Fort Festivities

So, time to reveal, for those of you who don't already know, the exciting thing that I am involved with in Jodhpur. My trip has been leading up to something, I knew that soon this state of constantly learning and adapting would, and should, be put into practice. In a way India itself was this challenge, but as happens so often with challenges once you start to tackle it you realise that you can push yourself just a little bit further. Now Jodhpur offers me that chance to push myself and luckily in a direction that is equally as enjoyable as challenging. 

I arrived in Jodhpur late and was greeted by another bustling town and Sharon, the woman who I would be staying with and Hanawant, her husbands best friend. Sharon was immediately friendly, talkative and welcoming and the worries I had had travelling on the train vanished. We drove through the town and out, through the army bases, to a housing estate where their cosy house was. At the house I met Govind, Sharon's husband, who has the most amazing moustache and a cheeky grin. Before bed we had some delicious home made meat curry. I very quickly realised that I was going to like it here.

Sharon and Govind both work to organise a festival called Jodhpur RIFF, an international folk festival held in the magnificent fort in the city (it's actually how they met) and this was the reason I was in Jodhpur. Months ago, I contacted the festival director and generally great guy, Divya, about helping out at the festival. I had met Divya two years ago on my first trip to India when I had been facilitating various applied theatre projects in Mumbai with a group from university. He had been the organiser and an expert for that project and while we were there he had mentioned RIFF. I have been dying to be involved since then. He was the one who had organised for me to stay with Govind and Sharon for my first few days in Jodhpur.

 My first full day with them was a relaxed one. I stayed in the house most of the day and started doing a bit of paperwork for the festival with regular breaks to eat amazing home made food. I learnt that Sharon was originally from Mumbai and so she found some of the Rajasthani traditions just as strange as I did. Her and Govind come from completely different backgrounds (Govind actually grew up in a small two room house inside the fort) and so they are a proper modern day Romeo and Juliet. That day, the 13th of October, was also the start of Navrati, a 9 day Hindu festival, so Govind and Hanawant were fasting during the day.

The next day it was time for me to explore the town of Jodhpur a bit more. I spent the first half of the day in the house waiting for the temperature to get cooler before going out. In the afternoon I took a tuk tuk to see the sights. The first stop was the palace which was just beautiful. You can walk around an area of the building which has been converted into a museum but the rest of this huge place was a luxury hotel and the private residence of the king of Jodhpur and his family. Walking around the museum just made me want to see inside the hotel, but there was no way I was passing for a distinguished guest (staying there is definitely on the bucket list now though). Next the tuk tuk took me to Jaswant Thada, a beautiful palace which is often called the Taj of Jodhpur. 

It is made entirely of white marble and, like so much old Indian arcitecture, was very intricately decorated. From the temple you can have a wonderful panorama of the city and the giant fort looking over it all. After this I walked to the Rao Jodha Desert Park, a recently renovated park which showcases flora and fauna found in Rajasthan. I had a guide lead me around the park where we had a gorgeous view of the fort and he pointed out various birds and plants to me. 

After the walk I made my way up and through the fort to get to the famous Blue City of Jodhpur. I marvelled at it as I passed through its huge spiked gates and looked up at what looked like an endless structure with arched windows and balconies on every side. What made this walk even more exciting was that, during the festival and just before, I would be living inside the fort! But we will get to that later. I zig zagged down the steep descent into the Blue City and instantly saw where it gets its name from. Most of the houses there are painted in a brilliant bright blue. There are many supposed reasons for this tradition. Some say it is because it is the colour of Vishnu, other say it keeps the houses cool, or even that the colour deters mosquitos, whatever the reason it makes for a really striking setting. I walked through the thin streets admiring the old blue buildings either side. The people of the town were draining the lake to clean it and so the street I was walking on had tirned into a shallow waterfall. 

