Indian Hospitality

Trip Start Aug 29, 2009

Trip End Ongoing

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Where I stayed

Jasol Heritage

Flag of India Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Left Pushkar today, which was in a way a relief as the place was getting more and more crowded. On the way to Jodhpur, Jay made several strange stops. The first place he described as a lassie factory; it looked like a farm to me. When Jy speaks, I understand what he says about 1% of the time. Dad and I have a game where when we don't understand what he says, we just say a random word to see if he notices. A sentence such as "Peeptoo meertin staark moop" uttered by Jay is followed by "Yes, tampax" or Umm, I see, mastodon". So far, he seems utterly satisfied with our responses. So back to the lassie factory. We walk into this courtyard where all we see if a large buffalo hanging on the ground and a few bowls. The guy then serves us this warm curdled milk with spices and dirty Indian water. Being unable to refuse this gesture of hospitality, we imbibe the rancid concoction. The Hindi word "bas" meaning "no more" became quite useful in this situation. We then stopped in a nice house in the suburbs of Jodhpur

Street Urchin

. We assumed this was Jay's house but as we inquired more and more, no one was related to him. The host of the house gave us a tour and was very proud to show us his toilets, insisting that we go in. "Ooooh, very nice" is all we think to say to a hole in the ground. It turns out the house belonged to the owner of the car we were driving. Weird. The third stop was eventually Jay's house. The next thing I know, a woman in a Sari is milking a goat and hands me a glass. Fuck. I HAVE to drink this. The glass is warm and as the milky froth hits my lips, I shudder. But the stuff was surprisingly good and actually tasted like real milk.

We eventually got to Jodhpur and walked around the city. The place is just gorgeous with all of the buildings painted blue in order to keep mosquitoes away. All of the people were friendly and wanted their picture taken. We obliged and suddenly were mobbed by a bunch of Indians pushing crying babies in our face. The problem of taking photos is that people always insist that we send them the photos once we develop them. We'll see what we can do about that when I get home.

That night, there was an Indian wedding being held at our hotel. There was food everywhere and everyone was dressed in beautiful clothes. As the groom arrives, he is alone on a horse with a group of Indian people gyrating and dancing in front of him

The Blue City

. They toss cash around, which I assume is the dowry. The bride arrives separately but the music playing as she walks down the aisle is not some nice traditional Indian song, but a techno remix of Rihana with an Indian beat over it. Super weird. During all of this, Dad and I had been furtively taking sips of whiskey and we eventually got rather drunk. An old man pulls us on the dance floor and next thing we know, we are dancing Indian styles with all of these Indian men. None of this technically made sense, but what does in India. You just have to go with it and you eventually have an amazing memorable experience.

The next day we visited the fort overlooking Jodhpur and I was very impressed. It was beautiful and we had a great view of the blue city. After that, we found a man to fix my necklace which held my turquoise stones. This guy weaved a string using thread with hi hands and feet. What's amazing about India is that anything can be done as everyone has a specific job. Everyone, including small children, plays a role in society. This man in questions simply made decorations out of strings.

That night, Jay invited us to have dinner at his house. He picked us up in his car with his son. They were both very well dressed, which made us feel awkward because we were dressed in our dusty traveler clothes

Sad, yet so cute

. Jay's son is 10 ans seemed very shy. We get to his home and we sit on the floor in front of little tables about 6 inches high. Jay serves us beer, which we really appreciated as it costs a lot for them. The wife then served several plates of chips, hard chapati and chopped vegetables. We were not sure what to do, as no one was touching the stuff. We picked away little by little. Jay's boy was suddenly talkative and pulled out some old shoe box. Inside were 4 DVD's of strange Indian movies. He pops one in and tries to explain what is happening. I don't have a clue as the kid doesn't speak English and the movie makes no sense in the first place. The child then puts in a CD and proceeds to dance in front of us for literally 30 minutes. He eventually asks me to dance with him and I try my best to bust some sick Indian dance moves. Dad is then forced to do the same. At this point, I am just flabbergasted as to how we keep ending up in these situations. Jay then brings out his turbans. One is made of foam and looks like it was bought in a 7/11 and the other is a beautiful multicolored turban. We put them on and pose while holding his gun and sword. I don't make this stuff up, I swear. Dinner was eventually served (around 10:30 pm) and we don't know what to do. The family does not eat with us, saying they will eat when we leave. OOOOOKAYY. We start eating with our hands (the right one of course) as the family sits there, watching us try to eat with our hands. It was very awkward and the second we are done eating, Jay drives us home. Before we left, the family actually gave us the turbans, saying we were now their brothers and earned the right to wear them. It was very nice of them and we were very honored. We understood how proud they were to have us and the whole experience was very humbling.

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