keep away evil spirits.

This is my selection. The subjects were photographed in Kolkata, Maheshwar, Raghurajpur, Ujjain, New Delhi, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, the Kumbhalgarh Fortress, and Varanasi. By and large, I encountered them in back streets and narrow alleyways. Yet for all their varied splendour few hint at what lies behind, or give insight into who passed in or out their portals. In this sense they call to you, beckoning.

Post 66 – Day 38 ‘Thunderbirds Are Go!’

For breakfast I am joined by a bus load of French tourists and though they are a particularly talkative lot their conversations are invariably constrained to themselves. Unfortunately I had managed to forget most of my school boy French and my attempts at sounding cordial, by the use of a hearty ‘G’day’, ‘Good Morning’, or even my by now refined ‘Namaste’, fell on vacant ears. The best I got in return were blank stares. My erudite delivery had gained me nothing. Perhaps they were all still smarting over the succession of historical defeats at the hands of the British, and Mr Clive in particular, not least of all those lost battles that saw them finally dispossessed of their footholds in India.

For a second or two I gave thought as to whether the French would have handled the granting of Indian Independence any better, and what impact the influence of French cuisine would have had on the price of a decent roadside thali. I tinkered with thoughts of imparting to a lady of generous proportions at the table next to me, that she and I could claim a kind of common ancestry, as in “I came from a part of Australia that translated from the French as ‘New Gauls of the South’”, and some of my post-Roman Britain Celtic ancestors once had relatives in the French province of Brittany. I could have then impressed her with the fact that thanks solely to Jean Francois de Galaup, Comte de La Perouse’s sluggishness in reaching the east coast of Australia in 1788, Australia lost its opportunity to become ‘Terre Napoleon’ and a land of francophones. New South Wales might have ended up being the Quebec of the Southern Hemisphere. Then I could have impressed her with my knowledge of French explorations of discovery in the southern oceans, in particular those of Nicholas Baudin and Joseph Antoine Bruni D’Entrecasteaux. I had not planned to mention French nuclear tests in the Pacific or the sabotage by French Government agents of the Greenpeace anti-whaling ship ‘Rainbow Warrior’, and the death of a crewman, whilst the vessel was peacefully docked in a New Zealand harbour. And I thought it inadvisable to complain about the inflated cost of tourist accommodation in French occupied Polynesian New Caledonia. But at the worst of moments I coughed, this sending a lumpy cloud of curd mist in her direction. So that ended that, the woman not at all amused, though still managing to remain uncommunicative, and at the sound of my repeated coughing, finding speedy excuse to relocate to a distant location; her friends in fast and disgruntled pursuit. My poor and discourteous reception has turned me off buying croissants ever since.

Bidding a farewell to my desert palace I collected my gear, found solitude amongst the firmly stacked luggage at the rear of the car, and started the first leg of my return journey to Jodhpur. But first I deviated to the Jaisalmer fort for one last time. I had decided I would chance starvation until saved by airline food. In through the First Gate I sauntered, found myself accosted by a gypsy girl who I totally disarmed and confused by asking her if she was married, next successfully interacted without diminishment of my wallet’s contents with three wise sadhus sitting at the entrance to the Second Gate, survived the onslaught of a mixed herd of autobicycles as they propelled themselves through to the Dusshera Chowk, and arrived at the door to the jewellery shop. It was locked.

Fortunately the story of the padlocked jewellery shop had a happy ending, of sorts, but now is not the place to recite it. Some stories are best left to an oral re-enactment, not the bland words of the printed page where no matter how clever the crafting the reader is cursed to be the slave of her or his translation of the event.

In returning past the three wise sadhus the idea did occur to me that I could have taken up a position close by. A distance removed of two or three metres perhaps might not cause obvious offence. I just might have convincingly played the part of the understudy should one of the sadhus need a break. But I had no woad with which I could have adorned my face in cultural empathy, my sombre hat did not match the splendour of their orange turbans, and besides, my time here, was up.

My last memories of Jaisalmer were those of fond regret, and that of two enormous quilted bed sheets on sale at the stall of a street vendor in the fort’s car park. One was all of reds, yellows, browns and gold, and sported the words “Bed Sheet Size, One Wife Ok!” The second was of blue, red, grey and gold, and proclaimed confidently “No Need for Viagra! Magic Bed Sheet.” I was curious as to the size of the data set that had gone into the establishment of the latter’s claim. A sample of inadequate size would be prone to a biased statistical interpretation of the results. Hopefully the experimental trials used lots of people.

The drive to Jodhpur is uneventful. I see no Great Indian Bustards though I do pass six of India’s national birds happily rummaging through a pile of waste left at the roadside. I take more digital images of a group of goats browsing on thorny shrubs at the base of a tall sand hill than I later know what I can do with, I look longingly for antelopes that everyone else in the car spots except me, though I note a marked increase in the number of military vehicles gathering at roadside firing ranges; an observation that none of my companions take any serious interest in. This, a meal at a highway way stop, and an additional stop in a little town of unknown name to purchase a stainless steel metal pot from a man who cannot understand why I would want it, takes up several hours. But sensing the driver is overly tired, I attempt to practice ‘economy of sound’; this being achieved with mixed results.

We arrive at Jodhpur late in the afternoon.

***

Jodhpur is the ‘Blue City’, this name owing to the vivid and auspicious blue colour with which many of its houses are painted. The city was formerly the seat of a princely state of the same name, and was the capital of the kingdom known as Marwar. Early in its history it was a fief under the Mughal Empire, though enjoying a degree of autonomy in its internal affairs. Like Mewar to the south, Marwar suffered at the hands of the Marathas who quickly supplanted the Mughals as overlords following the decline of the Mughal Empire. Stability was not restored until 1818 when Jodhpur entered into an alliance with the British.

