Rajasthan, Land of Kings

Our guide du jour is the silver-tongued, snake-hipped Karan Singh Rathore. He wants to be world-famous, and he might well be, one of these days. He’s learnt all his admirable English, not at school, but from tourists – he’s evidently had some street-savvy customers, over the years. His Pink City patter’s interspersed with snippets like “No wife, no life!” and “No money, no honey!” He’s not married, at the time of writing, so if you need a Jaipur guide, or a husband, ask me nicely, and I’ll give you his email address.

Jaipur has a population of five million. Most of them seem to be at the Amber Fort, with us. The walled city has seven gates, Karan says. “You know why seven? Because heaven itself has seven gates.” Obvious, when you know. The city’s painted “pink for happiness” and has been rosily so, since the Prince of Wales’ visit in 18-something – so he left his mark in Rajasthan in no uncertain terms. If you indulge in a bit of chromatic rebellion, here in the Old City, and splash out on a pot of mauve shellac or fuchsia gloss, for example, you’re up for a Rs 5000 fine, and two months in jail. And there’s you, all this time, thinking you can’t go wrong with magnolia...

We pass through the marketplace, where dairymen bring churns of milk to sell. Aluminium lids are wedged tight with a fistful of straw, straight off the floor of the cowshed, by the look of it. They’re prised off, for a potential buyer, who – here’s the tasty bit – dunks his hand up to the wrist in the milk, to test its quality with his bare fingers. What if he says no – what if the next punter, and the one after him, say no? By the time it gets to your breakfast Weetabix, your milk could have been through dozens of hands. – So, next time you’re in Jaipur, if anyone asks you, “How do you like your tea?” – say, “Black!”

We drive up the hill to the Black City, wiggling the Innova through tiny cobbled streets too congested for a push-bike. It’s most interesting, when someone else’s Innova’s coming the other way. Brinkmanship’s still the only rule of the road. Mano’s a passed master, and yields to none. There are shops selling rice and peas, full of veiled and sari’d housewives, jostling next to shops full of bermuda’d tourists, selling Rajasthani puppets and camel leather shoes. Eclectic retail.

Karan says, “Do you want to go to Fort by car, or by elephant?” Oh, Karan..... We drive to the elephant park where some of us are so excited, we can hardly get out of the car. Mr Roland and the boys tolerantly join the queue, trying not to look bored. We’re three steps up the elephant-mounting ziggurat – so close, I can smell the poo – when disaster strikes. Karan nips nimbly up the steps with a Don’t Shoot The Messenger look on his face, and I accept defeat before he opens his mouth. “Is too hot for elephant. This is last ride.” He points to the porky tourists climbing aboard even as he’s speaking, and I hate them. I don’t know who they are or where they’re from, they just look despicable. “We go by car,” says Karan. “Sorry...” Well, that’s better than having some poor pachyderm lumber up the hill, in the heat of the day, with a bunch of gora on his back, isn’t it? – No, frankly, it isn’t, but I work myself into believing it, by the time we get to the Amber Fort, prosaically on four wheels.

We’re just in time to nip into Ganesh’s temple, inside the palace, before closing time. We have to take off not only our shoes, but cameras, phones, and leather belts, before crossing the threshold. Between the statues on the back wall, and the rail to keep out the yeomanry, monks shuttle back and forth, ferrying offerings one way to the gods, and blessed Prasad the other, to the faithful. Not only fruit and flowers, we see one man hand over a bottle of gin (unequivocally labelled “Gin” to take the guesswork out of voyeurism) – which a monks upends into a flask. Incredulous, we ask Karan, and he says, “For Hindu, the fruit and the wine, is all offering.” Broad church, indeed...

We admire the Hall of Mirrors, its tiny mosaics winking in the sun, and the royal bathrooms, where you could swim in rose-scented water. The walls are tinted, but not with paint. The sixteenth century decorators ground up the off-cuts of semi-precious stones, from in the inlays, and mixed the powder with lemon juice and oil and seventeen other secret ingredients, to form a paste, which they used to paint the marble. I salute their parsimony. Like making jam tarts, with pastry scraps, I say, but no-one quite sees the similarity.

