By Oindrila Pal (India)
What a vile life we will lead if we never learn to wander. Wonder? To chase the shadows that slither around the corners to mooring at the same sky, adorning its white pearls on its jet black dress. We must knit our eyebrows, fill our lungs with saccharine and rancid breaths, and let our eyes discover salvage from the city saturated by the kiss of debauchery; however, when you do and choose to be a free man, you will find yourself basking in the creaking bobbing chair of Rajasthan.
The tumultuous expansion that shelters a plethora of humankind and has stretched to be the largest state of India: in its waves, you see divinity dwelling. Previously known as Rajputana, yesterday’s air can be traced back to the Indus Valley civilization and Rajput clans who emerged in 700 CE placidly filling their borehole of proud stories to the brim. The state is complimented for its lavish forts that dwell in ruins yet have not been forgotten; generational art and cultural heritage are just crumbles of the feast. Udaipur whispers its tapestry of tales in the western part of the state. Frolicking, flourishing, and fawning over 12,596 sq km, its discernible sound is the distant rumble of motor boats in the lakes and panchadari in the making.
“Entry of ladies in the monthly course is strictly prohibited. Otherwise may suffer.”
Oh, to be a free man.
At the back of the trotting and jarring jealous jeep, I saw the road slip from below. Twirling and descending like a ballerina with nature as its orchestra, there was a profusion of stories entwined with the hills. “Pradharo Maro Desh,” which means “Welcome to my land,” is a widely acknowledged Rajasthani phrase that was initially a song sung to warriors (rajputs) returning from battles. Today I stand in the same soil, welcomed and loved by the same bloodline, standing in front of that phrase wearing red lac bangles.
“Red is God’s color; you wed in red; we all look the same from the inside; it really doesn’t matter which color washes us from the outside—just red. Right?” the stallman said.
A man free of thoughts—a vile life to lead if we have never wandered and if wandering has never made you wonder.
“Entry of ladies in the monthly course is strictly prohibited. Otherwise may suffer,” I read again on the wall of the temple from the jeep, still sitting cross-legged. A spider in my web of thoughts questioned my spirituality and loathed my literacy.
The bhaiya didn’t know that the red he was memorializing was the one that was wrestling about its chastity. Through the traveler’s tale, you must hear the tale of an explorer and the tale of a woman exploring.
Doubtful whether this trip would be good because I was not bleeding and tearing from within or whether it would be a nightmare because I was—the answer buzzing in my head as I entered that little brooding temple. Believing in my protector, standing in the crossfire of fate and destiny.
Mohammed Ramzad was a neatly mustached and bearded man, standing 3 inches taller than me. He carried the widest smile; you would find your lips reaching your ears, tailing down his lane of stories, and sitting in the potholes, growing deeper and deeper every time he laughed. He pointed at the pearl-white architecture, embellished with trees, plants, and animals carved in every long window, known here as jali. Hazrat Gulaam Rasul Imraat Rasul Rahmtulah Ali Dargah, a mosque with a dargah, which isn’t that common. Maharana Udai Singh II, a prominent ruler of the Mewar kingdom, believed in regional hegemony among different communities and therefore commissioned the construction of this masjid after the passing of the Sufi saint as a place for reverence.
The walls of the dargah stand tall, crafted with delicate rhythmic patterns of leaves and flowers running down with which geometric motifs tangle, yet their chaos settles to form a complex harmony. Calligraphic black-inked inscriptions, often gilded into stone and moved along around the mosque, bear verses from sacred texts that create a sense of spiritual belonging.
The architecture itself was brewed with reverence and resonance. Arched doorways, crowned with floral or star-like embellishments, beckon people to come back home, come back to God. Domes push the floor beneath their feet and tower, their cool marble surfaces glistening in the sun as a facade of iridescent green and blue sparks that reflect the light. The warm sandstone, or intricately painted tiles, contribute to the richness. This warm sandstone blanketed the cool marble; we stood in the burning sandstone peering at the marble structure. Every element of the dargah’s design seems imbued with meaning; if we made God’s residence with such nuance, ever wonder how we were built?