Dominating Jodhpur is the great Mehrangarh fort that sits atop the rocky prominence towering 122 metres above the city. You can’t miss it. The walls are 36 metres high and 21 metres wide. Imprints of cannonballs fired by the attacking armies of Jaipur can be seen on the second of the fort’s gates, but more recently the Mehrangarh fort was the site for the 2011 filming of the last instalment of the Batman movie trilogy, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. The foundation of the fort was laid in 1459 CE on the rocky hill known as Bhaurcheeria, the ‘Mountain of Birds’; and one can only wonder what other plant and animals species of significance once inhabited it for at Hometown similar looking rocky prominences are the refuges of rare plants, reptiles and invertebrates. According to legend, its builder, Rao Jodha (1438-1488), had to displace the hill’s only (human) resident, a hermit called Cheeria Nathji. Forced to move, the hermit cursed Jodha stating the fortress would always suffer a shortage of water. To appease Cheeria Nathji, Rao Jodha had a house built in the fort near the cave where the hermit lived. Nevertheless, droughts continue to occur every three or so years. Mehrangarh translates as ‘Sun deity fort’, the Sun being the chief deity of the ruling Rathore dynasty. Most of the fort that stands today dates from the period of Jaswant Singh (1638-1678). Seven gates give entry. These include the Jayapol, or ‘Victory Gate’, built by Maharaja Man Singh to commemorate victories over Jaipur and Bikaner, and the Fattehpol gate, also meaning ‘victory’ built by Maharaja Ajit Singh to mark the defeat of the Mughals. Immediately to the left of the final gate, the Lohapol, into the main fort complex, are handprints of the ‘ranis’ who, in 1843, immolated themselves on the funeral pyre of their husband Maharaja Man Singh. In the collection of ancient Indian tales known alternatively as the ‘Vetala Panchvimshati’ and the ‘Baital Pachisi’ it is proclaimed that “there is no act so virtuous for a woman to perform as to sacrifice herself on a funeral pyre”. I’d like to think the world has moved on.

Today the Indian Air Force, Indian Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, and the Border Security Force maintain training centres at Jodhpur. Jodhpur airport was constructed mainly as an air force base, and in 1971, in the opening phase of the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 it was the target of two Martin B-57 Canberra bombers of the Pakistan Air Force. The B-57 was a twin-engine tactical bomber built in the United States, and was a licensed version of the English Electric Canberra, a first generation light jet bomber. Through the 1950’s it could fly higher than any other bomber and set a world altitude record of 21,430 metres. The aircraft met a replacement requirement set by the British Air Ministry for the de Havilland Mosquito of late World War II fame. Construction of the prototype Canberra began in 1946 and was named after the capital of Australia in January 1950 by Sir George Nelson, Chairman of English Electric, as Australia was the first export costumer. More than 15 countries flew the Canberra, and more than 1,300 aircraft were ultimately built; 48 by the Australian Government Aircraft Factory for the Royal Australian Air Force. The British Royal Air Force retired their last Canberra in 2006, 57 years after the plane’s first flight.

The English Electric Canberra formed the backbone of the Indian Air Force in the bombing and reconnaissance role for many decades, the aircraft not being fully retired until May 2007. In response to Pakistan’s air assault in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Indian Air Force Canberras flew a strategically important attack against the Karachi oil tanks. Thus Canberra bombers flew in the service of both belligerent air forces, in a conflict to which Australia, by virtue of the shared name of a British designed aircraft, found itself having a most strange association; as obscure as it was.

***

It is sometime around 5 pm. The tour car is parked on the side of one of Jodhpur’s main roads, opposite is the entrance to an official building with a sign identifying it as a customs sub-commissionerate, half a building block behind is parked a dark green coloured police vehicle of some kind, and in my hand a camera is surreptitiously held and whose zoom function I handle with a complete lack of competency. Overhead flies a single Sukhoi Su30MK1 jet fighter, the type distinguished by the canard wings jutting from the fore area of the fuselage. The aircraft makes repeated turns and steep ascents, the pilot appearing to cut off forward thrust and allowing the aircraft to fall silently backwards towards earth. Then he cuts the engines in again. It makes a lot of noise. The Sukhoi repeats a series of banking manoeuvres and engineless, earthwards descends, over and over again. The exhibition lasts minutes more than I remember to keep an accurate record of, and it was all just for me. I cannot begin to guess how much the Indian Government spent on the privilege. I have five photographs to prove it, and if I keep tapping away on the zoom-in function, at the images stored on my computer’s hard drive, I can just make out the canard wings on the otherwise non-descript dark spot off-centred in each photograph.

The Su30MK1 is a bird of prey to be reckoned with. It’s a seriously big beast. Of Russian design but further developed jointly with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and the Indian Air Force, this variant of the basic Su30 ‘Flanker’ is designed for air superiority, ground attack, close air support, and suppression of enemy air defences. Its radar is capable of tracking 15 independent targets simultaneously, has a range with in-flight refuelling of 5,200 kilometres, and at full throttle can cover a distance of 2,450 kilometres in less than an hour. Its ordnance includes the indigenous BrahMos cruise missile. In war games the Su30MK1 out-classed Britain’s front line Eurofighter and France’s Dassault Rafale, and these victories were scored without the Sukhoi turning on its highly classified combat radar.

So far India has ordered over 270 of them.

Post 65 – Day 37 ‘Inside the Jaisalmer Fortress’

The sun has barely risen, yet at the hour of 7am I am keenly assaulting breakfast, the staff having been awake and dressed for hours in its preparation. The timing was at their suggestion. Several are obviously not fully alert, rubbing eyes that remain glassy. Sheepish in response to their obvious fatigue I fix my eyes firmly upon my food. Except for the one at which I sit, all the other tables are empty. I eat toast and butter, omelette, and cereal with curd and sugar. This is followed with diced pineapple, rockmelon and watermelon. Outside, except for isolated clumps of vegetation, the landscape is barren desert. It’s spectacular.