The Maharajah who built the fort, Raja Man Singh I, was a man of many talents. Not least, he ran twelve wives and two hundred concubines, simultaneously. (Mr Roland says that he has trouble running just the one. It’s all very well, being witty in company, but he’s going to have to be alone with me, sooner or later...) Each Mrs Raja Man Singh I had her own quarters, and her own kitchens. One woman, one kitchen, you can see the wisdom of that. When RMS was in residence, the wives weren’t allowed to talk to each other, which proves that, despite having two hundred and twelve women all to himself, Raja knew nothing about the fair sex. When he was off, going to war to have a rest, of course they talked to each other. Who in their right mind wouldn’t? “So what did he get you for Diwali, then?” “Is that a new tiara, or have you had it ages?” - The queens, he visited in their separate chambers, but the concubines were slumming it, three or four to a cell, so they were summoned to his rooms, as required. It comes as no surprise when Karan says, “You want to see the secret passages?” RMS has a rabbit-warren of interconnecting hidden corridors, so he could think his business was his own. Men, who’d have them?

What the papers say

Last night’s bombings in Jaipur are front page news in all the papers, today. Well, excepting the Mumbai Mirror, where the terrorist attacks don’t appear until page 12. (The Mirror’s front page strap-line, in fact, reads “We undertake all kinds of killings,” then, in smaller print, specifies “cockroaches, termites, rodents, bedbugs” – a Godrej Hi-Care advertisement, eye-catching, but more concerned with commerce than good taste.)
Our breakfast idli are hard to swallow, this morning. Less than a month ago, we were at more than half of the bomb-target sites, innocently snapping holiday photos to remember the Pink City, trying to evade the anxious clutches of the perfume-sellers and cloth-merchants. With up to eighty casualties, and twice that number of injured, it’s horrific, so the reporting can be nothing less. More shocking, to our protected western sensitivities, are the graphic photos, which make Jaipur more a Red City, than a pink one.
Under the headline, “Jaipur Jolted,” the Hindustan Times carries an aftermath picture, in colour, unnecessarily labelled “Blood and mangled remains of vehicles at one of the blast sites.” (At the bottom of the page, a large publicity shot of Shah Rukh Khan, the very one I have on my kitchen wall, his undone shirt and his six-pack both rippling in the breeze – free fan-poster with our DVD of Om Shanti Om. They’re planning to open Bollywood stores, where you’ll be able to buy SRK memorabilia from as little as Rs 50. Can I use the word “contrast” again, or are you tired of it?)
The Times of India’s more discreet, at a cursory glance, but the photo of the cycle-rickshaw, with its driver, utterly relaxed, head lolling back, knees splayed, brings tears to my eyes. He looks like the thousands of drivers we pass every day, parked up by the kerb, snatching a quick forty winks while business is slack, except this one’s not sleeping, he’s dead. “BLOOD AND GORE: P11” – in case you’d not had enough. Even the flowers at the flower market in Chauti Chaupar are spattered in blood. We’ve been there.
Not only tourist sites, but popular local temples are targeted, hence the cruel timing. “Tuesday is my God Day,” as Monu says, so Hanuman’s Temple’s packed with chanting Hindus. The bomb takes out an entire family of seven, arriving for worship.
The dead are laid out in overcrowded hospital corridors, and the mobile phones in their pockets start to ring. The doctors use the phones, to ring relatives, with nothing but sad news. It’s beyond imagining.
All of life’s here, in newsprint, a distilled microcosm, including the ridiculous. In the same edition as man’s inhumanity to man, home thoughts from abroad – what a proud moment for us Brits – comprise speculation about Liz Hurley’s pregnancy, a report on the £20K “Hen Night” of Wayne Rooney’s bride to be, before their £3M wedding, and more column inches, for Cheri Blair, than she deserves. And – how random is this? - Bath University, it seems, is offering a degree in funerals.