“Every human is a representation of God, so you can’t draw humans because you can’t represent God.” The jali work, a testament to this belief, consisted solely of nature, drawing the attention of many who pulled their phones from their pockets—click, click. Here, in the mischief of shadow and sunlight, nature was finally looked at. In the dargah, the shrine of the Sufi leader was covered by a chartreuse and golden-specked blanket. There were many other graves of his Sufi peers resting opposite the dargah, each adorned by sprinkles of flowers on top.
“Don’t you get scared working here, bhaiya, with the graves?” Ramzad Ji said someone asked him long back.
“Religion gives me protection; it protects me by removing negativity. If you believe in God, he will always conspire in your favor. If you have an empty house, a body without religion, then the negative spirits on earth find shelter in your body. Empty house, right?”
“When we die, our souls wander too,” he added. Souls desire to wander. They look for another body to reside in. “Aatma,” as it’s called, no one has seen it, but our souls before and after death keep wandering in search of another you.
Wandering through Udaipur lanes, eating onion kachoris, and gulping banta down our throats, we wanderers look for home all the time.
Souls are really powerful; he told me about this experiment where mirrors circumscribed a body that was going to die.The second he died, all the mirrors shattered and tattered into tiny pieces. The soul was escaping the body, and its energy and heat couldn’t be withheld by the mirrors.
The story made me recount how silly we are as humans.
Women weren’t allowed to enter the dargah, he said, which made me feel a tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach—close to grief, nearer to disappointment. After all these conversations about how the vast and boundless soul is greater than all, you hinder a body made of mere flesh and bone, physical attributes. Just another place where doors shut on us.
There were multicolored threads tied around the carving in the window in the dargah, one string running into another bonding strongly with almighty force. The multicolored dhakkas hung despondently yet danced with the flowing wind every time it blew along them; an unusual sense of hope arose in them every now-then.
“People surrender wishes here and call upon their faith in God; dargah will make their desire come true,” he said as his light brown eyes glittered in the flooding daylight. I wondered which desire of his was fulfilled—and if that of mine will. Unable to find a thread, I left my ring adorned with similar jali work in the roots of the tree standing between it all, whispering a small prayer.
The white grandiose mosque made me feel unusually tearful, but I bid farewell. I accepted how women weren’t allowed inside the dargah or the prayer room—I again didn’t want to dismantle someone’s belief system. I walked away with my dream under that tree and carried with me a heartfelt smile.
The masjid isn’t what Rajasthan will ever be represented by, but the stories that are etched in it surely do. Tumbling and rumbling behind the rickshaws, looking at the escaping houses and roads of yesterday, where history never shied away but strode on high horse—in the reminiscing memories of the tumult of anklets and jhumkas, kings and queens are painted on houses owned by today’s not so very ordinary people. The queens who never needed to be “protected” by society, women who didn’t need society to say “you may suffer” or who stopped fighting for their beliefs, invoking their God for strength before every battle.
“Entry of ladies in the monthly course is strictly prohibited. Otherwise may suffer.”
“There was Rani Padmini of Chittorgarh; she abandoned her life to be the epitome of consciousness as she and the whole village of Chittorgarh jumped into live fire; it is called Jauhar. This was to protect their “Imaan” pride from Allaudin Khilji. Beti, you’re a girl, but you’re much more than just that, haan? My daughter, she’s a doctor now, and I’m so proud of her! Never let anyone say you can’t think for yourself or stand strong, Samjhi? You’ve got the fire in you! And don’t miss out on the kachoris. Give 100 for the ride only, thikhe?” We leaped out of the rickshaw and tattled to the store, unusually quiet.
The warm welcome of the tangy sweet kachori and the unfolding spices surfacing one at a time, waves of euphoria drowning me with every gulp. I am happy. I will never choose to tell anyone if I was on my period when I entered that temple. I believe only in that power above, not the structure made by humans; it can be the one Mohammed Ramzan told me about or the one I pray to every night.