The car navigates the sealed road to Jaisalmer, this time on the left hand side of the road, the right side. But at this hour no other conveyances are awake. The road is all mine, ours. I look vainly in the hope of spying a Great Indian Bustard, Ardeotis nigriceps, a member of the family Otididae. It was proposed as India’s national bird but in the final count lost out in favour of the Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus; one of the reasons flying against the bustard’s choice was its potential susceptibility to an unfortunate range of obvious, though crude, appellations. Personally, I thought the peacock just as easy a target for cheap expressions of crudity. The Great Indian Bustard, as its name alludes, is a large brown, black and white bird, standing over a metre high when fully grown. It’s got a long neck and long legs; hard to miss if the bird is standing up. The species is now critically endangered, and though previously widespread in India and Pakistan, its range is steadily being reduced to isolated pockets. The preferred habitat is arid and semi-arid grassland, and the Thar Desert, and its Desert National Park of over 3,000 km2, is a major refuge for the species. Its diet is mainly one of grasshoppers and related insects, plus some berries, seeds, groundnuts, rodents and lizards when these are in season. Unfortunately diet works two ways, the Moghul Emperor Babur taking a particular fancy to the bustard’s cooked flesh. The British India Army officer, ornithologist, Indologist, politician and one time director of the East India Company, Colonel William Henry Sykes (1790-1872), also considered it a delicacy and a top game-bird, noting the Great Indian Bustard was common in the Deccan, where ‘gentlemen’ had been able to shoot thousands of the birds. I never saw a single one, not even one dead on the side of the road.

***

Some kilometres out from my hotel I pass a massive red brown building that I mistake for a fortress. It’s another hotel. But the Jaisalmer fortress is the more imposing of the two. It is one of the largest fortresses in the world, being initially built in 1156 by the Bhati Rajput ruler Rao Jaisal, from whom its name is derived. The sandstone walls glow honey-gold at sunset, thus the fort’s popular title, the ‘Golden Fort’. The fortress defences consist of three walls and 99 bastions, most of which were constructed between 1633 and1647. In the 13th Century the fortress was captured by Ala-ud-din Khilji, the Rajput women inside its walls committing Jauhar to avoid capture and defilement.

Jaisalmer was a major centre for trade to Persia, Arabia and Africa, however, this role declined with the advent of British rule and the development of the port of Bombay, now Mumbai. Since Partition in 1947, Jaisalmer has assumed significant strategic importance. As part of the pre-emptive 1971 air strikes known as Operation Chengiz Khan, against forward Indian air bases and radar stations, Pakistani aircraft attacked Jaisalmer. These succeeded in damaging underground power cables, resulting in the temporary loss of power supply and disruption to telephone communication. This and other air strikes in western India by the Pakistan Air Force heralded the opening of formal hostilities between the two countries in what had at first been simmering border clashes. Pakistan attempted to use the same tactics as those of the Israeli air force at the commencement of the Six Day War of 1968. Israel neutralised the superior numbers of Arab aircraft by a combination of surprise and consequent achievement of air superiority. But in the case of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, the strategy was foredoomed to failure, the Pakistanis possessing inadequate aircraft and munitions, the retaliatory air strikes by superior numbers of Indian aircraft gaining complete air superiority over Pakistan within two days.

However, the Jaisalmer fortress remains under threat. But these are threats due to seismic activity, water seepage, derelict houses, haphazard building construction that has interrupted the fortress’s drainage system, impacts associated with the growing numbers of tourists, commercial activity, vehicle movements, and the lack of a co-ordinated approach to the conservation and restoration of the fortress by authorities responsible for its upkeep. Unlike many other Indian forts that at Jaisalmer is built on weak sedimentary rock which makes the foundations vulnerable to water seepage. This has already led to the collapse of the ‘Queen’s Palace’, the Rani Ka Mahal, as well as sections of the outer and pitching walls. Some five to six hundred thousand tourists visit the fort each year; cumulatively over time, that’s a big environmental footprint.

Intent on adding in my own little way to this impact I am deposited at the car park that adjoins the fort’s First Gate. I will spend the whole day wandering about at leisure. The driver warns about the risk of thieves, and merchants given habitually or from necessity to easy lies and fabricated stories. Mindful of this, my hand firmly in contact with my wallet, I enter this world of delights. But it is obvious it is a place without secrets, for I am not alone, and there are tourists everywhere. The city is firmly on the tourist map. There is even a wall sign inside the Second Gate that proudly displays that a particular business establishment is under Australian management; ‘8 July Restaurant, Vegemite, run by Australian Resident, Estb. 1983’. Well, there go the bargains. Not to be outdone another sign overhanging the inner wall of the First Gate proudly heralds the ‘Ristorante Italiano Jaisal Italy’, and further on there’s a German bakery! So there you have it. I wander all the way over to India, and find multiculturalism in action here as well. And just to underline Jaisalmer’s sense of the cosmopolitan, there’s a ‘Pepsi’ sign vying for space and attention between an advertisement offering foreign money exchange, and an internet cafe. Unfortunately, on this day, the little metal box claiming to be the headquarters of the Tourist Assistance Force was closed for business. Above all of this loom the salutary and rounded bastions of the fortress, these jutting out at strategic positions, the harsh and indifferent masonry of several softened only by delicate window turrets positioned high on their rim.