On the subject of Education, it’s prime recruiting-time for next year’s courses, so in Horizons, HT’s supplement for the young, seats of learning across the world are touting for takers. You could do an MBA in the USA, or go to France to study International Finance (in English), or you could do an MA in Media and Film Production, at our very own Sheffield Hallam, which apparently offers “the Number One Learning Experience in the UK.” If you’re after a business qualification with real clout, though, consider the Mumbai Educational Trust. “Admissions open for razor sharp minds,” MET says, “at the thirteenth best MBA school in South Asia.” You can’t do better than that. Well no, maybe there are twelve other options you should try, first.
Whole rainforests are dedicated to cricket news, and it’s not all good. Next to a picture of racily clad cheer-leaders (this one won’t go away, til the girls pack up their batons and flags, and go away, themselves...), an outraged Kishor Tiwari. It’s more serious than sequinned bikinis, this time. Mr Tiwari’s head of the Vidarba JAS, a non-government organisation for distressed farmers. Since June 2005, three or four farmers a day, in Vidarba, have resorted to suicide, no longer able to make a living off the land. Not only the hard-pressed farmers, but widows and families, have been promised food security and healthcare, yet no support’s forthcoming. Mr Tiwari’s incensed, because the Government’s proposing to waive the 25% entertainment tax – levied on all public events where a profit is to be had – for the IPL matches in Mumbai, at a loss of Rs 8-10 crore.(£1M+) You can’t help but feel, Mr T has a point.
The devil reliably being in the detail, I turn to the small ads, and am not disappointed. Classified – the microcosm, in microcosm. If you want English lessons, personality improvement, pigmentation control, a life partner or just a holiday in Santa Cruz, this is where you should look. If it’s a job you’re after, there are openings for every career, from chief cardiologist or sales engineer, to sandwich artist or office-assistant-cum-payment-follow-up-person. I give you this verbatim. I’ll save the page, if you don’t believe me.
The In Memoriam section’s compulsive reading. For Rs 850 – ten lines plus photo, fifty rupees per extra line - your loved one can appear in “The Unforgettables.” Here, we slip back a century or so, to a time when there’s definitely someone unamused on all the pennies in your pocket. Shri B.N.J.’s family make their anniversary pledge: ”To his august memory we rededicate ourselves.” So they should, since he’s “sagacious as an entrepreneur.” There’s a more lyrical tribute for Shri P.S.: “Your memories are like fragrance, spread through our lives.” You can tell a lot about a people, from the way they treat their departed, I always feel.
My favourite bit’s the rewriting history section. “I have changed my name,” says one ad, “from Rajdeep Suresh Gawhane,” – I’m expecting something radical, like Ron Stevens, but no – “to Rajdeep Suresh Gavahane.” As per affidavit. You wonder, why they bother. I might consider bothering with the next section, though, the Change of Date of Birth. “I, Ashwin P., had changed my Date of Birth, from 08/01/1962 to 08/09/1963, as per Govt. of Mara., Gazette Number....” Why? Had he been lying about his age? Was the new birthday more auspicious? Did he not want a bus-pass? And why, why the pluperfect?
Three little words, for the end of the news review, letting a picture paint a thousand words. In the background, the corrugated walls of a building-site. Centre stage, boys playing cricket in the dusty road. The picture’s taken over the top of a man, spark-out, lying on a pile of bricks, lost in sleep. The caption: Snores and Fours. All-Mumbai, in the click of a shutter.
As Sir Paul said, just another day.

