Fight Test

Thursday 13 November 2008
Jaipur

Today is sightseeing in Jaipur. We start off at the Amber fort, which is above Jaipur itself and the original home of the Maharajahs that ruled this section of Rajasthan. I have booked a guide for the day and he takes me round the palace explaining to me the different parts and why and when they were built. It's actually the best thing I've seen so far in India (yes, even better than the Taj Mahal).

The palace was divided into three sections, each built by a different king for different reasons. Once section had twelve bedrooms for twelve wives, and secret corridors leading from the king's bedroom to each of the wives' rooms, so that they wives wouldn't know where he was each night. Crafty fellow. And I like a good secret passageway.

Another king built three mini-palaces within the palace – one for winter, one for summer, and one for the rainy season. Each palace had two bedrooms, as the limited himself to just the two wives. Aside from all the concubines which had a separate section to themselves, guarded by eunuchs, naturally.

And the whole thing was on top of a hill, with a bunch of mountains around it with Great Wall of China-style battlements running over them. This was more the sort of thing I was hoping to see in India – awesome buildings and beautiful scenery.

After that back near the main town we drive past the Floating Palace – not actually floating but built in the middle of a lake and only accessible by boat. I also have a quick elephant ride, which is fun. I'm then taken to a place where they make block-printed patterned clothes as well as stitching saris and so on. It's a soft sell this time which is much more agreeable, though they do still keep on bring stuff out for me to see after I've told them I'm done. I buy a couple of shirts for myself and two other items for presents.

Back in the centre of town we go to the main palace complex, which still has the royal family living in it. The first item is a whole area dedicated to a variety of huge astrological and astronomic instruments, which mainly exist to tell the time or which zodiac sign the sun is currently in (Scorpio currently). Though of course the time that India uses now (GMT + 5:30), and the time that it was built for are slightly different, so you have to add 13 minutes to everything. There is one sun dial that is angled at 27 degrees from the vertical, and is double sided. As Jaipur is 27 degrees north one side tells the time between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and the other side tell the time for the rest of the year. Apart from on the day of the equinox itself, when there is a separate sundial angled slightly differently that has to be used.
There are also sculptures for predicting eclipses and when the monsoon will arrive (with 90% accuracy apparently) though we didn't go into detail with them. All these sculptures serve to create a huge park of modernist architecture with radical radials, curves and intersections that was actually built in the eighteenth century. It's awesome.

We then walk around the palace which is standard fare and quite interesting. It turns out that the last or last but one maharajah actually died while playing polo in England. After that it's a quick stop at a gem stone place but they don't give the hard sell and I'm out in minutes. I'm feeling tired so I head back to the hotel and have a bit of a sleep.

When the evening comes around we kick off with a few drinks in Raj's car (not sure why we had to be in the car) and then in some building that a friend of his uses I think. We drink some more and have some food. It's all pretty good. There's some Indian Bollywood-style music videos on the TV that in my drunken state are intensely amusing. I'd love to see an indie band do a pastiche of one. As he becomes more and more drunk, Raj begins to tell me about his sex life and how he lost his virginity to a black American woman. And then how he availed himself of the oldest profession. Quite a lot it turns out. It's hilarious.

After that we head off to a restaurant to see some more dancing. This is where the night takes a surreal turn. As with the night before I dance with the girls and It's all good fun, though the girls aren't as in to me this time as they were before. However Raj reckons it's on with one of them and he tries to arrange us going back to her place. However, while Raj goes to pick up his car the girl tells me not to trust Raj (mainly because he's pretty drunk by this stage) and gives me her phone number to call her in the morning. I tell her I'm leaving Jaipur in the morning and won't have a chance to meet up (though I don't mind).

So she leaves and the whole retinue heads into a tuk-tuk (all seven of them) when Raj returns. After some chatting he convinces the girl and some others to get into our car. There's the girl plus one other, a man and two kids. Eventually we head off back to her place.

We're drinking gin which makes Raj even more drunk but the conversation is convivial and everyone is fine. There's no chance of me getting some after it becomes clear that the guy who's with us is her husband (so why did she give me her number...?). Anyway after a while it becomes time for us to go home and as Raj is drunk I take the keys and get my chance to drive on some of the most accident-prone roads in the world. As we're at the door I don't know what happens but Raj ends up slapping the girl. I've no idea what was said but if I had to guess it was probably something to do with the girl being a gypsy, Raj being a Rajput, and her thinking that he was a Muslim as he was so drunk (something she told me earlier).

Of course this changes the whole situation. She gives him a good thwack back and then the guy gets involed, quickly punching Raj and giving him a broken, bloody nose. I step in and try to keep the three of them apart. I tell Raj to get in the car and apologise to the people but they're not finished with him yet. While I try to get in the car and get them to calm down by apologising, they're still going at it and in the process break into the car and land a few more punches on Raj. I eventually manage to resolve the situation when they agree to stop if we pay them 2000 INR (26 GBP). Raj's wallet happens to be below the dash so I take it out of there and get the hell out of there.

Of course, I need to reverse and as the car is old, I have a bit of difficulty with that. Talk about timing. Eventually I somehow manage to find it and we're off. Except for the fact that neither of us know where we are, I'm driving a car at night that has headlights that only work when you pull the lever forwards, and Raj, who has a slightly better idea of where we are than I do, is drunk, bleeding, bruised, angry and crying. Over the course of about 30 minutes we manage to make our way home, only having to double back around four or five times.

At this point you'll be pleased to know that I'd always wanted to have a go at driving the Tata Indica and that it was very easy to get the hang of, mainly because it has a high clutch much like my own Peugeot 106. In fact the car is much the same, just a little bit smaller. Also, looking back on the situation it may sound like a nightmare scenario but it wasn't.

I mean, I was annoyed with Raj and I gave him shit for what happened (and disappointingly he wouldn't give me an explanation of why he did what he did). But I wasn't upset by the whole thing. I don't know why, but there didn't seem to be much point. Later, when I was reading The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin he talks about reacting to bad situations in much the same way. And in fact I was enjoying the challenge of getting home and driving the car. That's the kind of guy I am I guess.

With his nose broken, the right side of his face badly bruised and his pride and his caste dishonoured, I didn't have the heart to force him to sleep in the car (as he would have had to do otherwise as someone else had taken his bed...) so I let him sleep in my room. I think he needed the emotional support as well. He was in a bad way.