The opening courtyard behind the First Gate is faced with stone worn smooth by years of use, the side walls of the inner Second Gate polished almost to a shine by thousands of hands that over the years have been run across their surface. Through this speed tiny black and yellow autobicycles, their horns blaring a warning as they turn the final sharp corner prior to entering the Dusshera Chowk, there to quickly deposit their occupants before hurtling back in search of more clients. The sharply curved entrance through the vault of the Second Gate was a feature first intended to slow and befuddle attackers, now it is an extended dodgem rink where pedestrians anticipate the frenetic passage of taxis. The car park at the entrance to the fort provides a constant harvest, for tour cars and buses are endlessly disgorging day trippers, me not the least, each grasping a camera misbalanced by an oversized lens, each traveller bent ever lower by the packs carried on their backs, the contents heavier by the hour. Between the First and Second Gates are the shops of hopeful businessmen, their wares those of religious imagery, brass figures of assorted gods, bottled water by the pallet load, and brightly embroidered shoulder bags and patchwork wall-hangings blended from the salvaged remnants of tribal costumes.

In the Dusshera Chowk abound sellers of postcards, books and sundry items of clothing. I am for some minutes entertained by the assorted stock on display at the ‘Pappu and Jewellery Shop’. The stall prominently displays the sign ‘Fixed Price’ which I interpret as “we do not bargain, take it or leave it”. Belatedly I consider that the sign gives assurance that the owner won’t increase the price over and above what he had marked it as. However, I am taken by the shop’s flagship sign, more so than the goods on offer, for ‘Pappu’ is a nickname in northern India that roughly translates as a ‘common man’ full of innocence and simplicity. The name is used frequently in popular Indian culture, but I’m not getting the relevance of its application to the shop. I couldn’t bring myself to ask the sales staff in case I caused unintended offence. The best I could offer myself, as to a loose translation, was that it was an outlet owned by someone of local renown whose nature resembled that of the fictional buffoonish television character ‘Mr Bean’; portrayed convincingly by the British actor Rowan Atkinson. My interpretation was admittedly probably way off the mark. The owner could have just as easily been a cranky old man that was fed up with wealthy Westerners wanting to haggle him down by a few rupees, or those who spent hours sifting through his goods and then walked away without transacting a sale.

I find a reclusively positioned jewellery shop in a lane just off the chowk. It is entered by a low and narrow door that gave no hint of the treasures that lay within. The shop sells traditional Indian artefacts and tribal jewellery but the owner informs me such things, beautiful and precious as they are, are not so fashionable now. Indians see them, he says, as remembrances of the dead, out of date, or just plain old fashioned, and prefer, as they always have, jewellery of high quality soft gold of the 24 carat kind. My eyes gaze intently at each piece, my mouth gaping wider than my wallet has ever been capable of. Fortunately my tongue had sense enough to hold its place. I count my remaining money and contemplate a slim diet of lassi’s and street-bought bananas for the remaining three days. Airline food will rescue me from starvation on the fourth. The owner and I talk at some length, his assistants every now and then repositioning pieces already placed before me or emptying some extra morsel of rare crafting from inside one of several Hessian bags bought out for my deliberation. A solid silver tribal ankle bangle, a wedding necklace of delicate chain, a set of enamelled earrings. I was like a kid caught in a lolly shop, yet I will have to sleep on his offer. I might not be able to afford the bananas, and might have to supplement my rations with complimentary biscuits at the hotel. I have some counting to do.

Weighed down by such thoughts I journey on through numerous alleys and laneways, arriving at length before the ‘Little Tibbet Restaurant’, the two ‘b’s’ in the restaurant’s sign suggesting this was no ordinary kitchen of exotic food, that it had substance more than most. They sold vegetable dumplings, ‘momos’, the sign said, and ‘special momos’ at that. They were cheap, but good. I ordered and ate far fewer than I should have, and failed to order what I could have easily consumed. Momos devoured, the thought of possible jewellery purchases still heavy at my heart, I press on. A woman I had encountered earlier offers me her ‘final knock down, can’t go any lower’, price on a shirt I had previously expressed no interest in. I held to my resolve, but thanked her for her continued enthusiasm. I pass an ashen grey cat whose glass green eyes are fixed upon some item of prey that eluded my sight. Then in turn I encounter two sparrows sitting in shelter below an upturned human powered metal ‘trundle’, one of a wheeled pair positioned side by side in anticipation of collecting street refuse later that day, a solitary pigeon resting atop a stone cornice carved in the form of an elephant, a cow quietly drinking from a water trough, the verandah above newly washed sparkling clean, and a sign denoting the location of the ‘Hotel Suraj’ hanging prominently from an awning. House crows abound but I spy no squirrels anywhere. But everywhere that appropriate space allows are spread intricately stitched sheets of antique patchwork cloth, each weathered piece of fabric silently calling, tempting like sirens, in hope of a sale.

Tourists gather at the fortress battlements. I join the throng, and jostle for a vantage point that allows opportunity for photography without the prospect of a fall to my death. Beyond the flat-roofed houses of Jaisalmer is the distant Thar Desert, and Pakistan. There are no high-rise towers to clutter or obscure the vista, but yesterday’s royal cenotaphs are prominent, the farm of wind turbines more so. Like sentinels they dominate the horizon, up close they do not interrupt and thus you ‘see through’ them. The narrow alleyways lead me back past the Ratneswar Mahadev temple, its once decorative stone figures etched and worn, and the Laxmi Narayan temple, this dedicated to Vishnu, or ‘Narayan’, with his consort Lakshmi, the goddess of Love, Beauty and Prosperity. Not too distant is a shop that sells t-shirts. Each is hand painted by the ‘artist-proprietor in residence’ with an image of a rock star; Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan seemingly providing ‘stock in trade’ faces. Tempted as I am …. .

