In order to get to Udaipur in Southern Rajasthan we have to return to Jodhpur where we stay overnight and pick up a taxi tomorrow to take us the remaining 280 or so km. Udaipur is very poorly served by trains and there seem to be only a few places that are connected to it, so a car seems to be the best option. The train is running late as usual and we arrive in Jodhpur 1 and three-quarter hours late. We are booked into the Veggi Guest House in the Old City. We know it from our last visit here when we used frequently used their internet facilities and as we don’t want to go back to the Singhvi Haveli, the Veggi seems a good bet. They have sent a car to collect us from the station and it has some trouble negotiating the tut-tuts, cows and pedestrians in the very narrow streets and we have to walk the last few yards with all our luggage, (we now have two extra bags to accommodate all our recent purchases) as the lane becomes little more than a path. The guest house is more of a homestay run by a mother a daughter team in a large and rambling old, if rather plain, haveli. The family are Brahmins which means they don’t eat eggs, milk, cheese, meat or alcohol and that means neither do their guests, which doesn’t bother me and surprisingly Andy is taking it in his stride too.
Today, it turns out is a very auspicious day; apart from it being Indian Independence day (and the start of the football season) the family are holding a welcome ceremony for a recent new addition and we are invited to attend. The celebrations include a buffet meal at the roof-top restaurant of a local hotel followed by the ceremony back at the haveli. Our host, Suvendra, has organised for us to hire some Indian clothes for the evening – a salewar kameez for me and a kirtah and trousers for Andy – and has lent me an armful of bangles. It turns out to be a very sedate and subdued affair; quite different from the ‘party’ atmosphere Suvendra had described with singing and dancing, water is the only drink available and we find the other guests are more interested in staring at us than talking to us. We are not introduced to anyone and nothing is explained. It crosses our mind that perhaps our invitations were partly motivated by a desire to be able to close the guest house for the evening. Fortunately a young French couple have also been invited, so we are at least able to take refuge in each other’s company.
The baby’s welcome ceremony back at the haveli is a very low-key affair and something of a mystery to us as onlookers. All the ladies sit around on mats on the floor of the terrace while the men sit inside. The ceremony involves the giving of many presents for the baby – which is tiny, rather under-nourished-looking little thing with a shock of thick black hair and a body that doesn’t fit his skin – and anointing the heads of the new mother, maternal grandmother and grandfather and the new father. The dictates of tradition have meant that the new mother has spent the last two months at her mother’s house separated from her husband, and so the ceremony is also linked to the return of the mother to the marital bed which has been beautifully bedecked with fragrant flowers in the shape of an enormous heart. The ceremony is interesting but not entertaining, it’s also very protracted so that it’s 2 am before people start to leave and we feel are able to go to bed.