Last Word to Sanjay - Golden Triangle 10

Sanjay springs into our lives, as new as the morning milk, with gleaming teeth and a spotless white jacket, buttoned up to the neck. Before we’ve got our seatbelts fastened, he’s told us he’s got two children, his wife speaks five languages (“She very clever. I no very clever.”), his rent’s two thousand rupees a month, and if we want him tomorrow, we need to ask at Reception, his driver number’s 23. It’s good, to get this sorted out so soon. We roll out of the Taj driveway, waving at saluting Maharajahs. By the time the back axle’s across the threshold, Sanjay’s peeling off his white cotton gloves, to stash in a little hidey-hole near the gearbox. “Gloves, is hotel requirement. No good for drive. You want all-Delhi tour? I take.”

In a burst of enthusiasm, he comes round the Qutb Minar with us, explaining in bullet-point English, or sometimes in just point, forget the English. He wrests the camera from Lady Snowdon, and bullies us into a group photo. “Many jobs,” I say in the Monu-speak which I favour of late, “Driver, guide, photographer – can you cook?” “No cook, wife cook.” So much for five languages, then.

Driving along later, with a brace of monuments already under our belts, Mr Roland and Mrs Andrew feel the need to photograph something presidential. “No is parking,” says Sanjay, flatly. We slow down to tickover, so Mr Roland and Mrs Andrew can hop out to be digitally creative. Mr Andrew and I stay put, cruising up and down Government Row at three miles an hour, in front of seventeen boy-soldiers, sprawled on steps leading nowhere in particular. Their heads swivel up and down, following our not-progress, like a Wimbledon crowd in slo-mo. Nepalese, Sanjay informs us, racily hitting second gear. As we kerb-crawl, I ask Sanjay, if his children want to be drivers, too. “My hopes is doctor, or civil engineering, or work in government job,” he says. Why not a driver, I wonder. “No driver,” he says, sadly, “Being driver, no life.” It’s all I can do, not to send him home and slide behind the wheel myself, but I have more chance of flying Apollo 15, than I have of tackling the highways and by-ways of Delhi, bumpers and limbs intact.

Sanjay’s parents didn’t have much, scratching a bare living from poor soil, in the country. He’s their success story. Standing on their shoulders, he’s holding down a steady job, in the big city. In his turn, he makes his children’s education his first priority, working hard, so they can hope to be more than drivers. His daughter doesn’t have medical ambitions, though. She wants to be a pilot. Good for her, already kicking over the traces, and she’s only five years old.
This whole country’s steered into thinking of the future. A proud father beams down from a billboard we pass, advertising insurance. In front of him, his daughter, in cap and gown, brandishes a degree scroll, grinning. “Whatever she needs, you’ll be ready.” Another bill-board, on contraception: “Girl or boy, small family is joy!” It makes you think, all this aspirational propagandist campaigning, and literacy levels are below 50% in some parts of the country.

We see mosques, we see temples, we see churches. Sanjay says, “All religion, same. Blood is blood,” he draws a nail across his wrist, “God is God, same. All God same. Christian sign is plus,” he takes his hands off the wheel to make a cross with his forefingers, “Hindu sign is swastik. Is same. One God.” I take my hat off to Sanjay the philosopher, with a vocabulary of ten words.
If I were Hindu, I would be really fed up with Hitler, for purloining the holiest of symbols, and having the whole of the world associate it with death and inhumanity, for the rest of forever. I see Gandhi’s letter to Hitler, from 1938. “Dear Friend,” it starts, “Are you sure you want to do this? Sorry for interfering. All the best, Gandhi.” I paraphrase, slightly. I also digress....

By the time we’re on our third or fourth bottle of water from Sanjay’s cafe, he’s stopped all pretence of harvesting the rubbish for discreet disposal later. He takes the empties out of our hands, and throws them on the floor. “I pay twenty rupees, man in car park, he clean. He job.” We try lobbing our own bottles on the floor, to save Sanjay the trouble of being the middle man, and it’s almost more than we can bear. Try it. See what I mean? Now, go and pick it up.

Jai Mahal Palace - Golden Triangle 9

We’re nosing along the hot streets, looking for our hotel. Sanjay claims intimate knowledge of every last alleyway of Jaipur, but he’s lying through his perfect teeth. He’s lost. He knows he’s lost, and we know he’s lost. And, what’s more, he knows, that we know he’s lost. He takes a confident right, which jars Mr Roland’s innate compass, prompting him to take over navigation, putting his faith in the Rough Guide’s two-inch-square town plan. He and Mr Andrew are like pigs with truffles, unerring. Finally – finally – we swing into the gates of The Jai Mahal Palace Hotel, Jaipur. It turns out to be exactly where Sanjay thought it was, in the first place - “I confuse.”


We fall out of the car, sweaty, dusty, unkempt (and that, with benefit of aircon and chauffeur – what would we have been like with a rucksack and a beanie hat apiece, on the No 98 from Agra, twice daily, no goats allowed?). A beaming Maharajah salutes us, with every appearance of sincerity, and a musician strikes up a hymn of welcome. We try to look casual, as if people are always saluting us, but give ourselves away, by giggling, and saying thank-you too many times. We climb the marble steps as fast as our sticky, cramped limbs will allow, into the coolth of the foyer. It’s hard not to cartwheel with joy, and I refrain only because I can’t do cartwheels. Well, not without falling over.
Mr Roland and Mr Andrew busy themselves with passports and credit cards (there has to be some reason why we brought them), while Mrs Andrew and I have a crisis of our own, choosing which plush sofa to sink into. We choose the furthest from reception, because Roland’s still got his ill-bought sun-hat on. But the ever-alert Miss India spies us, and sashays across the polished floor, to wreathe us in garlands of orange flowers, before pressing a welcome bindi on each of our foreheads in turn, with a slender thumb. “Is traditional,” she says, apologetically. We sip chilled mango juice, waiting for the formalities to conclude. We look ethnic and rather lovely, in our flower necklaces and face-paint, whereas the boys look like they’ve just landed at Honolulu Airport.