In the main chowk an aged musician, resplendent in red turban, has taken up residence by a wall. There he plays away at an instrument a little like a primitive cello, its strings of string few in number, the bow a cleverly warped branch of narrow width and moderate length. This device he deftly works to the joyful accompaniment of his voice, the gravelling melody of it like happy birdsong. I’m chuffed. A small piece of cloth sits at his feet, and there upon collect an ever growing number of paper bank notes. He graciously thanks the giver of each one. There’s a record album here in the waiting. He could come to Adelaide’s world music concert, and there’s a tribal group at the Sunderbans Tiger Camp that could team up as a great double attraction. But by the ever present joy in his voice, I suspect he was happy just where he was.

Later that afternoon I find myself comfortably ensconced in a washroom conveniently positioned alongside an open-air cafe above the fort’s First Gate. Outside it is warm and sunny. It was, simple as it was, to have been a great moment of satisfaction in an altogether great day. Except that it was spoilt by the thunderous passing overhead of a jet fighter. Talk about timing. I couldn’t get out of that washroom closet fast enough. I fumbled the door latch, I fumbled my belt buckle, I knocked my knee on an ill-placed terracotta pot of generous and unshifting dimensions. Too late. It might have been a ‘Sukhoi’, it might have just been a humble ‘MiG’, short for Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau. I wasn’t about to get fussy. Either way I missed whichever of the two aircraft it definitely was. And whatever the make of that jet fighter it did one solitary low fly over, and I missed it. I didn’t even get to enjoy the after-scent of burnt aviation fuel. I looked out longingly for a return performance, but it just didn’t happen. Not a speck in the sky. And the pilot had no idea that I, sad, spurned and miserable figure that I had suddenly become, was waiting on the battlement for his return.

***

The battlements of the Jaisalmer fortress look out in Time. They are not constrained by space or place. To the west, and just out of view, rest the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, and the lesser Chanhu-daro and Lohumjo-daro. To the north, and at a greater distance, is iconic Harappa. They are the dead cities of the extinct civilisation of the Indus Valley, a culture now known to have been far more extensive in its sway and influence than that upon which archaeologists first centred their efforts. A culture that can be seen as providing the formative mould on which Classical and Modern Indian civilization partly rests; like the Etruscans were to Rome, and the Mycenaeans of Homer were to the Classical Greeks of Thucydides and Aristotle. By the 3rd Millennium BCE cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, these being contemporary with the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, likely boasted populations of 35,000 or more; no small an administrative and agriculturally centralised achievement for the time. Certainly the surrounding landscape was capable of agricultural production substantial enough to support such population centres, and it was the outcome of the agricultural potential of the Indus plains that allowed the development, and later dramatic expansion, of what is commonly called the ‘Harappan Culture’, and its regional variants. Like the civilizations of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, that of the Indus Valley was heavily reliant on nutrient rich sediments deposited annually by floods. The discovery and utilization of burnt-brick for construction and flood control provided an important advance in the foundation and expansion of Harappan culture, for sun-dried bricks are easily destroyed by rain and floodwater, and stone was not readily available for the majority of the Harappan sites. The production of burnt bricks is dependent on a reliable source of timber, which was abundant in riverine tracts of forest, and in some areas of the Indus catchment still is.

The political and economic status of this culture is uncertain for it is difficult to ascertain the nature of individual cities, and even with Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the two sites that stand out, it is unknown if they represented anything resembling the capital or capitals, of single or independent political units. Mohenjo-daro was excavated between 1922 and 1931 by the Archaeological Survey of India under Sir John Marshall, this being continued by others after the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. The extensive mound system at Harappa was first reported by Charles Masson in 1826, with methodical excavations first being carried out between 1920 and 1934 under the direction of Pandit M.S. Vats, also of the Archaeological Survey of India. Later excavations there revealed evidence of a pre-Harappan society.

Many features of Harappan culture indicate aspects of the religion of the Vedic period and of later developed Hinduism. Symbols such as the swastika were already of religious importance. A religion dominated by one god is suggested, and this divinity has traits similar to that of Shiva. There also existed a mother deity that shares traits with that of Parvati, the consort of Shiva. Trees and tree spirits, and particular animals, were also of religious significance. However, sometime in the early 2nd Millennium BCE the culture broke up. Causes have been attributed to those of climate change, redirection of dependent river courses, and the entry of Aryan peoples, if not actually RgVedic Aryans.

It was a long time ago, and by 6 pm I am back within the confines of the hotel. It is my third last night in India.

Post 64 – Day 36 ‘I Participate in an act of Environmental Pollution’ (Pt 2)

You can’t miss Osian for this city of many temples is highlighted by a towering complex of giant wind turbines set in the desert just out of town. On this day they were motionless and without sound. Osian is now an industrial town manufacturing items as diverse as tools and machinery dies, gas tanks and truck seats. Historically, however, Osian is famous for a cluster of Brahmanical and Jain temples that date from the 8th and 11th Centuries. It was also the major religious centre of the Kingdom of Marwar during the Gujara Pratihara Dynasty, also called the Pratihara Empire, an imperial dynasty that ruled much of northern India from the 6-11th Centuries. The main temples in Osian include the Sachiya Mata temple, dedicated to the mother goddess Sachiya, and the Jain temple dedicated to the sage Lord Mahavira; the entrance fee to the latter being Rs10. The Mahavira temple was built in 783 CE by the Pratihara king Vatsa Raja and remains a major Jain pilgrimage site.

