Jaisalmer and the Singing Sari Seller

March 2007

 

From Jodhpur, the ‘Blue City’, to Jaipur, the ‘Pink City’, and now finally to Jaisalmer, the ‘Golden City’.  And golden it is, not just because almost every building in the city is made of gold-coloured sandstone, but also because the sun is always shining here.  It’s the furthest west we’re planning to go on this trip, and it’s close enough to the border with Pakistan that a special permit is required for tourists and Indian nationals alike to go any further.  The Indian military has a large base near Jaisalmer, and on many of the days we are bombarded by the sound of jets taking off or landing, or screaming low overhead.  The jet noise seemed particularly incongruous here in Jaisalmer where cows are the primary pedestrians on the dirt and dung streets.  

 

There are so many cows in Jaisalmer that we’ve renamed it “cow town.”   Our hotel manager has warned us to give the Jaisalmer cows a wide berth: they’ve been known to butt people who get too close.  As it turned out his advice was not just good, it was potentially life-saving: we’ve just read and article in the Jaisalmer paper about a pushcart man who was killed by a cow: talk about workplace hazards!  This is the first time we’ve be warned about cows in India, which we’ve generally found to be very placid, not responding to honking cars, loud motorbikes or people brandishing sticks.  The cows in Jaisalmer, as in the rest of India, go where they want when they want, and lie down where they want, often right in the middle of the road. As India’s most sacred animal, they are the undisputed rulers of the road.  Indeed when we were coming here our tuk-tuk driver had to get out of his rickshaw to push and prod a cow that was lying in the middle of his path.  It refused to get up, despite the fact that the front wheel of the rickshaw was pressing into its flank.  (It did finally, and ever so slowly, arise and amble off...)

 

This tuk-tuk driver was not the one we had started out with at the train station.  It’s a bit of a long story... .  When we arrived at the station we found a tuk-tuk, bargained a fair fare to our hotel with the driver, and piled ourselves and our stuff in.  As we were just about to leave, a scruffy guy in a dirty white t-shirt and jeans, who looked like he had neither shaved nor washed in several days, commanded our tuk-tuk driver to stop, and demanded a 20 rupee “tourist tax” from each of us.  We figured this was yet another scam, and refused to pay, pointing out that he had neither uniform nor identification card to prove that he was carrying out any kind of official duty.  He didn’t even have a “ticket” or “receipt” to give us to show that we’d paid.  And in India, ‘chits’ are the done thing. 

 

Our refusal to pay angered him, and he began shouting and threatening us, saying that if we did not pay we could not enter Jaisalmer and would have to go back to the train.  The tuk-tuk driver, who seemed thoroughly cowed by this lout, agreed that we should pay.  With that we got out of the tuk-tuk and began removing our bags, saying we’d find another tuk-tuk, but we weren’t going to pay any “tourist tax” to a surly ununiformed bully.  The bully’s tune then changed, and he waved his hand in dismissal, saying “o.k., o.k., you go, you go.”  But by then I was angry enough that I had no intention of going with that tuk-tuk driver, who seemed to be in cahoots with the ‘tax-collector’.  I was already marching, with my bag, towards to the gaggle of tuk-tuks and taxis outside the station.  We had often found that tuk-tuks and taxis were much cheaper if we walked the few steps out of the train station.  As luck would have it,  I found a jeep belonging to our hotel, and piled my bags into it.  Doug joined me a few minutes later, and we were about to leave when I spied a police officer.  Angry bee that I was, I made a bee-line for him, and told him about the aggressive and threatening behaviour of the “tax collecting” lout.  The policeman listened politely, and when I pointed the miscreant out, went over and berated him in Hindi.  At least, that’s what it looked like he did... .

 

When we recounted our story to our hotel manager he told us that the city of Jaisalmer had, just three months ago, inaugurated this “tourist tax.”  This despite opposition from hotel owners and shop-keepers who, like us, felt that it was an unnecessary deterrent to tourism and that furthermore the city had done nothing to see to it that there was some official way of collecting and accounting for the tax.  For all anyone knew, most of the “taxes” collected went straight into the pockets of the loutish collectors.  Our hotel manager was happy we had refused to pay the tax, and hoped that more tourists would do so, although most of the ones we’ve talked to so far paid the ‘tax’ without thinking, as I am afraid the majority of tourists, everywhere in the world, are wont to do.  We’re such easy marks.

 

The Singing Sari-Seller

 

Group of tourists being shown Rajasthani bed covers

Jaisalmer is a beautiful city.  It is also a city chock full of tourist shops.  Most of the handicrafts sold in India are made in Rajasthan, and Jaisalmer seems to the place that many tourists come to buy them.  For their part, the shop-keepers work hard to garner their share of the tourist trade.  Walking down any street there’s a constant chorus of pleas: “come look my shop”, “why not coming into my shop”, “promise to come my shop after lunch.”  

For the most part we ignore them, but every once in a while there’s something that catches one of our sets of eyes, and we venture into a shop.  This is what happened when we were visiting the Golden Fort, where the most expensive tourist shops are located, and I spied an old doorway hung with brightly coloured scarves and shawls.  I stopped to take a closer look.  There is a very wide variation in the quality of items like this, and I could tell that these were good quality, beautifully woven, with interesting patterns, including some tie-dyed designs that I hadn’t seen before.

