whispering desert sand

Mehrangarh fort, Jodhpur

if you travel through Rajasthan you feel lost, the rainbows that stay in sky you see them descend earth. The turbans and the vivacious enchanting colours of women's attire are veritable rainbows in motion. The ubiquitous gold of the sun embraces the the timeless particles of sand and all turns into an ethereal golden kingdom. Among this land dwell people who are the subject of fairy tales--nay, they create exotic tales of valour, love, devotion, and a magical land of mythos.

To see only their grand forts among brute massive daunting rocks you see but a little of their soul. To peep in their soft and poetic heart you marvel how they chiseled hard stone to create butter soft lattices and jharokhas through which mysterious beauties surveyed the world. They say the world is a shadow, but only in Rajasthan you can see in the architecture the seduction of sinewy rough, sun into shadowy feminine softness of somnambulant shade. Paulo Coelho weaves the magic of desert and oasis in his novel The Alchemist; in Rajasthan they transformed the desert into earth-buried treasures of water in the vast network of step-wells locally called bawaris.

Rajasthan has been endowed with challenges in its landscape--the endless desert is diluted with rocky mountainous terrain. But what can daunt these hardy breed of humanity. The very rocks they hewed from the chest of earth and imbued soft lilting poetry and music in the stones. Go travel out to Osian temples 55 kms from Jodhpur and to the ancient capital of Jodhpur at Mandore, climb the Mehrangarh fort and you will find hard and rough in the ramparts of the fort and velvety sublimity in temple sculptures. this is what Rajasthanis are-- sturdy and rough on the outside like the landscape and soft inside like the spiritual art of their beautiful temples.