Jodphur

Jodphur is a big sprawling city. It is another town dominated by its fort but it is quite different to the one at Jaisalmer. There it spreads wide along the summit of the hill but here it resembles a European medieval fortress, impregnable and never conquered. Jodphur is known for its culture and fine arts including the revival of traditional and courtly art. A great display of these in a museum at the fort. We had a night at an institute for art connoisseurship including a meal and drinks in a courtyard under a spreading tree. We spent a day visiting surrounding villages with genuine arts cooperatives. Weavers using silk and cotton, potters, dyers, spinners and opium extractors, smoking demo and all! See my photos. It is wonderful the quality they can produce in such humble surroundings and from such simple raw natural materials with such ingenuity that demonstrates an intelligence not always recognised. The people running these communities are very environmentally sound and have even taken corporations to court. They won’t kill anything either, illustrated by the fact that when the artist removed a small insect from my purchase, he did so by blowing it gently...no squashing or swatting there. It has to be said that there are some very impoverished people living in dire conditions, there’s lots of rubbish on the roadsides ( not rotting....plastic and cardboard and rubble) and clothing minimal. These to be contrasted with beautiful historic facades of carved sandstone, richly coloured saris, posters advertising latest 4G mobile phones or beauty treatments, beautifully clean and neat school children and men in pure white outfits, modern cars etc. Fascinating at every turn.