Gastros Nomos! Jodhpur - The Sun City

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What a Donkey of a title for the post but then the Greeks never made any sense to me! In fact they didn't make any sense to themselves either but look at their complete domination of the English language when it comes to coining words for anything even remotely scientific! So 'Gastronomy' is actually derived from Gastros - Stomach & Nomos - Knowledge or Law. Now I bet the Greeks didn't ever dream that Brits would twist their words to come up with a language of their own. So basically English is actually Greek that you and me can talk (I did not say you and me understand!). So very Brit! Always tresspassing on everything from land to language! Nevermind coz the Brits are a topic on to themselves. The topic here is my trip to Jodhopur, The Sun City. No it was not on two wheels! It had to be done on that rusty-creaky-contraption-with-wings that Indian Airlines insist we call Boeing-737!
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The weather was perfect. Very cold early morning and after dusk but the sun during the day was perfect for all and any kinda walking and sight seeing. In fact I've never missed my bike so much! Good roads and perfect weather and plenty to see! But unfortunately this won't be a trip log since I didn't get a glimpse of even the 'S' of what's called 'The Sun City'. I got caught in a huge twister of dinners and lunches. No escapes, I was just being swept from one lunch to another! One dinner to the next!
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FOOD - Thats what we are all about! Or is it GOLD? That's the single sentence that describes the essence of my trip to Jodhpur. The place should be called the 'The GHEE City' or 'The Am-I-Below-The-Poverty-Line City'! Lets finish the gold part first coz it will take less space. Every time I walked into any dinner at receptions, it was as if I walked into the vault where RBI keeps all the country's gold! I didn't expect to attend any weddings and had carried nothing but jeans and tee's. Hardly the right attire to attend a wedding reception. No wonder I felt like a mouse-in-a-lions-wedding! My P-I-L knows all of Jodhpur I guess and being socially correct is a must when you are in smaller(read conservative) towns in India. 10th Dec'06 probably had extraordinarily favourable planetory positions coz just too many Donkeys were tying the knot! (Wonder how the planets can ever be favourable for the Groom! Guys are such Donkeys to fall into such traps!)
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So much for the gold. I don't fancy the metal myself but then I've been proved a Donkey coz seems like just about everyone else does! Coming to the food since that was the next big thing everywhere. Or rather it was the biggest! The idiom that Jodhpur and probably the all of Northern States live by when it comes to treating guests is - Well fed is well kept! Now I used the word idiom coz wikipedia defines it as 'An expression whose meaning cannot be deduced from the literal definitions and the arrangement of its parts, but refers instead to a figurative meaning zzzzzzzz....' So what ever! The definition is as confusing as the reason why people in North India consider good food as the only standard against which hospitality could be rated. In fact when my stomach got upset big time since my intestines could no longer stand the marination in pure Ghee anymore, even the remedy suggested by some local chap was - 'Eat blah blah thing cause it will soothe your stomach'. On the lines of 'Only a diamond can cut through another', this was a bit too much to take and seemed like 'If food messed up your stomach, only food can fix it'!. Such is our obsession with food! Now somebody please introduce them to Doctors!
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But pun aside, North (minus Punjab, Delhi & Chandigarh which are more of the counties of UK in India)is one part of India (besides South.Hmm..thats pretty much all of India.) where social relations are still valued. I mean meeting your friend in flesh-n-blood is considered more important than naying such a meeting to sit in front of yahoo-messenger for exchanging unmentionables with your virtual mate! So even the atrocities on my stomach were a part of the larger scheme of all the good things under the 'atithi-devo-bhava' plan. Just that everyone has only so much appetite for hospitality and I've got a lot less than the average!
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All said and done (or all-swallowed-down?), I did manage a short trip to the Umed Bhavan Palace, the Royal Abode these days. It was built somewhere in mid 1940's by Raja Umed Singh to provide some means of livelihood to people in the midst of a severe draught. Noble thoughts and probably the people who worked reciprocated coz the Palace looks stunning. It's got 135 rooms of which 35 are being occupied by the current clan while 100 rooms and a large part of the propety has been leased to The Taj.

The current ruler (huh?), Raja Gaj Singh is more of a king-without-a-kingdom but eeks out more than plenty by leasing out his vast properties to Hospitality chains like The Taj and ITC Welcom Group. Makes sense coz hotels dont let people scribble 'Bablu + Champa' on the walls of any monuments and the Royal Family makes its living.
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TBC...