The Jai Mahal’s a converted palace, dating back to around 1745. It’s in better nick than any monument we’ve yet seen (except for Mumtaz’s place) – they should open a few more World Heritage sites as B&Bs, they’d rake in the rupees faster than with means-tested entrance fees. The corridor’s an open terrace. We catch glimpses of trim gardens, and pergolas, and an enormous chess set on wheels. Our rooms are fragrant with fresh flowers, but we barely have time to bounce on the bed, open all the drawers, and play with the lotions and potions in the bathroom, before we go exploring. It takes us all of twenty-five minutes, to explore our way to the bar. In fairness, it has to be six o’clock, somewhere in the world...
The musician wanders onto the terrace, bowing, singing, tapping his slippered feet, and spinning. The rawanhattha’s one of the oldest known stringed instruments. It’s basically a length of bamboo, set into a coconut shell, and it produces the least English sound I’ve ever heard. The player’s fingernails are long and yellow, but I overlook this, in the emotion of the moment.

When the band arrives, Mr Roland goes cataleptic for a spell. I’m wondering, what we’re going to have to leave out of the case, to fit in the sitar we’ll be buying tomorrow, when the dancers shimmy up the stairs. They twirl and weave, then they twirl and weave with pots on their heads, then they twirl and weave with lit lamps, in the pots, on their heads. It’s spell-binding.

Over the breakfast table, next morning, we’re treated to live sitar-music, from the pergola, as an aid to digestion. It’s all very alien and oriental, until he strikes up with “Frère Jacques,” segues smoothly into “If you’re happy and you know it,” before finishing off the continental set with “Alouette.” An English girl, blonde-haired, five years old, sits at their feet, applauding wildly.

Our first Taj hotel, in Delhi, could have been anywhere, from Singapore to Los Angeles. The Jaipur Taj has five stars, too, but each one's individually crafted, and appliquéd by hand. We could be nowhere, except Rajasthan.

