We are on a group tour... so we cannot schedule sufficient personal time to properly document all that is happening.
Village India is an eye-opener! Peregrine (our tour organiser) has done a great job (so far) in contrasting the dynamics of village life with that in the cities. Our guide (Shailendra) owns a farm in Rajastan... so is quite familiar with seeing behind the obvious behaviours of village life and can explain to us what is happening.
With little control over our time, some of these reports will be brief... an example of which is today's meager effort.
Large parts of Rajastan were conquered by the Mongol empire that entered India from Afghanistan in the 10th century. What followed was a century of continuous conflict as the Mongols took over the separate Indian states... one by one. The Mongols had no particular military advantage... they won power by better politics... playing off the divided quarrelling Indian states... one against the other. During this period, each state focused on defense... built themselves new huge castles located on hillsides that offered excellent defense.
In those days, labour was cheap... life was cheap. Labourers building castles worked just for board and keep... goodness knows how workers' wives and children got by. The Mongols used excellent political skills in designing their buildings... as well as other aspects of occupation. The first Maharajah out of Afghanistan was a Muslim... and he had three wives... one a Muslim, one a Hindu and one a Christian... thereby uniting nearly all of India under his rule. This practice of multi-denominational wives was followed by his sons and many of the Hindu Maharajah in other states. The first Maharaja built separate wings within his Palace for each of his wives and used different architectural styles within separate wings to reflect the religion of the occupying Queen. India gained is own unique architectural style by taking the best from the Mongols (dominated by Persian motifs), old Indian styles and the more recently introduced styles of architecture from the Portuguese (in Goa - southern India).
We saw a deserted Palace at Fatehpur Sikri that was built in just four years... and occupied for just four years. The Maharaja was not the most frugal of rulers when it came to his own comfort. He walked away from his multimillion dollar castle because climate change had wiped out his water supply... and because his strongest enemy had built a huge castle two or three day's march away. He wasn't concerned about his financial loss... he marched down to Agra and built a bigger and better Palace there.
There were many amusing aspects to the palaces of the first Maharaja... but one of the best was the snakes and ladders game he used to select the concubine with whom he would spend the day. One of his three queens would have the task of selecting a dozen of the prettiest girls from the harem. She and the Maharaja would sit on a raised dias in the middle of a square. The square had tiles set out in a pattern... most tiles were unmarked... but some were marked with a cross. The competing concubines started at the corners of the square. The Queen would roll one dice.. and the Maharaja would roll another ... the total of the two numbers shown on the dice indicated the dancing path to be taken by the concubine. If her progress resulted in her ending on a tile marked with a cross... she would no longer be able to participate in the game. The last concubine in the game ended up spending time with the Maharaja. Of course, all this dancing took toll of one's freshness... so the Maharaja had two baths built in the entrance to his private quarters... each bath filled with rose water... one bath for the Queens to use whenever they visited him... and one for the concubines. So, next time you pay snakes and ladders... remember the origins of the game... and if that thought makes you hot and sweaty... go take a bath in rose water.
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