Hot Town, Summer In The City... a not so lovin' spoonful of Jaipur

Man is it hot here. And dirty. And gritty. John Sebastian must have been thinking of Jaipur when he wrote that Lovin' Spoonful classic. After a nauseating car ride from Pushkar, our driver, looking to get off a day early (and god bless 'im why not?), rushed us around the city sights THE ALBERT HALL MUSEUM, and AMER FORT. By now I was hoping to just go to the hotel, we had all our bags and the guitar in the car with us at these heavily touted and overly hawked sites, and couldnt really communicate this to our eager but polite driver. He plopped us down at the Albert Hall museum, then we got back in after thirty minutes. I told him that we wanted to go to the hotel and check in and get some refreshments. He seemed to understand, but then he said: 'Maybe we go to the Amer Fort first because it closes at 4:30?' I said that I just wanted to get some refreshments first, just a bottle of chilled mineral water or a Diet Coke. He seemed to understand, then made some sort of noise about pulling off the road on the way to the Fort 'blah blah blah Refreshment, we only stop for five minutes' Now in hindsight I have learned that what those blah blah blahs were was 'Please I have to go this Jewellery Store and get a ring, you will come into the shop with me and they will give you refreshments...' But as I said, that was not clear to me. And as we pulled up the Gem Emporium behind Jaipur's Trident Hotel, I didnt see anything vaguely refreshment oriented. So, suspiciously, we exited the car and entered the air conditioned emporium. Still no sight of drinks for sale. I am now getting a little annoyed, actually I was fuming, at what was going down. SURE, he was getting a ring for himself. But what was all that noise about promised refreshments? And where was the restaurant or variety store that would sell me that drink? And more ominously WHY was the shopkeeper and indeed his entire staff fussing around us now like flies on a cowflop? Well you do the math. This was a setup. Sure they would get us a drink, see he wasnt lying. In the meantime, why not check out our selection of precious and semi precious stones, witness a demonstration of our hand grinding process and make off with a bargain at less than extortionate prices? Why not? Well for one, because I frankly hate being lied to almost as much as I hate 'being sold'. I looked into a few side rooms but now it was clear what this was. So I did the most mature thing I could think of. I bolted out the front door and walked off down the dusty road in search of a 'real' variety store. Where I could simply pay my ten rupees and get an ice cold bottle of Bisleri, the 'Pure and Safe' Mineral Water, without having to sit through the harrasment and time consuming nuisance of a hand grinding demo. Up to now, we had been cautiously optimistic about our drivers commissioned activities. He had told us many times that he did not care if we wanted to buy anything, and that he did not get a commission, one time he even demonstrated by showing us the alledged 40 rupee commission that he alledgedly recieved from Zorba The Buddha while we were eating, back in Agra. Although we didnt really believe that this was the case, and why was he so insistent on showing us that he was 'honest' anyway? But now I was pissed. As I stormed down the street, in God Knows Where and heading for God Knows Where Else, I was feeling the righteous indignation of a western consumer excercising his democratic to vote with his feet. The shop keepers assistant ran behind me as though my life, or his life, depended on me returning safely to the store. There had been a misunderstanding, look, he pointed back, the shop keeper had a nice cold bottle of Bisleri in his moistened hands, with my name on it. I was hot. I was still a bit motion sick. But most of all I was fed up with the cat and moustache games that tourists are lured and lulled into. But hey, here was some water. I turned around, at this point mainly to avoid embarrasing Liza and/or to stave off some sort of international incident. The kind of thing you hear about, where someone is so shamed or appalled that they can only 'settle' it with machetes at dawn, etc. So I walked back,but I wasnt done yet, however, and I demanded to pay 10 rupees for the Pure and Safe water offered to me. If only to have 'ownership' of the transaction. If I pay them, then I dont have to 'pay' by watching some ridiculously lame 'grinding' over a crude oily wheel in the front steps of the shop. I eventually gave the guy ten rupees, then he said 'Please accept the bottle for free but just sit down in the air conditioned shop, look we have Times Of India to read. No buying, just looking.'

'No looking' I reiterated, 'I came in here for water, I am not buying or looking, oh and if the water is 'free' can I have my ten rupee note back?' I was really terrible but I was really pissed off. And I was kind of let down by the lackadaisical attitude of our ring buying driver. He didnt seem at all concerned with what went down. So I basically went into sit down strike mode, clutching my holy water and reading the Times of India with imaginary blinkers on. If this was really my 'free bottle of water' I sure as hell wasn't going to pay anything, like attention, for it.

My mood was kind of shot, then, by the time we got to Amer Fort. This is a shame, and I hope to learn from this, because if I had been able to get myself into a better headspace then I would have really dug the Fort. It's another big stone, rampart lined, Fort. Straight out of some sort of David Lean or Merchant/Ivory wide screen historical period epic. Sean Connery or Peter O'Toole would like walk along these walls, with Omar Sharif no doubt somewhere nearby. I do have some fond memories of it, but it was hot and we were at the end of our proverbial ropes, time to get the hotel. The driver mumbled, sheepishly that he had really bought a ring for himself, but I was beyond talking to him. I smiled though, but I frankly had tantrum or wall of silence plans and kept to them. He suggested we go have lunch, but I was so suspicious of him by now, thinking that we would end up in the Indian equivalent of The Olde Hide House (It's Worth The Drive To Acton')for a showroom demo and oh yeah some lunch, I just said 'Let's check in to the hotel' in my most terse voice. The Maharini Plaza is, just okay. Maybe we're spoiled now, but I am so used to the kind of three star hotels that we get for 20- 30 dollars US, that this one was no great shakes. But, still, they had airconditioning, BBC and HBO as well. I watched another episode of The BBC WORLD series Dancing In The Streets, this one dealing entirely with David Bowie and the glam rock explosion of the seventies. My mood returned. Yes, I cried again. Probably more out of emotional exhaustion and the day in the car with the the driver, who maintains his innocence with regard to the alledged 'Gem-Porium' scheme.

At 7pm we met up with him again and went to a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant called Niro's. We had Butter Chicken, plain Nan, Jeera Rice (basmati with cumin), and Panik Paneer (I think that's what it's called) which was basically creamy spinach with hunks of cottage cheese hidden in it. It was all great and after dinner we went to a fairly decent bookstall, called Books Corner, and bought the Hindustan Times for the television listing and the crossword puzzle. Sitting in the bath doing another crossword puzzle, I felt the grit and dirt of a dizzying day in Jaipur fall from my weary body. I slept very deeply that night.