In Udaipur we had the good fortune to stumble upon the opening night of a production of Shakespeare's The 12th Night which was performed by the Out of Cocoon Theatre Company, a drama company set up by a Czech ex-pat named Jarka Heller who decided to leave her teaching post at Oxford and bring some culture to Udaipur. As our friend Piers Helsin put it, Udaipur is like someone who is so beautiful that they don't need a personality. Lucky for Udaipur, I think Jarka has enough personality to colorize the otherwise culturally monochromatic town. Anyway, as the play continued and gained momentum other cities in Rajasthan requested performances as well so the closing night was to be in Jodhpur at the fort on the night we arrived in town. After the performance we had dinner and tipped a few with the actors. A really fun and extremely talented group of people, I wish each of them tremendous success.

The next morning we beseiged the castle for the audio tour. I know it sounds geeky, but this was a really good one. And the guy's voice was like a 1930's radio show VO. You'd get lost in the tales conjured up by the imagery mixed with his voice. I gotta say these Maharaja's knew how to flaunt. We saw the royal meeting room, bedroom, dressing room, powder room, "entertainment" room, weapon room, baby room, and it seemed like every single wall, door, toilet, gun, sword, projectile launcher, basically anything you could imagine, was meticulously encrusted with semi-precious stones. Much of the actual castle walls were made of huge painstakingly hand carved sandstone panels. One frightening, yet amazing thing we'd learned about was jauhar. When a fort was under siege and and defeat was eminant and before the men rode out to certain death, the women would dress as if they were going to their own wedding. Their hair would be oiled, their bodies perfumed, they would be heavily bejeweled and their children dressed in finest of gold threaded royal outfits. A procession of drums would lead them towards the fort gates where they would dip their hands in red dye and leave their mark on the inner wall before passing. As the drummers rounded the front of castle the royals would say a group prayer and stoically throw themselves onto a burning pyre. The men would watch silently knowing they had nothing to come home to. Helen already told me she'd never do that...I wept. The red hands by the side of the fort entrance represent Queens and Princesses on their way to jauhar during the Mughal wars. But my favorite display was the little old man who pretended to smoke opium. At one point he took a break, upon his return he showed all the classic symtoms that he's been hitting the Hukka (pipe) for real.

Now it's time for a fashion history lesson. As this is of the upmost importance I request your undivided attention:

Jodhpur riding breeches became high fashion in the UK when Maharaja Pratap Singh of, you guessed it: Jodhpur, visited London in 1887. It seems that his royal rucksack had been pilfered and he was in desperate need of some new duds for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Due to all the immeasurable amounts of prickly trees, bushes, shrubs, weeds, and other maniacal flora in the Great Thar Desert, the Rajasthani's invented a pant that was tight around the shin to avoid getting stuck, and well, let's face it, there are certain bits and pieces on a man that need to breathe on those scorching hot Rajasthani days, so the thighs and crotch are cut to be somewhat loose ­- brilliant design, right? So, the esteemed M. Singh motors on down to Saville Row with his skanky old riding pants which he gave to the tailor specifically for waist and length references and lo-and-behold they copied the whole pant. Within the next month his pants were the rage on all the fox hunts. There's recently been a lawsuit filed by a relative of the bygone Maharaja to receive royalties (not a pun, I swear) for the name Jodhpur.

PMB 4.20.07