Visiting the Bishnois

rosscameron

When I woke for my first full day in Jodhpur I am a tad ashamed to admit I did not have high expectations for the day tour I had booked myself on the day previous. I fully expected a driver to ferry me around the city showing me the local sights, which inevitably end up being temples, which look quite like every other temple I have ever seen in Asia. So as I sat down in the front seat of my guide’s A-team style jeep at 8 am in the morning I confess that I really wished I was back in my bed.

Quite quickly as I spoke to my guide it became quite clear that I had not signed up for what I originally thought. My guide was called Avi, a worker from the excellent Cosy’s Guesthouse who informed me that we would be taking a Bishnois village tour, which was some 45k outside Jodhpur. Avi is a very likeable character with an excellent command of English. He explained that he originally came from this area and went to work at the guesthouse about 14 years ago when the guesthouse owner (who at the time was the guide for that tour) got his jeep stuck in sand and Avi and his father came to his rescue. Aviv’s father struck up a conversation with the owner and enquired if he had any work for his son. A week later on the next tour the owner picked up a twelve-year-old Avi and took him back to Jodhpur. He spoke no English and had never been to a city before. Over the years he has learnt English from the many tourists who come to Cosys each year and has also become a fantastic chef of both Indian and European cuisine. In his spare time he returns to the villages assisting with projects that will improve their standard of living as well as providing tours that give an insightful and rewarding experience for anyone lucky enough to go on. Avi is an all round good bloke it’s fair to say.

After about an hours drive into the desert Avi took me to visit our first village. Each of the villages specializes in manufacturing a different product. This one specialized in the making of clay pots, the types you will see being used to store water almost everywhere in India. I learnt about their working conditions and got to watch a pot being moulded. It was also here Avi explained the role of village women in Rajasthan. I will write about this in more detail soon but in short, it’s safe to say it’s no fun being a female in Rajasthan.

I also learnt about the local government’s initiatives that have provided each village with its own farmland to keep animals or to grow crops. Sadly for the villagers it has not rained in this area of Rajasthan for over two years making any sort of farming a fruitless task. Avi explained the many different ways that he has tried to improve the standard of living for the villagers in recent times. Money and donations are of no use to them. What they need is volunteers and manpower. He also explained the level of bureaucracy that anyone from outside India will meet if they want to help, even if it’s free of charge, is almost prohibitive.

From there I moved to another village for a spot of morning opium tea. A tradition for guests in this area I am led to believe. After watching an opium ceremony performed by the lead male of the village it was my turn to drink a spot of tea. Now I’m up for anything normally but I was a little conscious of taking opium on an empty stomach at 10am. I need not have worried as I can only presume I was given a tourist sample, as it did literally nothing and tasted very salty. What struck me from this village was that this was not some sort of circus act where the tourist turned up and the villagers performed. This was every day life and they were keen to show me their methods as well as quiz me on my backgrounds and practices.

Onto another town where he purpose of this stop was to watch a 73 year old man weaving a blanket on his hand-made loom. This painstakingly long process would take him up to three weeks per blanket. The attention to detail was incredible as well and incredulous to watch such an old fashioned process of pulleys and levers at work. Not only that, but the different colours of hand dyed yarn, woven into camels wool in patterns had been entrenched in this old man’s head from generations gone by.

After that Avi and I set off to the village responsible for making clay decorative statues and figurines. Once again we got to watch the moulding of the objects (is it possible to watch that without singing Unchained Melody or is that just me)? The things these people could make out of clay was just incredible. What was revealing was the price that they were willing to sell them at. The sorts of decorative statues that cost easily 20 gbp at home, were there for me to purchase for a mere 200 rupee’s (2.50). It got me thinking the mark-up the shop owners must make are huge. The same village also provided tapestries and bedspreads. Now anyone who knows me knows that the last adjective used to describe me would be ‘house proud’ but even I was salivating at the mouth at these impressive works. Each item was block painted by hand using natural resources to make the paint such as tomatoes, peppers and curry power.

This isn’t a whine (honest) but there are a few downsides to backpacking and I was being reminded of them on this trip. As much as I like having my writing, my pictures and memories from my trips I really wish I had physical things to show for my travels to match, other than severe weight loss. The amount of amazing items I have seen in markets etc when travelling, which would have to be purchased back at home for twenty times the local price, drives me wild, especially being a tight Scot. Sadly there is no point carrying a clay camel or a bed spread in your backpack for months possibly years on end. So instead of these fantastic pieces of textile art in every room of my next flat, I will have to make do with paining it Scotland blue and pinning my REM album covers to the wall again!

Last but not least we moved to our final village that laid on a wonderful lunch. I’m starting to believe it’s nearly impossible to have a bad homemade Indian food experience. The food just kept coming and coming. Once again they were more interested in learning about me than the other way around. It was explained how they sell their goods though co-operatives who allow them to ship their goods duty free. Having seen this work at first hand I am delighted that there are organizations set up to ensure that these people gain the maximum profit possible for this incredible workmanship.

Such an interesting and rewarding day. For the mind and the belly! Also for getting shots of me looking silly in turbans.

Later on in the evening I caught up with Avi at the guesthouse, I wanted to learn more about his work and a little more about him. It was here he told me the story of how he came to work at the guesthouse. I was quite taken by him and felt privileged to meet such an interesting character and with such a great story. Somehow we got onto discussing the rest of my trip and modes of transport. I talked about possibly flying from Nepal to Mumbai. Avi spoke to me romantically about his dream to be in the sky on an airplane. It was hard for me to hear that. Here was a guy who had impressed me greatly by how much he had achieved in life so far and all the good that he does not only for his employer but his home village which made me realise how far I had to go before I too was a grown-up. He dreamt about something I have taken for granted for so long in an era of the EU, cheap flights, and reckless wanderlust.

Sometimes there are certain moments on my travels that have given me a certain perspective on how life is lived by the majority and not the lucky minority. It’s moment like that which stand out in my memory way more than sights, sounds, or tastes of backpacking. I really hope that one day Avi gets his dream.

Pics are on on my blog.

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www.newadventuresinbackpacking.com

Anne F Gorrissen

Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts about it all.

zanzi

Thank you so much for this! I'll be in Jodhpur 27 Nov - 20 Dec on a fellowship for this: http://www.jalbhagirathi.org/scholarprogram. Your post is exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for, as I've only been there once for a few days, and that was a decade ago.

Well, on to your blog, now!