Bhuj

One house in Bhuj that survived the earthquake

The city of Bhuj, jewel of Gujerat, built in 1510, with its beautiful stone houses, delicately carved doorways and window surrounds, its palaces, mosques and temples, surrounded by high city walls with magnificent city gates, was blasted to rubble by the earthquake in 2001, killing 2000 people and destroying 1.2 million homes. The houses were rebuilt along the same narrow streets, but in plain concrete, without decoration, forming the same intricate maze as before. Parts of the city walls survived, together with the Aina Mahal, a rather dark palace with dark wooden ceilings and pillars, a place designed for night time pleasures in the central chamber which had an ingenious system of cooling fountains.

Lakhpatji was one of the princes of Bhuj during the eighteenth century. His father sent him to Delhi to attend a darbar (meeting) of the Kutchch ruling family with the ruling Mughals, at the imperial court. In those days princes travelled with camels piled high with enormous tents, carpets and wall hangings, kitchen equipment and many servants. When he arrived Lakhpatji ordered his servants to set up his tent then hired musicians and dancers to entertain his guests in the nighttime, after the serious discussions with the Mughal rulers were over. He entertained lavishly and word went around that the best entertainment was to be enjoyed in his tent. From time to time he sang softly and sweetly, entrancing some of the female musicians who decided to travel with him to Kutchch. In 1752, after his father died he was enthroned as the Raj. He built a palace inspired by the Mughal style he had seen in Delhi and invited many musicians and artists to the Kutchch court.

Bhuj is the capital of Kutchch, the wild west desert region of India, where tribal pastoralists roamed for centuries up until recently, when they settled in villages of round houses with conical thatched roofs. Traditionally the tribal women spent years embroidering clothes for their weddings, wearing all their wealth on their backs. In recent years an enormous industry has grown up around the traditional tribal weaving, dying, block printing and embroidery of Kutchch and the little shops in Bhuj overflow with colourful textiles, old and new. You can buy every kind of textile here, from vegetable dyed block printed cotton to factory made brilliant synthetic prints. Tribal women walk in the streets, their long skirts swishing around them, wearing an infinite variety of embroidered clothes with sparkling mirrors, jingling anklets and backless churlies, covered by the floor length scarves they drape over their heads. They crowd into the shops selling synthetic materials, sitting cross legged on the floor as the shopkeeper throws roll after roll of material in front of them. I spend hours in the shops selling old embroideries, taking them to my tailor to incorporate into new clothes, which he does with wonderful skill.

City Guest House
City guest House is in the centre of Bhuj, one of those places where travellers congregate  every morning at a long breakfast table in a courtyard surrounded by three levels of rooms in long rows with balconies. There is nothing beautiful about the place. The concrete building is strictly utilitarian with wooden doors and barred windows, brown tiled floors, the fourth wall of the courtyard bordered by a high concrete wall painted dirty yellow. The tables are covered in plastic tablecloths, usually covered in crumbs. But the conviviality makes up for the dull setting. New people from all over the world arrive every day. Some stay a day, a week, some for months. The rooms are cheap and clean. A fat rickshaw walla joins the throng every day and tries his best to inveigle tourists into making trips in his over priced rickshaw. I do my best to persuade people to catch buses or share taxis. The day before yesterday I organised a taxi for five people to visit the white Rann (the salt desert), a trip that turned out to be rather like visiting an Indian version of Disneyland.


The Rann of Kutchch
As we drew nearer to the White Rann tent cities sprang up on either side of the road.
"Five thousand rupees a night to stay in a tent here (sixty pounds)," our driver said, pointing right, then:
"Six thousand rupees a night for a tent here (seventy pounds)," pointing left, and so on, until we came to the last tent city of all:
"Ten thousand rupees a night to stay here (a hundred and twenty pounds)," he said; "one thousand and fifty tents." There was an ugly wall along the side of the road and flashy stalls selling packaged junk food on the other side of the road. We groaned, horrified. The car drew into an asphalt parking lot, full of cars, camels pulling trailers, horse and carts and masses of Indian middle class people, all wearing jeans and teeshirts.

An asphalt causeway led out into the salt desert, where hundreds of Indian tourists were standing, sitting, taking photos of each other, all waiting for the sun to set. Rows of camels waited patiently to ferry the tourists back to the tent city. After sunset people piled onto the camel trailers, whooping and shouting as their camels raced back along the causeway.