Man And The Land

On a whirlwind tour of India, I learnt that its people are as colourful as the country

- Anjuly Mathai

The priest who made a sales pitch

Gajender Sharma was a tall, wiry man, slightly bent. His eyes, a little red-rimmed, wore a hooded look, as though he always knew more than he revealed. He was a priest at Samode, a small village 42 kilometres from Jaipur. I met him at the Samode Palace, built in the 19th century as a Rajput fort and later converted into a heritage hotel. The palace exerts a gravitational pull on the village—more than three-quarters of the villagers were employed in it in some manner or the other.

We were in Samode Palace to take a camel ride through the village, which, somewhere submerged in my subconscious, I knew was Indian gimmickry at its best. I mean, who goes on camel rides through dusty villages except gullible goras on the lookout for an ‘exotic’ Indian experience? Sharma, who was called to give us a tour of the palace as we waited for our camel, shot us a knowing look, as though saying, “Gotcha, you poor suckers!”

His tour was thorough, and his eyes lit up as he showed us each ornate wall and gilded painting of kings and queens. Once, he paused before the portrait of a rather waspish-looking woman and proudly exclaimed: “Our own Mona Lisa.” As I didn’t see any resemblance to da Vinci’s iconic work, I kept quiet. But he would have none of it.

“Don’t you see?” he asked. I didn’t. “She looks at you wherever you go,” he said exultantly.

I uttered an enlightened “ohhh” and,

I hope, looked suitably impressed at the lady’s glassy stare.

After a while, we stepped out on to the verandah to get some air. As I fanned myself, I asked him if he had ever come to Kerala, where I lived. No, he told me, but he had travelled extensively to other parts of India.

“Do you like travelling a lot?” I asked.