It is too easy to get ‘lost’ in the streets of Osian, as I had found myself getting similarly distracted and consumed elsewhere during this journey through India. Monuments abound, but it is the detail of the streets, like ethereal fairy rings, that ensnares you; a beautiful blue and mauve painted house of modest dimensions, its pale blue iron grid gate centrally ornamented with the by now commonplace swastika motifs, a pointed-nosed shrew that darts from out a vendor’s display of vegetables, a narrow street awash with puddles of water emanating from a damaged hand pump, an otherwise unpretentious alley eerily overshadowed by ancient red brick terrace houses, ubiquitous weathered wooden doors still graced with years of life, grey cows with nothing better to do than occupy space within a diminutive market square, and a gathering of middle-aged European tourists; some disposed to idle loitering and others in apparent search of things they will soon discard.

And, as is too easy and frequently my custom, on this day my social standing plummets swiftly, within the space of twelve hours, from feted pseudo-raj to that of cultural oddity. For later, sitting with two young Indian men around the warmth of a small fire provided by a couple of burning rubber foot sandals, products of China I suspect, and safely upwind from the billowing black plumes of poisonous smoke, I was starting to feel ‘seriously twisted’, as one late colleague at the Australian Museum had once thoughtfully dubbed me. That, in mistaking my moment of fire-side comfort for an ecstatic state of ‘saccidananda’, of ‘being’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘bliss’ all wrapped into one neat marketable package of inner contentedness, I might have slipped irretrievably into this foreign world. I had found too easy an inner peace in its simplicity, false and thinly veneered as I knew my appraising of it was. My apparent social status, to all those who saw me crouched up against the warmth of the little fire, had sure gone way down since last night at the ‘5-star’ rated camel camp; the black coloured twirling skirt of a dancing gypsy girl now swapped for the black swirling smoke of burning cheap rubber. I’m having trouble teasing a metaphor out of it but one thing or another was hot, and the burning sandals were certainly costing me less than the woman. In the eyes of ‘Middle Australia’ I might have been ‘slumming’ it, but on this increasingly cool morning, at least my hands were warm.

Retrieved by my driver, and stirred by the onset of light rain, we drive towards Jaisalmer; the turn around and most westerly finishing point of the road trip. The city is surrounded by the Thar Desert, a region more than 200,000 km2 in area. The Thar Desert lies mostly in the Indian state of Rajasthan, extending from the Aravalli Ranges in the east to the Indus River in neighbouring Pakistan. It is variably considered to be 4,000 to 10,000 years old. In the ‘Ramayana’ epic the Thar is described as Lavanasagara, and is mentioned when Rama goes to attack the realm of Lanka with his accompanying army of monkey Vanaras. The otherwise sandy expanses of the Thar are interspersed by hillocks and gravel plains, and is rich in diversity of reptiles and large animals such as Blackbuck, Antilope cervicapra, Indian Gazelle, Gazella bennettii, Indian Wild Ass, Equus hemionus khur, and Caracal or Syahgosh, Caracal caracal, a medium sized cat that ranges over western and southern Asia, and throughout many parts of Africa. The natural vegetation of the Thar Desert is classed as ‘Northern Desert Thorn Forest’, this vegetation type occurring in small scattered clumps.

The Thar is one of the most heavily populated desert areas in the world, and although agriculture is pursued crops are seasonally vulnerable to failure. This region of Rajasthan is the biggest wool-producing area in India, but owing to the restraints imposed by seasonal rainfall conditions agricultural production is mainly for crops that are harvested in September and October, and include leguminous pulses, maize, sesame, groundnuts, and Bajra millet. In recent decades the development of canals and tube wells has influenced a change in crop pattern such that some districts in Rajasthan now produce mustard, wheat, cumin seed, as well as certain cash crops. Since the 1980’s the Thar Desert of Rajasthan has experienced a significant increase in human and livestock population, such as camels, buffalo, sheep, goats and oxen, and as a consequence overgrazing is a factor affecting climatic conditions.

But I am now in a region and on a highway that is fast approaching the Indian-Pakistan border, and since partition in 1947 the two countries have rarely been the best of friends. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, which resulted in the excision of East Pakistan and the subsequent independence of the country we now call Bangladesh, the Pakistan Air Force launched pre-emptive air attacks on Indian air bases at Jaisalmer, Jodhpur and eight other Indian military facilities. Understandably, India massively retaliated, and Pakistan lost the war.

Along the highway we pass several Indian Army firing ranges, and though I see no heavy battle tanks there are numerous trucks and sometimes artillery and light armoured fighting vehicles, each and all painted in mottled green camouflage paint. With its manpower loosely numbered at 1,129,000 regular soldiers and 960,000 reservists, plus about 160 support helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, the Indian Army dwarfs that of Australia’s. They have an air force to match, and an increasingly ‘blue water’ ocean-going navy capability that aims to project its presence as far as South Africa and Western Australia. Not for the last time I remind myself that it is fortunate we are friends! Although the eyes of the Indian Army have traditionally looked to the north and the west, it is increasingly tasked with the role of fighting insurgents and terrorists within India’s national borders.

In recent years the Thar Desert has ‘hosted’ regular Indian military exercises as part of the Army’s efforts to shore up its battle preparedness on the western front with Pakistan. The Indian Army is a wholly voluntary service and though there is provision in the Indian Constitution for conscription, unlike Australia, it has never been implemented. It is currently the largest voluntary standing army in the world, and presently comprises 63 armoured regiments and an Army Aviation Corps mainly operating helicopters to assist troop transport and ground force support. India produces its own indigenously designed and built main battle tank, the ‘Arjun’, named after Arjuna of the Bhagavad-Gita, and Mahabharata epic. A product of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation the Arjun is armed with a 120 mm main rifled gun. Delays in its development prompted India to order vast numbers of T-90 tanks from Russia to fill requirements expected of the Arjun. The Army can now field about 4,000 main battle tanks comprising the indigenous Arjun, the jointly Russian-Indian developed T-90 Bhishma and T-72 Ajeya, and the older Soviet T-55. In addition there are several thousand lighter armed infantry fighting vehicles and armoured personnel carriers, some of which are derived from Russian sources and others that are of indigenous manufacture. India’s ‘Futuristic Infantry Soldier As a System’, or F-INSAS, is the Army’s principal modernisation program to be completed by 2020, the first phase having been completed in 2012. Under this program infantry soldiers are to be equipped with modular weapons systems that are multi-functional. India intends to modernize all of its 465 infantry and paramilitary battalions by 2020 to the F-INSAS program.

