It was a joint venture of Hughes Software, Motorola and Duet Technologies. 3 guys from Hughes(Pradeep, YSR and myself), 1 Motorola (Vikas Singhal)and 4 from Duet (Mayuresh, Rajesh, Mahesh and Ladhesh.. sorry :P Hemant Ladhe:-)).
We started by "Mandore" express from Old Delhi Railway station at 9.00 pm, Wed (30 Sept) and landed in Jodhpur at 9.00 the next morning..only to find that there were no restaurants open (Dasara??)and those which were open had only "Mirchi bada and Jalebees" to offer! After a general search for the restaurant, we settled onto the "Mirchi bada" and started our journey towards Jaisalmer- the golden city! That was at 11 in the morning and the heat had just started giving us the taste of Rajasthani October heat. We were almost properly 'cooked' by the time we reached 'Pokaran' on the way. Well , everyone knows about the place! It made the whole world look up to India as a Nuclear state. and made Pakistan to sit up and take notice! We had our evening tea (Rajsthani chaay is good..not to be missed even in the scorching sun!) and proceeded towards J'mer. By 5.30pm , we were standing in the Jaisalmer bus stand surrounded by 15-20 Hotel agents and rick-guys who were almost pulling each one of us to different roads! and hey....here all of us were enthralled by the glimpse of the golden fort!
After checking in "Shivam", we took a stroll in the city market and found out that every house, shop and building was a palace!(yes, even the cycle repairy shop was a palace!) The main business in the city is tourism/antiques' shops/restaurants. Though the city is small, you are tempted to click a snap of every house there!
Next morning we all started for the city-sight seeing. The J'mer fort which houses 2-3000 people inside also has very old and important Jain temples. 6600 idols and no... No two idols are the same! Then the Patawon ki haveli, Nathmalji ki haveli . (Lamhen, Palekhan, Kranti for the movie fans) We saw that world record holder's son 'Dhannalal' there in the haveli. His moustaches are 4.5ft(only) long!! He has an ambition of breaking his father's record.(forgot his father's figures:-))
By 3.00 we started for the REAL mission: the desert safari. Just beyond the city (towards the Indo-Pak border) at 45 km. starts the exotic SAM desert and its sand dunes. The 2 hr camel safari had us properly 'jerked' to the sunset point! The sunset was just tooo..good! But yes, something more intersting was in store for us..the moonlight walk , the folk songs and the sunrise!! The military buses coming from the border (40km ahead), the folk songs ('Morani Bagama', 'Mhare hiware main naache mor', 'Damadum mast kalandar' etc..) and the sand breezes kept us awake till late night and b4 we had merely slept was the time for sunrise!
Yes, we sat there in the sand dunes and watched breathtakingly the festival of colours in the sky.... ...Light grey..then some blueish tinge to it, then dark red..reddish pink and faint yellow..the sky exhibited all the colours in its store gradually..!..and then came the SUN!! The camels, sand dunes, rising sun and the morning breezes..a perfect sight for paiting and photography. The whole desert was open to us for all this..some of us were so excited about this generous display of colours by Mother Nature that they started rolling on the sand in their 'natural' state!( well, almost!)
It was tough to leave that place and then junta started singing (??)the 'border' song in the jeep "Sandese aate hai.."
Afternoon visit was to the Gadhisar lake and of course one lo..ng swimming session..all kinds of (self invented:)))swim-strokes!
On the way back to Jodhpur, we saw the famous and enthralling Umaid Bhavan palace, the Mandore garden and the Jodhpur fort(from outside! as "hum saath saath hai " shooting was going on inside!).
(About Jodhpur, will write sometime later..)
Here, back home comes the realisation of the meaning of the song I learnt in my school. "Kahin par barfile parbat..kahin par hai ret ke tile.." The diversity of my motherland : culture and geography !