Govind had arranged for me to meet a friend of his who owned a guesthouse in one of the old blue havelis. He found me and we walked to his house. On the way we passed a square which had been decorated with lights and coloured powder for the Navarti celebrations and would play host to a religious ceremony and dance every night for the festivals duration. We reached the house and he took me straight up to his roof which offered the most spectacular view of the city and the fort. We sat up on the roof for a while admiring the surroundings and I had another one of those 'wow, life is amazing' moments as I watched the sky darken, the lights of the city and the fort appear and heard the mantras being chanted from the nearby temple. 

We went and sat down in his living room and his wife made us chai and biscuits. The house was over 400 years old but still stands very strong and looks well looked-after and loved. He explained that the people of ten town repaint their house every year just before Diwali and told me how the house had been passed down from generation to generation. 

I caught a tuk tuk back to Sharon and Govinds and met Yash, another one of their friends working on the festival. Yash and I decided to go to the local Garba dancing event and talked about our experiences of south east Asia on the way, as he had also travelled there. Garba is a form of dance used to celebrate the festival and involves two sticks which the dancers hit against eachothers as they spin and dance. It reminded me a bit of morris dancing, expect it looked less silly. While we were watching, one of the young girls came up to us and asked if I wanted to dance with them. Well that was an offer I couldn't refuse. I was given my own pair of sticks and tried my best to copy the moves of the girls and we spun round in circles and kept rhythm with the beats. It was really special to be invited to take part in something like that and I enjoy it a lot (even though I almost certainly embarassed myself in front of a whole neighbourhood). We had an absoutely delicious daal for dinner that night, I LOVE INDIAN FOOD. 

The next day was just another day relaxing at the house and eating more awesome food. The next day it was my turn to make breakfast so I made some pancakes for everyone which I think everyone enjoyed. That day was exciting, and not just because we had pancakes, it was the day we were moving to the fort. We packed up all our stuff and jumped in the car. We got to the fort after sunset and it was lit up with golden lights and looked even more magical than before. I was shown to my home, and my jaw hit the floor. The room was just incredible. All the windows had views of the blue city, the bed was super comfy, the air con worked, I had my own desk and wardrobe and the bathroom...oh my god, the bathroom! It had a huge shower head fixed right in the middle of the ceiling and a circular window looking out onto the buildings below, so you felt like a king every time you took a shower.

I had this room all to myself until the 21st when more people were going to be arriving. I spent quite a long time accustoming myself to my new surroundings, which mainly meant me running around my room excitedly and looking out of the window wide-eyed and practically drooling.

The following morning, after a king shower, I went to explore the fort, or should I say, my house. The accomodation area we were staying in, called Scholars Retreat, was only a very small part of the huge fort. I took an audio guided tour around the main parts, including many beautiful courtyards, stained glass windowed rooms, temples and museums. The main part of the tour which really sticks in my memory are the widows handprints. On the wall past the final gate into the fort there are some handprints on the wall.

The story behind them is this. When the King of Mahran (the name used to describe the area surrounding Jodhpur, literally meaning land of death) died it was customary for the wives of the king to walk up to the fort placing their hands on this point of the wall before all joining their husbands body on the funeral pyre in a ritual called Sati. It struck me how something so gruesome could have happened somewhere so beautiful. I also learnt that legend has it that a hermit, called the bird king, lived on the rock and when the king built the fort there the hermit cursed it, saying that there will always be a shortage of water for the fort, which made me feel a bit guilty about my luxiourious shower earlier.

Later that afternoon Divya arrived and after a catch up he invited me to come with him and Govind to a meeting at the very very nice partner hotel. Afterwards, we went for some great Thali for dinner (Thali is a plate of various dishes each in a small bowl) in a restaurant called Gypsy in town.

The next morning I met with Divya and Govind for breakfast and had a great conversation with Divya about what I have leant and how my mind set has changed during my travels and how it can be put into practice when I get home. Over breakfast Divya and Govind told me about the accident that had happened in the fort in 2008. During the 9 day festival people come to the temple in the fort as a pilgrimage and that year they had thousands of people inside the fort. No one is sure what happened, a chair may have fallen over or someone may have dropped something but people started to panick thinking that it was gun fire. There was a huge rush and more than 200 people died. I was shocked I hadn't heard about this tragedy, especially as it had taken place just before RIFF was scheduled to start. They had cancelled the festival that year out of respect and now the fort takes extra precaution when handling the groups who visit. Divya and Govind both said they had noticed a large decrease in the amount of people coming here since then.

