All posts filed under: rajasthan

Brahma Calls To Pushkar: Travelling with Parents to Man Mahal and other stories: An Ode To Photographic February

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Something unlikely happened in February. I wrote a letter for the first time, to send it far away; away across the seven seas wishing someone love, birthday wishes and health. And subtly felt that I should start doing it more often. Through writing at least, making unknown known, to the people who are close but far, sending Postcards to you. As it would be great to support our age old Letter/Postal services to keep working in this digital world.  As it was also the birth month of my Mother. I kept planning that my parent’s travel, somewhere they had never been to. More so when they are more like Pilgrims than tourists, so wherever they can find a calling connection with the local lord, a deity of a city, a region; they go there happily. And that high of happiness had eluded them for the longest time. Much before the Virus locked our gates. The orders had come to open the schools. Ma and I had already started planning the opening of our school. We …

When a wedding arrived Magically in Rajasthan

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It was a time of peerless freedom. I was a young Yogi travelling with a backpack, pen, diary and a camera travelling through villages, walking on the mud roads of rural India, in search of stories. I had just finished a two-day assignment for an Indian magazine, documenting the popular cattle fair that took place around the ancient temple site of Pushkar. And while at it I had learnt that after this fair in the ancient city of Brahma, the camels will travel for weeks on road through the desert and forests, crossing the oldest hill range on earth, the Aravalli to take part in another fair, hundreds of miles down the western coast in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. I wanted to find that route and travel with them, with the camel tribes documenting, and writing about this beautiful, unusual journey. But on my way, I couldn’t find any transport, which could have taken me to the state highway, from where I could find the travelling camels. It was night and I had …

One night at the Indo-Pakistan border

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As Corona and the bats are the rhetoric of the year, i remember one night that came and crossed all expectations of mysticism and fear that will always go together, found me at the lonely town of Rajasthan with Pakistan. – The day was done by the noontime. After a whole day of chasing a manganiyar singer, I finished my interview with an old tribal song as i requested Veeru’s great grandfather who sat under a neem tree looking up at a bird. I left Veeru’s beautiful white wall, red lined home in a hurry. I was leaving for Tanot, barely even a town, 120 kilometres away from Jaisalmer towards Longewala- and visit Tanot temple situated right at the border of India and Pakistan. I rented a Suzuki bike for three days. and left for the wilderness. It was all fine till a point but after Ramgarh, the road transformed into something like riding a snake. A snake slithering across, passing through the dunes of the oldest Asian Desert, that has forgetton the horizon between the …

The Great Indian HitchHike to Remember

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I could well be passing my worst night. I had missed my fastest express to home, and was barely left with enough money to buy tickets again. Evening was around, I decided to reach the highway and do what i had never done. I started asking passing by truck drivers for a lift. As time passed and no one stopped, uneasiness was creeping in. I hadn’t done anything like it before. But I kept telling myself that if nobody stops I will rest at a temple or the next dhaba i may find. After a considerable time suddenly a big truck passed and seemingly started slowing down. It must have stopped 100 meters ahead. I ran. It looked strange at first sight for such a big thing stopping, for me!! It was a sixteen-wheeler trolley. Empty. I got in. There was only one small, frail person, the driver sitting. He was lanky, and looked too young to be driving anything like this. Also he looked grim, bit sad and may be in shock. Apart from …

LAST FLIGHT OF AN OWL

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She kept looking towards the sky while floating in the water kept for cows. Her death seemed such that at one time I felt she chose it.   But do birds more so when one is a predator choose their own death?   When Maharaj ji arrived, he first closed his eyes. May be she needed someone to close her eyes before it could be plucked out by hungry ones. May be he earned this burial. To only put a stop to this cycle. May his body rests and the spirit awakens. Aum Shanti In Photos 1  

Mangla and her magical milk

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Mangla’s milk has been the best thing to happen in this sea ashram. But today even before I could taste it, Logar brought Papaya for the first time and we prepared shake for every one. I closed the dhuni myself today when Maharaj ji retired after keeping the planets outside out of rat fear. He seemed tired. We called different goddesses around sunset and went outside the premises along the foothills to buy rabbits for Gayatri. Later when we came back, Manavendra was sitting on his horse called gambler over the Thorn hill. For the night we were invited to a home where several varieties of food was being prepared. When we reached, a woman whose face I forgot as soon I met her as i kept looking only at her nose pin. She told me my caste, and while drinking the papaya shake left from the morning, asked me to slow down. Me? When i woke up in the night even though i didn’t have to, a man was seen going away from me …

The neem Tree

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Its time to sleep. And Logar starts beating the drum again tonight. May be he does it for mangla, the cow. But then there is no need for that. Or may be to warm himself up. It is cold. Or most probably and i feel this could be the reason, to keep Jacky, the panther away from the cows. Its windy. Neem tree under which we sleep showers its old leaves on us all night. In the morning we went towards the field and started digging. The mud that we got was put into a copper plate and then was under the same tree. On it we placed a copper snake and twelve different coloured stones in the direction of the water. Maharaj went to the temple on the mountain. I, and the guy whose dream is to mine a mountain started putting the clay in the direction of the planet’s movement. But they wobble. Even though the energy is needed to pour in them, the vital breath but we shall see tomorrow when maharaj …

Arrival of the ancient mountains

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In the night a train came. In it was an engine sleeping above Maharaj. So loud was his snore that I started going from bed to bed but to only kept get up enquiry after enquiry. In the morning as the sun rose, Aravalis were seen passing. Winters seemed gone, the moment I poured ground water on my head at four in the morning in February. A mountain starts from behind the ashram. And holds in him a panther they call Jacky. Jacky is popular and so much that he has come in the premises for if the cows go munching in the night. Me and Maharaj went to the Hinglaj temple and sang songs for two hours after we had food. I saw mangla while coming down and went near her to comb her stomach. During that time I learnt few new things about shukra and shiva, Shani and Vikramaditya. There is one Banayan, one neem, a library and enough blankets under the open sky. Rathore’s Kuladevi is Mata Nageahwari. Lights are out but …