 

As I was fingering the merchandize, a little surprised that I was doing so unhounded by a shop-keeper,  a beautiful 30-ish year old woman came out and joined me.  She was much lower key than many shop-owners, and decidedly more charming, with a lovely smile.  After some time of admiring her shawls and scarves together, she did invite us to come into her shop.  It was jam packed with incredibly colourful (some even day-glow colours) saris, shawls and scarves.  And it was clearly also her home.  As is often done by shop-owners, she offered us tea.  They do this primarily, I believe, as a way of keeping potential buyers in their shop, perhaps partly as a way of indebting potential buyers to them (“but you drank my tea!”), but most likely, I believe, because tea is offered to all guests who enter Indian homes.  And how could we refus?  Amazingly, the tea was made and served by her husband, who she said was “fully supportive” of her and her business.  In India, and especially in Rajasthan, that made her a most unusual, and very lucky (or more likely smart) woman.

 

We sat and chatted with Sita for some time.  Her English was excellent.  She was university educated and had an MBA (a very popular degree here in India).  When she started her little shop she was selling saris to Indian women, but inevitably tourists stopped to look, and many of them bought saris.  She realized there was great potential – especially because her home, and her shop, were located in the Old Fort, a major tourist destination in Jaisalmer – and decided to take advantage of it.  

Sita encouraged other local women to make tie-dyed scarves and shawls which she would sell for them.  The response was rapid, and almost overwhelming.  The women of Jaisalmer soon filled her home with scarves and shawls, which sold quickly enough and well enough that most of them were well rewarded for their work.  And this extra income changed their lives, for the better.  Furthermore, they could do this work in their own homes, so neither their husbands nor their interfering relatives could object.  It was and is a true win-win for all.  Partly because of that, and partly because I liked and respected Sita so much, I did buy several scarves.  And I didn’t bargain for them.  I knew the money was going to a good cause, and I was happy to contribute.  

As we continued chatting, we found out that Sita’s real love was singing, and that both she and her husband were musicians.  He played the harmonium, as well as several other instruments.  She invited us to a musical evening at one of the temples in the fort where they would both be performing that night.  We promised we’d be there.  

 

So that night after dinner we went looking for the temple in the fort.  We asked for directions from several people, and wound up at a very small temple, in the fort, in which were gathered perhaps 20 people.  They were all sitting on the floor gazing at an inner chamber towards the front of the temple.  The chamber was very ornate, with much gold decoration.  In the chamber a ‘priest’ in a white t-shirt and dhoti (skirt) was swinging a little gold bed, filigreed and studded with gems, that was hanging from the ceiling by some gold chains. 

 

We couldn’t see anything in the little bed, but the ‘priest’ acted as though he was putting a very special baby to bed, singing and chanting to it, gazing lovingly at it, and swinging it more and more slowly as, presumably, it fell asleep.  At one point he covered the chamber portal with an old sheet, so we could no longer see what he was doing.  I expected, when he removed the sheet about ten minutes later, that we would see the idol or deity that was being put to bed.  But no: the bed was still empty.  The ‘priest’, his duty apparently done, then snuffed the candles, removed various bits and pieces of ceremonial paraphernalia from the chamber, and carefully closed the chamber doors.  As Doug later commented, what we had witnessed was a ceremony best described as “putting the dream to bed.”  

 

Much of Hinduism is illusion and chimera – one has to have faith, to believe in the illusion, in order to make sense of what is going on.  The group then sang a little, but by this time we had already realized that we were at the wrong temple.  Sita and her husband were nowhere to be seen, and no one was playing any musical instruments.  Still it was wonderful to watch this intimate little religious ritual, and to be included, at the end of it, in the distribution of sweets, which we ate, and sandal paste, which we spread on our foreheads and cheeks, enjoying both its aroma and its cooling sensation.  No one seemed the least bit perturbed by the presence of us foreigners, however Hindus do believe that everyone is a Hindu - some of us just don’t realize it yet!

 

Walking back down towards town from the fort, just before we reached the last of the seven gates in the fort, we heard the sound of amplified music and looked up to see a crowd of people sitting inside a much bigger temple, listening to the music.  Dropping our shoes at the entry, we wormed our way through the crowds and shoe-horned ourselves into a couple of spaces on the floor.  The audience was almost entirely Indian.  Sita was singing when we came in.  Her voice was rich and melodious.  

Sita had the wonderful ability to make the Indian religious songs, which often sound somewhat grating and off-key, instead sound melodious and sweet.  She spied us shortly after we arrived, and smiled and waved.  I was glad we had come, and very glad of the opportunity to hear her sing.  Following her song, several other women sang, accompanied by two harmonium players (one of them Sita’s husband), two drum players, and a few people banging tambourines and clashing symbols.  

We stayed and enjoyed the performance for perhaps two hours, at which point Sita sang another sweet song, which ended the performance.  We got back just in time for our 11 pm ‘curfew’ at the hotel.  After 11 they close the main gate.  We never did find out what would happen if we were late.