That afternoon I relaxed witn Sharon and she took me to go and watch the huge kite birds being fed. This happens every day at about 3:30pm but it's not public knowledge. Remember the hermit that had lived on the rock? Well, he also said that the day the kites stop flying over the fort, Jodhpur will crumble, so the same family have been feeding the birds for generations and generations. We walked up to the roof and waited, suddenly the sky became full of the birds, you could see them searching their surrounding with their beady eyes as they so gracefully glided overhead. When the man who feeds them arrived we knew because the birds suddenly started flying really low. He placed the bucket full of meat on the side and started to throw the meat into the air. The birds showed their skill by swooping and catching every last piece, sometimes one would miss a piece only for another to zoom below and catch it. It was exhilarating to watch, there must have been about 200 birds in total and they are BIG. 

The next day, after doing some paperwork, Sharon and I went shoppppiiinnngggg! I needed to get some long tops so that I would look smart while working on the festival, after Divya noticed that my clothes were all 'well-travelled'. We went to a shop called FabIndia and I bought two, one black and one with a pretty orange, black and white pattern. Next we went into Anokhi. This brand is famous world wide for its use of handprinted traditionally inspired patterns and quality material. The founders of the company John and Faith Singh are also the patrons of Jodhpur RIFF festival. We went in just to marvel at the clothes and bed spreads and I was not expecting to be able to afford anything but, there was a sale on and I got an amazing blue printed cotton shirt for £3.50! Tired out from our shopping we grabbed some food on the way back and sat in Sharon's room talking about the festival, and eating with Govind, Divya and Hanawant.

I worked some more on the paperwork the next day and more and more people started to arrive which made me feel gradually more and more excited to get started. Among the people I met were Kanupriya, the festival manager, Neiha, who has been working at RIFF for a number of years and gets leave from her work just to come and volunteer and Mana, who works with the collaborations between Rajasthani and international artists. The following day was another day working on sheets as well as eating an especially delicious lunch and going to watch the birds being fed again where I met some sassy little girls who live in the fort and had a lot of fun messing around with my GoPro.

On the 22nd and 23rd more people arrived, I no longer had the room to myself and I used the day to do some last minute paperwork and sign making. The evening of the 23rd was the opening concert of the festival and we all got into cars to go to the clock tower in town. Entry to this event was free so lots of local people were there as well as the festival pass holders. 

There were various acts performing including folk musicians, fire eaters, male dancers dressed as beautiful women and elderly dancers, who were just adorable. When the concert was finished we came back to the fort, ate and went to Sharons room, which apparently is always the social room, and had some drinks with a number of team members.

The first full day of the festival was wonderful. It began, for me, with an interactive session about percussion instruments of Rajasthan. Rajasthani musicians were there playing and explaining their instruments and the whole session was held in a tent in the lush gardens at the bottom of the fort. After that I ran all the way back up the fort (not an easy task) to set up and run a screening of a film called Their Last Weapon about one of the folk master musicians who would be playing later that day. I introduced the director and the film and ran a Q&A after the film had ended, which seems like a small thing but I felt pretty proud afterwards (got to start somewhere). Later on I went to watch the Living Legends performance as the sun set, the moon came out and hundreds of little birds flew and sang around us.

That evening I went to the main stage performance which ended with an amazing set from a Scottish folk band called Shooglenifty who did an amazing collaboration with a group of Rajasthani Manganiyar musicians. That night there was the club event at the partner hotel and we danced energetically to a set by Maga Bo until early the next morning. 

