MARCH 2, 2007

Five of us who were having real troubles are able to change horses now that we are at the stables this morning. I feel guilty for breaking up with Manisha, but my new love, Ujjuwala (Ujju) is a dream come true. She is a dappled grey mare. She has less obviously scythe-shaped ears, and Alexander thinks she is a different breed. She’s definitely a good deal larger than Manisha was, and a much easier ride. She does not, however, want to leave the paddock area. I get on, and she stands steadfastly still. The group files out and into the surrounding open land…and she stands steadfastly still. I kick and cluck my tongue and shift my weight forward like trying to get a sled over the snowy lip of a hill, and she stands steadfastly still. Finally a groom comes and takes her by the bridle and walks us to the edge of the fence…as soon as we are past, she happily runs along to catch up to the group and is trouble free—she just didn’t want to go. Once we were committed to the day’s ride, she was all in. Her gaits are gentler but still rapid-fire, her canter fast and fun. I suddenly have a whole new relationship to the ride on my new, wonderful mount.

This is a long ride day, but will ultimately end back at the stables and we will sleep again at the fort, so we make a large, seven-hour loop. The terrain is very different here. There is lots of green acreage in geometric fields divided by long stretches of scrub desert. We even see some sprinklers watering crops. The two major crops we ride amid are wheat and mustard. Between property and field lines are dirt lanes buttressed by piled hillocks forming walls about three feet high. Lots of scrub and bushes also line some of these lanes, and it is like a long country ride until we break into open desert. We pass through small villages a far cry from the ones we knew in the previous region. Here there are occasional power lines, water troughs, dogs, glass windows, and still the kids everywhere, shouting to us, waving. Shy women peek out from under veils, the occasional tinny radio sound of recorded music reaches our ears, there’s even a shop cart here and there with long strings of shiny foil packets of beetelnut/tobacco hanging like chrome streamers. It is a world away from the deep desert, and dozens of worlds away from home.

I have been smitten since our first riding days with the kids who are so fascinated by us in each village we go through. I love the borrowed snippets of language as they hang over walls like Charlie Brown and Linus solving the problems of the world. In this region, they call out conversation openers they’ve picked up (or conversation closers, as many times we are greeted with a very cheerful “Goodbye”). “Hello.” “What is your name?”
I respond with “My name is Andrew, what is your name?”
This is hysterical, and met with, “Hello What is your name?”
“Andrew. What is your name?”
“Hello. What is your name?”
and so it goes.
“Good Morning” was a popular phrase, no matter the time of day, but no more awkward than my clumsily said “Namaste.”

We stop at an Ashram for lunch. We are on an elevated rotunda platform overlooking a green, sloping field. Lunch, as usual, is great. We split off, a few sleep on the pads, a few read books, a few explore the buildings of the Ashram. I find a staircase to the roof and look around. Lisa is up here snapping photos with an enormous lens. We seem pretty mellow, the whole group. I personally am feeling a little defeated by the weather and abandoning our intended journey, and at the same time, trying to be present to the journey at hand. I feel relaxed and peaceful, and look around to the sunburned faces, liking everyone so much.

Some local boys begin to beat a drum and play down below us. It is jarring for those who were trying to sleep, but fun. Our horse and kitchen team has loosened up now that we are on their home turf. “Excuse Me” (his real name is Salim, but he loudly bursts into whatever conversation is going on with an “excuse me” whenever he brings or takes away any item) and “Smiley” (whose name is Suresh, and has the most amazing smile in the world—he is beautiful and knows it and knows the world watches him and all his polite mischievousness), Prakash, and some more of the horse gang begin to dance a bit. One asks for the drum to be passed up to our level, and plays as a few others sing. Salim gets more and more animated—the first time we’ve seen him open up—and swivels his hips, slow motion bobbing up and down to the beat. Suresh is emboldened and joins, androgynous and quite the performer. Their military outfits seem like they could be nightclub costumes as the guys begin to lose themselves in it. Too soon we are told to get ready for the second half of our ride, and we break our lunch camp quickly to ride out the afternoon.

Back at the fort, we have been joined by Bim, a smiling, jovial character of some import in the community. Bim (pronounced “beam” or Bim-jee as Alexander calls him) holds the same job title as Sunayna, and has just completed a several-day ride with another group, so is joining our group. He is a great addition. He wears a turban that fascinates us all the more as we watch him wrap and re-wrap it for our entertainment. Tonight is the night before Holi, a two-day national holiday, and the entire town will turn out at a central square for entertainment and a beginning festival before Saturday’s religious celebration and Sunday’s wild secular celebration. Bim is one of the performers. We ask if we can come see the show.

After dinner, those that want to are walked into the center of town. We are waved through the ticket-taker’s line and into a large square. There are hundreds of men seated on folding chairs on all four sides of a squared off central performing space in the dust. There are only about 35 women present anywhere we can see, all sitting on the ground in a separated section—the women in our group are the only ones allowed chairs. Ours are the only Caucasian faces anywhere. No kids–it is late, almost midnight. I love that this is the exact opposite of a tourist experience—we just happen to drop in on the local festival that would be happening whether we were there or not. Overhead are strings of triangular flags like a used car dealership. In the center of the performing space is a stack of speakers pumping out the distorted, too loud music and announcements we’d been hearing during dinner up at the fort.

Bim is sitting in a section of seats and gets up to lead us over—he seems pleasantly surprised we showed up, having not expected it. I sit next to him for a while. His English is excellent but there are still gaps in our understanding of each other. He tells me there are performing troupes from many surrounding villages here in a competition, and it will go on until 3 or 4 in the morning.

Bim gets up to perform with his group. There is much fiddling with the cassette deck trying to get music cued up. An elaborate pantomime and series of songs begins starring three characters…Bim as the leader and narrator (none of it is in English, so I am guessing) and a young male protagonist, and his lovely veiled, seductive wife—an extraordinarily tall man in very bad drag. It seems a comedy as the audience of men cheers and laughs at the over-the-top Vaudevillian performances with much eyebrow raising and clearly double entendre jokes. It goes on and on, but we love seeing Bim. Eventually he comes back and sits down with us, congratulated heartily by the crowd as he walks over. Another village’s troupe is preparing, fighting their own battles with the sound system as their rubber faced leering leader and woman in drag prepare for more of the same. As it goes on in much the same fashion, we eventually excuse ourselves since the yawns of exhaustion are taking over. I fall asleep in my bed serenaded by the cheers and laughter of hundreds of celebrants.