Mangle Ki Beri

What now? I asked the cab driver when he told me he had no fuel and the pump too was dry, 'We'll find some' he said and drove on while the gauge pressed hard at 'E'. This area of Rajasthan is full of Oil and coal some one had told me the day before ... But right then we had none, it kind of reminded me of a ship at sea. After driving into the wilderness for about 15 minutes we got of the road and headed for a tractor on the hill close by, there after some negotiations we got some fuel and moved on to the village . Unlike the day when I had come here it was really really hot, lucky for me I got home by mid day.

Once I had washed up I crashed for the day and as it happened night too. Catching up on my sleep was paramount today we have to leave for Pushkar and I don't think I'll get much sleep on the journey my first in a truck!

This trip has been something, and its not just about the stay at the Taj in Jaipur where I was dressed in an expensive silk kurta drinking tea that cost a couple of hundred bucks as I met some of the smartest brains of the land (civil servants), or for that matter my unscheduled trip to Jodhpur to meet a friend I had only met twice before, or the trip to a village to stay with a family I had never met, in a land I had never seen ... it was all this and much more.

I had seen folks drop tea into a saucer and sip it rather than drink it from the cup but being served tea in a steel bowl, well this was something new.

While mother never lets me forget how over weight I am my hosts insisted that I had every bit of my bread (roti) dipped in Ghee. ( I had hoped to loose weight on this trip but little chance of that happening.)

Waking at 5 to answers Nature's call too was fine the hour was not all that unearthly, but carrying my lota into the sand under the watchful stars (that outnumbered those in Lucknow and Delhi) looking for a good place, well that was.

My days here with this my newly adopted family have been great, I have always loved Rajasthan right from my first visit with Saurabh in my third year at college, always felt safe and free. This trip has taken everything to a whole new level, I traveled alone without my car for the first time. The affection that Anna and his family have given me has changed something, for the first time I am not all that excited about the Pushkar fair but t I guess its fair!