Udaipur: A Warrior and a King

OK, let’s talk about it: the caste system. Bring this issue up in the wrong context and it incites more controversy than Sarah Palin crashing a dinner party at the Kennedy Compound. Our Udaipur guide, Yusuf, is part of the high-ranking warrior caste (we didn’t ask, he offered) and his take was, “you can change your job but not your caste.” He didn’t look like much of a warrior, soft spoken and wearing a Mr. Rogers sweater, but he was fiercely proud of this designation and told us marrying in your own caste was necessary to preserve heritage and bloodline. We have all had heard enough West Virginia jokes to know inter-marrying is a bad idea, but we let him pontificate. Later, we met an enigmatic young entrepreneur named King. He was from a much lower caste and spent his childhood being told not to drink in certain fountains, go into particular houses or speak to those in a higher class or he would be beaten. “The government may have outlawed the caste system, but all the people have not. I ignore it now. I talk to and date whomever I want,” he explained, waiving his hand down at the city, as we sat with him on cushions atop his rooftop restaurant. King was scrappy, moving from his small village to Udaipur, first becoming a taxi driver, then a restaurant owner, and, most recently, a pashmina dealer. He learned English from the tourists, beat a Drew Barrymore type booze and drug problem he developed when he was only 12, and admits he grew up fast, too fast. We watched King work the room, greeting a traveler from Tokyo in Japanese, snap at the waiter to move a little faster, and con his friend out of half of a chocolate bar. “My view,” he said with a shrug, “the caste system is total crap.”

January 26 is Indian Independence Day, which, like American Independence day celebrates running the Redcoats out on a rail. We unfortunately celebrated by getting our butts kicked by potholes on a rough 8-hour trek from Jodhpur to Udaipur. The high point was a stop at the famous spice lady’s shop in Jodhpur, where the charming owner let us sample teas, sniff spices and taught us the difference between real and fake saffron (real looks like tadpoles) while Phool amused himself by taking close-up videos of his smiling face and pictures of his little white car with my camera. We got to Udaipur late, and with two of us suffering from a minor case of Delhi belly, stayed in our cute blue and gold room, watching Indian Idol and Terminator 3 that was inexplicably in English with English subtitles.

The next morning we met Yusuf the Warrior Guide for a tour of Bagore-Ki-Haveli, a restored, 138-roomed, haveli that housed hundreds of interesting artifacts used by royals and other important peopple. An antique make-up box with colorful palates for powders makes a Mac eyeshadow kit look like an ashtray. There was an amazing, hand-painted puppet display (only a little creepy), the world’s largest turban, and, oddly, a Styrofoam sculpture of the Eiffel tower. We then got a foodie lesson in the local market. The matriarch of the family is responsible for the combination of spices and oils in food, and this delicate, flavorful balance ultimately determines the harmony and well being of the family. In fact, it is mama’s job to use curry and peppers in the winter to warm the body, lemon in summer to cool it down, and…get this...extra oil during the monsoon season for better procreation. Ordering Dominos or heating up a Lean Cuisine could therefore lead to undue sweating or lack of grandchildren.

Yusuf did a nice job explaining to us some other major cultural concepts. For instance, hiding your eyes shows respect for your elders, different professions and religions require different turban shapes, and through meditation and discipline you can achieve the most important virtue, patience. He then tested our not-quite-virtuous patience by taking us on a pricey boat ride and inviting himself to lunch. We ventured off on our own to enjoy Udaipur, which is easy to do. Called India’s most romantic city (not helpful in our case), it surrounds Lake Pichola with one palace dominating an island on the lake, one in the city itself, and one, the Monsoon Palace, overlooking the city on top of a mountain. The Lake Palace was featured in the James Bond movie, Octopussy and one local bar, which I assume has the highest wait-staff turnover in the city, shows the movie every night. We decided to catch 007 another time and went to a “puppet show” at the Haveli, which featured mostly local ladies doing traditional Rajasthan dances. The biggest crowd pleaser was the finale, where the dancer, who looked like an Indian Paula Deen but could move her hips like Shakira, put 12 pots on her head and danced on glass. The crowd went wild. Tomorrow we are headed to Pushka, the holy city. Let's pray for less potholes.