Aware that India flies jet fighters of Russian design, in one of my many moments of idle flippancy, I let it be known to all on board the tour vehicle that I would be pleased to see a Sukhoi jet fighter; one of my many little dalliances and foibles in the world of contemporary military history and warfare ordnance made casually known to my companions during the road trip. I never did grow up from the boyhood preoccupation with the modelling of scale aircraft, and besides, a knowledge of what the military forces of other regional countries are flying about in comes in handy when your own politicians try to convince the voting public that Australia’s purchase of small numbers of dated American aircraft, or planes that haven’t flown off a drafting board yet, is going to maintain our regional air superiority. Given the state of equipment and force size we can probably get away with bullying most people in the south-western Pacific Ocean, but anyone else? Well, it’s best to be good and obliging neighbours; give out lots of foreign aid, hold plenty of joint anti-piracy naval exercises, host lots of goodwill exchanges with regional powers, never upset super powers, not even nascent ones; that sort of thing.

I arrive in Jaisalmer with time to wander back streets in search of merchants dealing in traditional tribal wares, and then visit the royal cenotaphs on the outskirts of the city. The cenotaphs are part of the Bada Bagh ‘Big Garden’ complex first commissioned by Maharawal Jait Singh II in the early 16th Century, though the gardens are now neglected. The oldest cenotaph, or chhatri in Hindi, is that of Jait Singh who reigned from 1470 to 1506 CE, this corresponding with the Late Renaissance period back in Europe. The tradition ended in 1947, the 20th Century cenotaph of Maharaja Jawahar Singh remaining unfinished. Near the cenotaph complex are enormous wind turbines but I find them as unobtrusive as those at Osian, their presence soon overlooked. I am confronted by a group of young boys eager to sell me postcards, but I am now well-practised at the art of a polite “ne”. They soon tire of failed attempts at a sale, and so swarm elsewhere in the hope of patronage from tourists descending from a newly arrived air-conditioned tour bus. Looking on, those disembarking tourists appear as fond of their money as I am.

I sit for some time on the stepped stonework of a partly collapsed cenotaph structure, old masonry blocks heaped like useless rubble in one corner. The ‘postcard boys’ harangue another group of hoped-for buyers, but avoid me. I am able to enjoy the last of the sunlight falling from view beyond the city. But all things must end, and at the final moments of sunset I am directed to the car and then driven to a restaurant located below the Jaisalmer fortress wall. My driver and the restaurant owner seem very friendly, the driver disappearing to the kitchen whilst I eat. Nice food, staff obliging, several back-packers in attendance, air temperature comfortable, and a pleasant view of flashing electric blue lights on a building otherwise off somewhere in the dark.

Later we drive to the hotel, but on this occasion the vehicle has an alarming desire to repeatedly veer into the same lane as oncoming traffic; and the oncoming traffic is in the right lane. We are not. Our car has a tendency to weave into the correct lane in the last seconds of opportunity, a habit it seems disinclined to kick. You’d think the recurring presence of glaring car headlights would be sufficient indication that something was wrong, that this just might be my, our, last night in India; alive. But enough said. Dismissing several vehicle-induced near-death experiences, and fortune smiling, I eventually arrive intact at another example of palatial development. Thank you Lord Ganesha.

This particular hotel is fourteen kilometres outside the city, surrounded by desert. Round about there is not another building of any size or description to be seen. Musicians and a dancing girl are positioned on the broad hotel concourse to greet my arrival. The girl dances, the men beat away enthusiastically at drums. They all look a little like those at the camel camp, but I hurry by at such a pace I neglect to inspect more closely. Only the shocked expression on the girl’s face remains to me.

By rights I should be dead. I just want to sleep.

Post 63 – Day 36 ‘I Participate in an act of Environmental Pollution’ (Pt 1)

At first light, and tiring of laying prone in bed, awake and continuously counting the passing of trains in the distance, I rise and take advantage of the apparent absence of overly diligent camp attendants and wander across the surrounding low sand hills. I take care not to approach several huts located close by for I do not know where private property boundaries might begin and end, the few tumble down fences in sight not giving a clear indication of where I could venture without giving offence or trespass. I am keen to discover what creatures are responsible for the hundreds and hundreds of holes excavated everywhere in the sand, each entrance being at least five centimetres wide. The air is cool but not uncomfortably cold and so I am hoping that several of the little denizens might be active at this hour and that if I tread gently my footsteps will not intimidate whatever animals they are. Cautious and quiet as I am, my efforts are rewarded with nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of a single rodent-like mammal that emerges for but a few seconds, hurriedly evicts sand from the burrow entrance and disappears before I can attempt to gauge what form of beast it might be. The only thing I was certain of was that its tail was not noticeably long and so was unlikely to be a rat; an observation better than nothing. Nevertheless, my observation provided an example of ‘biopedturbation’ in action, short-lived and too far away as this particular episode unfortunately was.

Biopedturbation means nothing more terrible than soil disturbance by animals, in particular vertebrates; those animals with backbones. Soil disturbance by humans using bulldozers, ploughs and back-hoe tractors does not qualify. Holes, specifically ‘smials’, built by fanciful hobbits just might qualify. Though such activities are a kind of biopedturbation, they are not really what ecologists had in mind when they coined the term.

