Udaipur - Day One

“Family Trip-once a year” could not take off in 2008 due to various factors, prime factor being repeated terror attacks. Mumbai was also on our list but the plan was abandoned and again Rajasthan, owing to its proximity, became our destination. We had missed udaipur in 2006 and so udaipur it was this time. Bala consulted the tourist bible “Lonely Planet” and framed a suitable and flexible itinerary from 19th to 22 february.

However, owing to folks getting sick, we were never sure as to whether tour would take off and no official word came from my doctor aunt approving the tour. Bala and I presumed that silence is acceptance. The official word came on the 17th, a day before we were to board the train, that we were indeed going. Grandma was entrusted to the care of my Uncles. The mewar express connected delhi and udaipur. I descended at the station from my office and others came in batches.

The train was shunted in at platform no. 7 and I and my mom first boarded the compartment and pushed the luggage comfortably. The rest trudged in and my doctor aunt heaved a sign of relief and said, “finally we have made it”. Some chit-chat continued regarding my job offer at mumbai which certainly put my mind off. I postponed the issue and me and bala sat down, armed with lonely planet, to finalize the itinerary as mewar express rolled out 15 minutes late. My mom also a had a book which listed many other places near udaipur and emerged lord Srinath of nathdwara and suddenly the tour became a temple tour. Me and bala debated chittorgarh versus jaisamand and left the issue undecided. Meanwhile another issue cropped up; bala had arranged for car at Rs. 1100/- per day using some jugaad and my doctor aunt debated on the merits of availing the car on all the days. Rs. 1100/- was very cheap and it was decided to avail the car. Things finally settled and temples were earmarked for the day one. One obstacle remained to be met; the ticket checker. Not that we were ticket-less but bala, to get lower berth, had made up my dad’s age 60 instead of 58. And my dad was in full mood to blurt out the truth and pay the difference amount. One thing that worked to our advantage was that our seats were split, three at one end of the coach and three at the other end. However, the tt did not even went into the details and contended himself by checking the id of bala.

Folks went on tea-drinking spree and I learnt that dinner would be served. My mom had made pooris, chapattis and tomato chutney and my aunt had packed curd rice. And I received a dose from my mom for informing her earlier that there was no pantry car. Anyways, we gobbled down the food. Mathura peda was served for sweet and then the prasadam followed in the form of various medicines for cold and cough. Seat allotment followed; I am sure the political parties do it quicker.

Bala and me settled at his upper berth for some chit-chat. And it was a long chit-chat till 1 am. We went down our memory lane; 2008 trips, 2006 trip of rajasthan and 2007 trip of maharashtra. And then we touched upon the topic of marriage, arranged marriage vis-à-vis love, scarcity of iyengar girls, how and where to find them in delhi, how to decide whether she is the one, time frame required to find out. Apparently bala is at number three, listed behind aswin and myself. But given aswin’s struggle, bala is a confused lot. Both aswin and bala want to spend some time to assess as to whether the girl being selected is the right one which time is not given in typical iyengarish encounter; once you are comfortable with education, family background, horrors matching and of course the appearance (which comes first in the list), then follows brief chit-chat and then the doom’s day. We debated objective and subjective criteria. A lot more was discussed…about his dream girl qualities-elegant like ‘Rock On’ heroine prachi desai, yet simple again like prachi…and yet be a trophy wife and intelligent as well.

The train arrived at udaipur almost 1 hour late. We hopped down and gunned for the kapi (coffee). Folks caw cawing for coffee was going to be a highlight. The marshall jeep was waiting for us with its driver roshan. Cutting across small by-lanes, we arrived at our hotel dreams heaven (courtesy lonely planet). Narrow and maze of stairs and arrows greeted us and we slowly trekked up to the roof-top to have our breakfast and another round of coffee. The roof-top offered us a great view of the lake or rather the dirty water and row of buildings. We were the only Indian population at the roof-top as I gazed at cigarette smoking firangs. My mon soon found out that the kitchen was not total vegetarian and the elders had the paranthas with some reservation and decided not to have breakfast at the roof-top. The rooms were allotted and we had our bath and trudged out.

A quick photo session with the marshall and we were on our way to nathdwara which is around 50 kms from udaipur. The first stop was the jain temple of shantinath (adbhutji mandir). A few steps and we had a quick darshan of the deity and did a quick photo shoot. The next stop was the saas bahu mandir, a five minutes drive from jain temple. This was supposed to be a vishnu temple, however, there were no deities in the sanctum and all that remained was the beautiful structure. The next stop was ekling ji-shiva temple. We had a very good darshan and the temple complex also has more than 100 deties. The next stop was nathdwara. We reached there around 3 pm and decided to have our lunch first. We chose lakshmi vilas, a small hotel and gunned for idlis and dosas. Then followed a round of coffee, chai for bala and I gladly skipped this session. Around 3:45 we were left in through the main gate and soon we were approached by touts for special darshan. We had to stand amidst unorganized mob and as soon as the doors opened, the crowd went berserk and we were swept into the main room where we had darshan of lord srinath. It was more of pushing and jostling inside amidst chants of srinath. We were keen to get away from the maddening crowd and we succeeded in getting away only after we received more incoming pushes. At another section, the priest dressed in parsee fashion administered a towel beatings to the devotees; a practice alien to hindu sect. I was not impressed with the crowd management and at a different level, I was not satisfied with the visit when I compare the ambience of the temple with srirangam. The temple structure in no way resembled a typical hindu structure; the color scheme, paintings, drawings depicting English soldiers etc. only suggests parsee/Iranian influence. Story goes that lord srinath was brought over to this place from mathura fearing persecution at the hands of aurangzeb. It seems sanctuary to the lord was given by some parsee/iranian so as to not to attract the moguls attention and thus practices from different culture have merged in daily worship scheme. I see no harm in this but in the end the crowd management put me off. A google search shows that pushthimarga sampradaya established by jagatguru vallabhacharya is followed. Subsequently my mom informed me that deity being kutti krishnar (Krishna as a child), the gates opened and closed every 15 minutes.


(At nathdwara)

(At saas bahu temple)

(At saas bahu temple)

(At jain temple)

With this, the temple section was over and we set out to haldighati where the battle between akbar’s force lead by man singh and rana pratap assisted by hakim khan took place. Chetak, the horse of maha rana emerged as the warrior since chetak, grievously injured, managed to save rana pratap by covering over 5 kms distance and jumping over a canal/river. Eventually the horse died and rana pratap moved by chetak’s courage resolved to lead simple life. The narrow road to haldighati is very picturesque, with ups and downs. Ours was the sole vehicle traveling on the road and even at the haldighati museum, there were few Indian tourists. Sound and light show and a small documentary on rana pratap was shown. Definitely a place to be. More about the war, click http://www.indhistory.com/haldighati.html


(At haldighati)
(At haldighati)



From haldighati, we dashed back to udaipur’s bagore ki haveli just in time for cultural dance named darohar (one hour program) showcasing different rajasthani dances like ghoomer etc. The best was the puppet show. The audience consisted of mainly foreigners. While showing the pics at home, my doctor aunt pulled our legs saying, “where are the dance pics? Both of you had gone to the front row to shoot the video. I know you had gone to sit besides the foreign female.” I answered back, “oh come on! She was an old lady. The best were on the opposite side.” Truly I saw some pretty faces in different attires. But the best was to come …

As far as dinner was concerned, combination of sickness, weariness, eating joints based at roof-tops catering non-veg too and use of mustard oil made us order rice and curd. Being a typical curd-rice case, I ought not to complain.