The interactive session the next day was focused on the younger generations of Rajasthani folk musicians and how the craft is passed down through the generations. The kids were so cute, their voices were amazing and some of them had these brilliant bright green eyes. There was also an elder with a bright orange henna-ed moustache that I very much approved of.

I hosted another film screening that afternoon of a film called Songs of Mashangva, which is set in north eastern India where the landscape, culture and even the way people look, is very different to Rajasthan. It followed a musician who was trying to save the folk music that was quickly being forgotten in an area effected heavily by western influence. After that I went and had a snooze in the room to try and catch up on some sleep before relaxing in Sharon's room and then going to the main stage where two grammy award winners, Yossi Fine, a incredible bassist, and Wouter Kellerman who won the grammy for new age music with his South African band, played. That night the event was Desert Lounge. The audience was invited to walk into Rao Jodha Desert Park and we sat and listened to acoustic music lit by the light of the crescent moon and with the backdrop of the fort lit up with gold. Such an unforgettable moment.

The final day of the festival began with an interactive session with camel herders of Rajasthan. There were no actual camels there but it was really eye-opening hearing about these peoples culture and traditions, something that is so seperate to my life. 

There was something about being in their presence, hearing their music and their stories that once again reminded me what a big world it is. Unfortunately, the world seems to be getting smaller and their way of life, like so many traditional communities is beginning to crumble. The need for camels has drastically decreased in recent years and a lot of their community has been forced to move to find work. On a positive note, there is an organisation working with the herders to start an annual camel festival to showcase the many products that can be yelded from the camel. The herders believe they are decendants of a man created by the gods to look after camels, so they treat the camel well and until recently have centred their whole lives around them. You could tell they were not used to performing publicly, their music normally used in private social occasions or to pass the time as the camels graze. They sat on stage lighting cigarettes, chatting and drinking camel milk from cups made from leaves, but I think this added to the performance. Their music was simple but the audience was almost hypnotised by it. At one point one of the herders showed us how he tied his huge, 10m long turban which stretched from one end of the tent to the other and impressed us all with his speed.

It is amazing that this festival can help educate and hopefully preserve some of these traditions. Obviously, people and communities have to change, they have been doing so since the human race began, but, and I have only fully realised this through the festival, it is so important that we help to continue these cultures which have exsisted for so long and help maintain the diversity of people into the future. What a shame it would be if it all disappeared. 

That afternoon there was no film screening so I had some tasty lunch and relaxed in the room with Neiha. The main stage performances that evening were phenomenal, starting with Sumitra, a famous Rajasthani singer who performs poetic songs with her incredible voice. There were two reggae/ska acts next, one from Delhi, The Ska Venger who brought a LOT of energy onto the stage and Papa Julius and Zion Nexus who absolutely smashed it. The performances finished with a 37 musician Mangaiyar musicians performing, including some of the children who had been at the interactive session the day before. Ghe grand finale was a performance called RIFF Rustle where a variety of the artists who had played during the festival had a jamming session late into the night. I absolutely crashed after that, barely being able to keep my eyes open by the end of the night.

And now I am sat in bed, slowly recuperating from the last few days. I can't imagine how tired the other people working at the festival must be, I barely had any work to do compared with them. Today is a rest day in the fort before I go with Govind, Sharon and a couple of others to visit Pushkar and relax for a couple of days before we part ways. 

Being involved with this festival, I can safely say, has been a huge hightlight of my trip. It is such an amazing project to be part of, even in a small way, and has taught me a lot about the history and cultures of the area I am in, something that I think a lot of people miss out on. I have enjoyed being given jobs to do and learninf about what goes into organising a fetsival and this has made me less nervous about getting a job when I return (ahhh, real life!). Most of all though, I have met some awesome people who have worked so hard to make this festival happen and have been so welcoming to a clueless British girl who can't soeak Hindi. Thank you. Atcha Batcha.

So there we have it, my time in Jodhpur has nearly come to an end and I will have to say a sad goodbye to my princess fort. Time to get myself ready for guesthouses and travelling again as I explore more of this fantastic country.

Thanks for reading

Emma x