Disturbance to soil caused by mammals is a major source of the patchiness, or heterogeneity, of nutrients and microhabitat niches in ecosystems, especially arid and semi-arid ones. It is important in soil formation, and water filtration and storage. The foraging pits and nest burrows produced by a variety of mammals in different environments, be these arid zones or tropical forests, are features that trap plant litter and seeds that are then rapidly buried. The excavations create a mosaic of germination sites that are rich in nutrients or that result in the relatively quick covering of seeds by further burrowing and foraging activity. The buried seeds are then protected from seed-eating animals, thus biopedturbation can alter levels of seed mortality and increase the germination of plant seedlings, and subsequent plant abundance. Soil ejected, ‘ejecta’ if you prefer jargon, from animal burrows is generally of low bulk density, can erode readily and varies greatly with respect to the concentration of nutrients and organic matter depending upon the animal species and the landscape in which the species lives. Whatever the species I observed was, either there were a lot of them, or by the sheer number of burrows, there were a few zealously industrious animals that worked overtime and didn’t get to relax much. In terms of their potential influence on the ecology of the landscape, the sparseness of vegetation and the seemingly uniform nature of the coarse sand hereabouts suggested these creatures did not have much to work with. It all just looked so barren. However, recent studies on the foraging impacts of the Short-beaked Echidna, Tachyglossus aculeatus, in arid and semi-arid habitats in Australia, demonstrated that their foraging pits trapped significantly more leaf litter compared with surfaces that were not pitted, and soils in pits were often softer and moister, and that pit temperature was lower; conditions more favourable for seed germination and seedling growth. Thus echidnas, iconic Australian egg-laying and ant eating ‘monotreme’ mammals, whose quill-armed bodies are almost impossible to pick up with unprotected hands, are important ecological engineers and critical for the maintenance of small scale landscape heterogeneity and the efficient ecological functioning of ecosystems. I can only assume the unknown little Indian animal makes parallel contributions to the ecological well-being of the arid ecosystem that surrounds my glamorous tent.

Some hours later, breakfast complete, issues of unanticipated hotel meal surcharges attended to, and luggage safely packed in the rear of the car, I depart. I am not happy. Actually, I’m particularly aggrieved. It was a tourist trap alright, and I was ambushed, financially. Only my plumber knows how to charge more exorbitantly. Even the driver was caught up by my bursts of negativity. The person we call William Shakespeare is said to have crafted the lines “He who steals my purse steals naught, but he who steals my good name steals all”. Not my purse, ‘my wallet’. I cherish it. It’s a part of my family. If I had the option I’d have it welded permanently shut and surgically padlocked to my hip. I know every one of my coins therein by its first name, every last little cent of them. I nursed each one from when they were tiny babies, when they were just innocent little bits of shapeless alloy. I was there at the Federal Mint for their birth, I saw them individually stamped and dated by the delivering surgeon, and when I part with any one of them, I cry tears of blood. They’re children. My ‘purse’ is not a repository for useless money that I have no care for, it’s a nursery. The camel camp proprietor bit my wallet, and out of a sense of betrayed loyalty the wallet bit me. And I still have the scar. Only the driver’s position of relative safety in the front seat later saved him from the worst of my innovative display of Australian colloquialisms. My knowledge of Old English and Early Saxon ‘street speech’, even surprised me. I put the ‘F’ in ‘foul’ good and proper. No wonder the head waiter acted cool when I had raised the subject of the missing menu at dinner. They gave me no idea that the bland potato strategically positioned and alone in the centre of my dinner plate was the last of its kind and had been blessed by the Dalai Lama. I would have given it back, and would have been more than content to just rent out the empty plate for half an hour. Thank goodness I didn’t order that second glass of water!

Back out through the entrance gate of the camel camp theme park we drove, the driver cowering down in response to my unabated verbal onslaught, the tour car picking up sufficient speed to raise a small cloud of grit-laden dust, the driver’s side rear wheel leaving the ground maybe several centimetres or so as we wildly facilitated a sharp exiting turn to the left. The weight of the driver’s foot on the accelerator was in direct proportion to the weight of my tongue on his ear. That morning, suitably irritated by the exorbitant price I was charged on departure for last night’s Spartan meal my ‘Mr Toad’, like the proverbial ‘Mr Hyde’ of Dr Jekyll and Company notoriety, was seriously peeved. ‘Toad’ had risen with a vengeance. If I had been entrusted to the care of the car’s steering wheel and gear stick I would have done some serious ‘spin-outs’ on the proprietor’s garden beds. I’d have shown him how the lads back at Hometown drive on Saturday nights when they put their mortality on the line in the seeking of favours from unattached young women out on the streets way past an honest girl’s bedtime. Barely had the guard opportunity to rise from his chair as we sped by, he having no time at all to finalise the eloquent flourish of his salute before we were off over the nearest sand dune, vanishing from his sight. Poor man, I hope he doesn’t get paid by piece work, ‘by the car’ so to speak, for my party was one of only two I counted in residence that night. Obviously word about the price of the establishment’s meals had got around. Hopefully, like the security man outside my hotel at Varanasi, the camel camp guard was content, in the intervening hours between the rare coming and going of vehicles, to slumber. Or maybe he’s undertaking a post-graduate study of the ecology of fossorial mammals, the need to rise to attention every so often to greet guests nothing more than a rare day-job interruption that supplements his university grant. One never knows.

***

We make the short drive to Osian before continuing on to Jaisalmer, this being quite close to the Pakistan border. By the hour’s end I had cooled down somewhat, but I couldn’t help wondering how many days some poor under-aged Indian child worker would have to put in hand stitching soccer balls for the Australian sports market before he or she earned the amount of ransom I had been fleeced of. The meal I ate was worth in price about a month’s salary for a Varanasi silk weaver.

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