August 05, 2003
Tea
Towards the end of 1989, as part of what would probably be called a "gap year" these days, I was travelling in India with my then-boyfriend Guy.It was an election year, and for the first time since independence the Congress (I) party, long the dynastic party of government, was being seriously challenged by Hindu nationalists. Tensions ran high -- India has a complex ethnic and religious mix and many groups were threatened by the rise of nationalism -- and there had been a lot of communal violence: riots, mobs running amok, whole villages slaughtered.
It was in this period that the famously beautiful travellers' haven Kashmir, a bone of bitter contention between India and Pakistan, became pretty much off-limits to tourists, a condition that continues to this day. Our itinerary was vague at the best of times -- we arrived in Bombay at 3 in the morning on a one way ticket and then made it up as we went along, all sorts of wild plans coming and going -- but Kashmir had figured as a pretty clear destination of choice from the start and it was with great reluctance that, a month or maybe six weeks in, we realized we had to abandon it.
This decision was probably influenced by events in Jaipur shortly before. I say "probably" because it was all a long time ago and the exact sequence of events is blurry, but it would be surprising if it were not so.
Like Kashmir, Rajasthan is a bit of a tourist cliché. The western desert borders Pakistan, so it might be considered a potential troublespot, but on the other hand it is rich in colonial and pre-colonial history and exciting geography, and has plenty of great forts and palaces to which visitors are inevitably drawn. Following the Lonely Planet trail, we hung around in Udaipur listening to the constant slap-slap of the washerwomen toiling on the ghats, drank outrageously sweet, dense, hot, spiced (makhania? something like that, anyway) lassi in Jodhpur, watched vultures glide over the aforementioned forts and palaces, and trekked on camels out into the desert from the beautiful sandy-monochrome patchwork of Jaisalmer, sleeping under the stars, saddle-sore, unwashed and unshaven, swaddled in blankets to keep out the desert chill. It doesn't really matter that these things are hackneyed, that a million tourists have done them before and a million since, they were still exotic and exciting marvels -- even if the camel guides were boorish lechers who would make leering remarks about selling us the services of any female villagers we encountered.
Returning by interminable, filthy steam train, we wound up in Jaipur early one morning, our last stop before heading for Delhi to pick up mail from home and see a friend of Guy's who worked for some aspect of the British Foreign Office -- who was vaguely expecting us, though without any clear idea of when.
Before we left England, a Greek lesbian I'd been at college with had recommended a hotel in Jaipur -- the Bissau Palace -- converted from a former Maharajah's hunting lodge, where we could wallow in colonial luxury for some paltry sum of rupees. Up to that point we had stayed almost exclusively in accommodation that would struggle to merit the adjective "wretched" -- extremely cheap by our standards (it would no doubt have seemed outrageously expensive to locals) but functional at best, at worst grim. After 6 weeks of such arrangements, the reported decadence of the Bissau Palace was irresistible, and so we'd braved the vagaries of Indian telecommunications to make a reservation.
Fetched up by auto-rickshaw at maybe 8am, we staggered into the hotel, checked in, and took up residence in a room that was indeed fairly splendid. There was a stuffed tiger head on the wall, and a carved marble bathtub, and a huge double bed. The hotel had a roof terrace that looked out over the city, and was set in its own grounds, albeit rather tiny ones.
We were so happy to be there, that we weren't especially worried when they told us we couldn't leave.
There had been troubles of some kind -- the details were vague. Muslim extremists, or something. The city -- the old city, within whose walls the hotel was situated -- was under curfew. Under martial law. By lucky chance we had arrived during the two hour window for which the curfew was lifted, but now that window was closed. Because of the curfew, the hotel had almost no staff, and almost no food or drink, and almost no guests. There was just us, two young English men, travelling together, sharing a room with a stuffed tiger head, and a marble bath, and a large double bed.
Too bad, we thought. We would rather like to have gone sightseeing at some stage, but it's been a long journey, and we're tired and grubby, and if we have to spend the day hanging around in the lap of luxury, sipping tea on the roof terrace, reading, watching kites fly over the city and listening to automatic weapons fire in the distance, well, so be it. The manager rustled up some cheese pakoras. We sat, and read, and sipped.
The next day, it transpired, the curfew was to be lifted for four hours. No great hardship there. Plenty of time to go and have a look around and then be back in time for lunch. Eugenia (the Greek lesbian) and the Lonely Planet guidebook had recommended the Palace of the Winds, so we thought we'd take a stroll down to have a look.
The residents of Jaipur were obviously no more anxious to be stuck indoors than we were, and the streets were thronged. The shops were doing a brisk trade. True, there were soldiers armed with machine guns lined up on the roofs of all the buildings, but that didn't seem to be bothering anyone as we wandered down the main drag heading for the palace. As far as we could tell, it was business as usual.
And then there was a sort of ripple down the street; nothing you could really put your finger on, not like an alarm or a murmur, just a barely-perceptible shift. And the shops were no longer doing a brisk trade, the streets were no longer thronged. In moments, the shops were closed, shutters banging down left and right. The crowds disappeared -- it wasn't clear where. The street was deserted, all exits were shut off, and there we were. For a minute, nothing. Then a convoy of army trucks, heavily-armed soldiers hanging off their sides, poured past. Then they were gone. Guy and I waited, not exactly filled with confidence. And then, as quickly as they'd closed, the shutters opened again; as quickly as they'd vanished, the crowds returned. It was business as usual once more.
Shaken, we continued, but when we got to the Palace of the Winds it was closed, as we probably knew it would be. From the outside is was very pretty, but we were no longer in the mood for sightseeing, and gloomily headed back to our hotel. Perhaps, we decided, this wasn't really working out. Perhaps we should leave tomorrow.
The four-hour break in the curfew was apparently not a huge success. The details were vague -- Muslim extremists, or something. The next day, the curfew would remain in force all day. No-one was to leave their homes. We weren't to leave our hotel. By now, we were not so happy. We had experienced the delights of the hotel, and some of them were reasonably delightful, but they had their limits. There were still no staff. There was still no food. The manager rustled up some cheese pakoras. There was no hot water. We remonstrated, he was placatory, but what could he do? The curfew would not be lifted. We could not leave.
But -- and I have no idea how this "but" came about -- but, tomorrow the local military commander would come to visit us, for tea. We would discuss our situation. He would be sympathetic, surely. We should talk to him. Be hospitable. He was a powerful man, perhaps he might help.
Hmmm.
We were the only guests. Two young English men, sharing a room, with a stuffed tiger head, and a marble bath, and a double bed. Two men. A double bed. In a country where homosexuality is illegal. The local commander of a city under martial law (and, as it turned out, his deputy) was coming to visit us. To hold court. To drink tea. A man in charge of thousands of troops. A man with, one would think, a lot on his mind.
To visit us.
