Darbargadh has been in the family for 8 generations and is a chic estate. The son of the house was there all alone, parents, wife and children all gone (Just these days). Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos of him, he only appears in a video. They have quite a few rooms (more than 20), but none of them were occupied – except the one I had. However, there was a lot of staff and they were bustling around me. But it was OK with the ‘subservience’. I lived in the former women’s section.
The host organised and accompanied village walks etc. with the guests – basically the way I know it from Rajasthan. We got into the jeep with an escort. The escort ‘scared’ me so much that I forgot to take a proper photo. A very wild-looking man with a big gun who shouted when he spoke Gujarati to me because he probably thought I would understand it better and who was supposed to be useless in the evening due to alcohol consumption. I didn’t see him then either.
We drove the jeep just a short distance to a bridge where clear water flowed underneath. It was pretty there. And right next door was another special temple: the one where horses are and were sacrificed. Horses made of clay (perhaps not in the past). However, you don’t break them when you sacrifice them, but place them there and offer your wishes in a ceremony. Very special.
It seems to work quite well with the horse sacrifice, otherwise they might have stopped. From there I walked with the gunman to the village. The area here is well irrigated and fertile and the people, most of whom are tribals, are doing pretty well. They grow cotton, maize, wheat, castor oil etc.
But the people don’t have a water connection, they have pumps and they have to carry the water home from there.
They also have quite some proper animals and the village makes a really nice impression. Very clean and tidy – only the children looked a bit raggedly dressed. School starts later in winter and so the children were all still at home. In Rajasthan, I know that when the ‘palace dweller’ arrives, people react quite respectfully, no matter how popular he is. Not here. Although he does sometimes do something good for them, like giving them woollen blankets in winter. And this time the rifleman brought biscuits for the children. I was allowed to go into some households and have a look. Which isn’t so nice – but I don’t know if that’s not a bear-tying story after all. They still have bows and arrows here and sometimes they argue so much that they shoot each other to death with them.
Every year on 14 January is the kite festival. It’s also held in Rajasthan and so on, but it’s particularly big in Gujarat. People fly kites and compete with others to bring them down. A few were already practising – but this boy had the misfortune that his landed in a tree and he had to save it.
Then we drove to another village. There were also sacrificed horses there. The temple used to be at the top of the mountain, but when the temple guard was heavily pregnant, she couldn’t always make it up there and so the temple was moved down.
People simply hang a cloth on their charpois in which a baby is placed and then you can weigh it very comfortably.
The baby looked very cute when asleep, but when awake it was impossible to make it smile – neither with the other child in its arms nor with its mother. The other toddler, on the other hand, was all smiles.
In the afternoon, we drove to some impressive old Jain temples where photography is absolutely forbidden – and I wasn’t keen to get hold of anything, so there are no more pictures. Instead, we took a stroll around the nearby small town of Ambaji. I’ve been very enthusiastic about India’s variety of fabrics, colours, patterns, materials and techniques for a while now. And I’ve also had the idea since some time of turning my ‘travel memories’ into a fabric collage. You can walk around the tailors and see if any pieces of fabric have fallen off that you can take with you. I started collecting them far too late, but I started and realised that it’s actually quite fun to get material that way.
But it also needs a base and I remembered some friends who do tailoring, so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to buy some fabric. That was actually great. I sat in the shop and a shop assistant threw me bale after bale. They all cost the same: around 1.80 euros per metre. There was tea and laughter.
Then we strolled through the shopping streets and discovered an old building:
It is already being utilised somehow, but it seemed to us that the potential was lying somewhat dormant. Incidentally, the landlord often grumbled about the government, both that of his state and that of India as a whole. Too much money disappears into pockets and too little good is done with it. He regrets not being in Rajasthan because he is now not on the tourist map and too few people come, although there is more tourism within India in Gujarat, but it is not quite as well distributed. And western travellers? Very very few. I was always alone, especially in the best heritage accommodation, and I saw fewer than 10 Western faces in total. But more on that in the review.
Many tribals from the surrounding area also come to Ambaji to shop. I don’t really recognise them, but the landlord does. Anyway, it was quite nice here and I took a few more pictures:
Incidentally, people think that tea cooked on coals or wood tastes much better, but the street tea makers are instructed to only cook with gas. I can’t taste the difference as I am not a flavour fanatic. But no matter how it’s cooked, a chai on the roadside is always a treat. And so are little discoveries while strolling around.