Window Shopping without the Windows - Golden Triangle 8

A bazaar thing happened to us on the way to the shops. No, really. Sanjay turns off the main road, down a side street as wide as the car, plus a grain of rice on either side. He has to reverse out of his first attempt, on account of a truck coming the other way. It’s all brinkmanship. We pull into a parking slot, and all open our eyes. Well, not Sanjay, hopefully. We crack open the car-doors, and step into a wall of heat. It smells like a urinal, on the tiniest of breezes. We wanted local colour.
Radiating from a central square, in the heart of the Pink City, these shopping streets are famous, the world over. Tripolia Bazaar points west, Ram Ganj Bazaar goes east, Hawa Mahal Bazaar, north, and Johari Bazaar, south. If you want authentic, here it is. Not for the faint-hearted, nor the easily-led.
The roads are busy with the usual madcap taxis and trucks, so progress is halting. You need one eye on the traffic, another on the uneven foothills of concrete and stones doing service as a pavement, and your third eye on the sights you’ve come to see, the shops. I say ‘shops,’ but don’t think Brent Cross, or Arndale Centre. These are lock-up shops, like rows of garages, welded together, filled to the lintels with any and everything, from writing ledgers and industrial pots of paint to loose tea and push-bikes. For each booth, add four or five barefoot salesmen within, and two shod ones, touting, without, and you have some idea of retail experience, Jaipur-style.
We saunter, hopelessly conspicuous, along the first row. At first, the shops seem like murky caves. Coming out of the white-hot sun, it’s difficult to see, on the shady side of the street. This is sewing-machine alley. They all look like the curvy black and gold Singer my Mum used to have, in another century, which could sew a perfect, even, straight stitch, better than any computer-on-board-do-you -want-a-row-of-ducks-with-that modern contraption I’ve had since. It makes sense, given the dictates of local fashion. Some are loose for inspection, being flicked with a rag. Others are mummified in swathes of plastic, against the dust. Every other shop’s a pots-and-pans store. The goods are stacked in diminishing size, in towers taller than me, like stainless steel Matrioshka dolls. The salesmen don’t even get up from the floor, to tempt us in. Evidently, we don’t look like we’re in the market for a sewing-machine, or a pressure-cooker. It’s as close to invisibility as we’re going to get, today.
The next street’s seething with colour. Sari-shops. You have to peep past the dazzling curtain of sequinned chiffon, to see the rainbow of fabrics lining the walls inside. The floor’s spread with sheeting, and customers sit on cushions, tell-tale flip-flops parked at the threshold, as the sari-wallah unravels bolt after bolt around them, in gleaming heaps. I’d love to linger longer, but the sales-pressure’s overwhelming, and it’s all we can do, to tear ourselves away. “Later,” I say, “we’ll come back, later.” “Promise?” “Promise.” We’re allowed to pass, unmolested. Diana says, she hopes God will forgive me for telling lies – but it’s Ganesh, who’s the remover of obstacles, isn’t it?
We pass the shoe-seller, with his racks of would-be Adidas trainers, and curly-toed camel-skin slippers, and the paan-man, soaking betel leaves in water, and the drink-seller, crushing ten-foot lengths of sugar cane into sweet pulp. Interspersed among the tourist tat, honest-to-goodness everyday shops for the Jaipur housewife: laundrymen alternating hot irons for cold, straight off the stove; dyers, dropping lengths of white cotton into hissing vats of boiling pink or green, on the pavement; and the iceman, hacking bricks from huge blocks of ice, to crush in a hand-grinder. Gunsmiths, locksmiths, cobblers.
“Look at the spices!” Diana says. The man in front of me says, “Is no spices. Is tobacco.” Loose shards, in mountains, on the counter. Now we don’t need introducing, he invites us to his off-street silversmithy, but we don’t go. Later, maybe... “Look at the tobacco!” Diana says, with new wisdom, two yards further on.


On the pavement, a man’s making a necklace, feeding beads onto a thread hooked round his big toe. The flower-seller sits on his stall, threading blossoms. We take his picture. We’re charmed. He’s charmed. We’re all charmed. He gives us each a rose. The perfume-seller next door paints our wrists with patchouli, jasmine, lotus and amber. We smell like a brothel. We smell what I think a brothel might smell like, I mean. On squares of grubby cloth, in front of the spice-stall, piles of graded chillis, red and brown. A whole booth, full of wedding turbans for the groom’s men. Then another. And another.
What we need, is a little cafe, where we can sit under a parasol, and watch the world go by, drinking it all in. What we’ve got, is the chai-wallah, rinsing smeary glasses in cold milky water, in an aluminium bowl, in the gutter. We head for home, intoxicated, exhausted, and drink tepid bottled water, instead, at Cafe Sanjay, the boot of his car. “You like Jaipur shop?” he asks. “Yes,” we say, “we like.”

Jaipur, the Pink City - Golden Triangle 6

The Pink City’s a lot more robust than you’d suppose. It’s not Barbie-pink, it’s salmon - and it’s our fault, anyway. When the Prince of Wales came to visit Jaipur, in 1853, they painted the whole city pink, to welcome him, and it’s been the model of urban monochromy ever since. The salmon stucco’s meant to resemble sandstone, in keeping with native geology. There’s a sprinkling of rebel blue houses about – you have to admire their spirit – but I don’t think the local B&Q does much trade in green or purple paint, for example.
Our guide for the day, Mr Kumar, takes us to cut our touristic teeth on a temple to my friend Ganesh, then on for a whistle-stop at Hawa Mahal, the Wind Palace, inspiration for many a Disney confection. It has no less than nine hundred and fifty-three latticed windows, with screened balconies, so that royal ladies and their entourage, in purdah, could observe without being observed. This excessive fenestration also permitted the free circulation of air, to keep the palace cool on hot summer days.

Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, is the first planned city of India, but don’t be thinking, Milton Keynes. Don’t be thinking, New Delhi, either, though. Just up the hill, former capital, Old Jaipur, was abandoned two centuries ago, since the population was expanding, but the water supply wasn’t. Today, a few hundred people still live in Old Jaipur, the Black City. Modern houses nestle up to ancient monuments, in a very familiar manner, and building work – rendering, mortaring, brick-laying – goes on daily, just like in Mumbai.
The current Maharajah of Jaipur, Sawai Bhawani Singh Bahadur, lives with his second wife at the City Palace, in the middle of the pink bit. He’s something of an entrepreneur, so most of the palace is open to visitors. In fact, for an extra 2,500 rupees, all of it is. The official town residence of the royal family is the creamy bit upstairs - two flags flying, means they're at home.

The Maharajah and Wife II have adopted his grandson, Kumar Padmanabh Singh, son of his only daughter by Wife I, as official heir. Grandpa’s in his seventies, Wife II and daughter are in their thirties. Our own Mr Kumar watches my chin hit the dusty floor. “He very old, but he very rich. For wife, old is no problem.” Couldn’t have put it better, myself.
At the gates of the City Palace, a snake-charmer lurks in wait for gullible tourists. At our approach, he whips the lid off his basket, and starts tootling on his pungi. The hooded snake wiggles upright, then patently loses all interest, and flops back into his basket, bored. In fairness, it’s very hot, and none of us feel like dancing, either...The charmer pauses in his charming, and gives the snake a smack on the nose, to buck up its ideas, but by now, we’re over the hills and far away.

Mr Kumar takes guiding very seriously, and won’t tolerate inattention. When Diana strays off, to take an unscheduled photo, he breaks off his monologue mid-syllable, never mind reaching the nearest comma. “Come here, Boss. Listen. This very important. I explain very interesting.” What can you do? So, we go through all of the Maharajahs of Jaipur, one at a time. I’m pleased to say, there are seventeen of them. We look at their clothes, their paintings, their drinking vessels, their elephant-harnesses, their polo outfits, leaving no peacock feather unturned. After an hour and a half, we’re fairly maharajahed-out, but no-one could see Madho Singh the First’s pyjamas and remain unmoved. “This one, big as small elephant,” says Mr Kumar, patting his own modest paunch. Seven foot tall and four wide, Madho was obviously no stranger to the pleasures of the table. “Madho Singh big wine-drinker,” says Mr K, jerking his thumb towards his mouth, with a sneer. “Drink wine, no brain. He only rule seventeen years.” Pathetic...
We drag our thoughts away from such wanton destruction of little grey cells, and move on to the largest stone observatory in the world, the Jantar Mantar, built by the founder of Jaipur, Jai Singh II, in 1727. Don’t ask me anything about it, though, because at this point I stop listening. To be honest, I nearly stop breathing too. Maharajah Gower and Maharajah Stott are fairly riveted, in a show-off boyish manner, but I suspect they’re faking it, knowing that Diana and I are bound to start clamouring for a sit-down with a chapatti, some time soon. How right they are.
You can’t have a thirst for knowledge, when you have just got a thirst, full stop. Lunch restores our fluid/thermal/interest levels to something like normal, so we can countenance more culture – Old Jaipur, in fact.

Here, we visit the Amber Palace and Jaigarh Fort. Mr Kumar airily swats a brace of small Indian persons out of the way, so we can enjoy the Hall of Mirrors unimpeded. This is not to do with an entertaining succession of hysterically distorted versions of yourself, à la Blackpool Pier – it’s an exquisite mosaic of tiny mirror tiles laid into marble. We see Mr & Mrs Raja Jai Singh’s summer and winter bedrooms, with their ingenious 16th century aircon system (it’s about pulleys, ask Roland), and their elephant park (not a free-range enclosure for pets, it’s where they used to park their elephants...), and the massive cooking-pots used for entertaining thousands of festival guests – a ton of rice in one, a ton of fish curry in the other. The palace should be reflected in the lake at its feet, but they haven’t had any rain since 2003, so we have to imagine it, in the dust.
Later, we drop off Mr Kumar, to get his bus home. “Next year, you marriage son,” he says to me, by way of farewell. He's aghast to discover we have a hat-trick of decrepit sons, all unwed. “Then tell son, come Jaipur for honeymoon.”