It’s The Book Of My Days, It’s The Book Of My Life

The magnificent Mehrangarh or ‘Sun Fort’ is perched atop a 125-metre high hill and overlooks the rocky terrain. The impregnable fort is reached after a steep climb through seven imposing gates (the fourth is missing now). This is a view of Jodhpur city from the fort.

The bastioned walls, parts of which are hewn out of the rock itself are in places 24-m thick and 40-m high. Perched on top of them are old cannons.

Mehrangarh’s forbidding ramparts are in stark contrast to the flamboyantly decorated palaces within. The royal apartments within Mehrangarh now form part of an outstanding museum.

The imposing golden hued fort is perched atop the 76 metre high Trikuta hill. The 99 bastions are in the form of half towers surrounded by high turrets and joined by thick walls. In medieval times, Jaisalmer’s entire population lived within the fort. Even now, thousands of people live here, making it India’s only living fort.

Example of sandstone carving…

Another example of sandstone carving. This one is at the entrance to one of Jaisalmer’s famous havelis.

These elegantly carved, latticed havelis are examples of the exquisite craftsmanship of Jaisalmer. Their stone facades are so finely carved, they could be made of lace.

This haveli belonged to Salim Singh Mohta, the tyrannical Prime Minister during the 18th century.

Below is a model of Jaisalmer fort on display at one of the museums.

A peaceful town of lakes and temples, Pushkar derives its name from pushpa (flower) and kar (hand) after a legend that claims that the lakes were created from the petals that fell from the hands of Lord Brahma.

The Pushkar cattle fair is celebrated during the Hindu month of Kartik (ten days after Diwali), and is one of Asia’s largest cattle fairs. It has emerged as a major tourist attraction of the region.

A festive, carnival atmosphere prevails during the fair’s two-week duration and the quiet little village is transformed into a colorful, bustling market.

Pushkar lake is considered to be on of the most sacred spots for Hindus. There are 52 bathing ghats around the lake. The water around each of them is said to possess special powers.

Devout Hindus make at least one pilgrimage to Pushkar and bathe at the holy ghats to wash away their sins, thereby earning themselves a place in heaven.

Dargah Sharif, the 13th century holy Muslim shrine is the most famous landmark of Ajmer. It is the final resting place of the great Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. The Mughal Emperor Akbar walked barefoot all the way from Agra to Ajmer, a distance of 363 km as thanksgiving after the birth of his son, the future Emperor Jahangir.

The Dargah has a massive gate with silver doors, which were built by the Nizam of Hyderabad. The great gate, Buland Darwaza, leads to a second courtyard with the grave of the saint in a magnificient marble-domed chamber in the center. Other attractions in the shrine are two giant degs (cauldrons), originally donated by Emperors Akbar and Jehangir, but replaced in the 19th century. These are placed in the courtyard and the ritual rice is cooked in them. The smaller deg has a capacity of about 2240 kg. and the larger one 4480 kg.

The six day celebration of the Urs or death anniversary of the saint is the most important event of Ajmer. It is said that when the saint was 114 years old he locked himself in a room to pray. Six days later, when his disciples broke open the door, they found his mortal remains.

No pictures here unfortunately. It happened to be a Friday, and there was just too much of a crowd to get decent pictures.
West of Dargah Sharif is ‘Adhai-Din-Ka-Jhopra’ or ‘Two-and-a-Half-Day Hut’. It was originally a Sanskrit college, built in 1955 within a temple enclosure, and destroyed by Mohammed Ghauri in 1193. It is said that he ordered a mosque to be built on this site in two and a half days. Therefore, the remains of the surrounding temples were used. There is a massive 7-arched screen in front of the colonnaded hall. The numerous columns have different carvings and retain the Hindu stylistic elements. The screens and arches were added later in 1266.

Below are the ramparts of Jaipur’s Amer fort.

The main entrance to the fort is through the ‘Suraj Pol’ or ‘Sun Gate’, so called because it faces the direction of the rising sun.

The next photo was taken from Amer fort. This is the old town just outside the fort. It is now in ruins. This was where the Mughal emperor Akbar used to stop on his annual pilgrimage to Ajmer.

Inside Jaipur’s Amer fort.

Below is the entrance to the Jaipur City Palace complex. Part of the complex has been converted to a museum — the City Palace Museum. Part of it has been converted into a school.

This part of the Jaipur City Palace complex — Chandra Mahal — is closed to the public. It is home to the descendants of the royal family.

Entertainment at the Jaipur City Palace Cafe…

Below, the ‘Hawa Mahal’ or ‘Palace of Winds’ was built for the ladies of the harem so they could view the street scenes below without being seen. It is 5 storeys high and just one room deep. There used to be an underground passage that connected Hawa Mahal with the Jaipur City Palace.

Jantar Mantar, the largest of 5 observatories built by Sawai Jai Singh II.

The impressive ramparts of Jaigarh or ‘Victory Fort’, below..

Jaigarh’s most prized possession, the ‘Jai Van’ cannon, is said to be the world’s largest on wheels. It weighs 50 tonnes, but has never been fired in battle. Mario, standing in front of one of the wheels, gives you an idea of how huge this cannon is…

This week I was busy uploading all my pictures to my Flickr account. Henceforth, I won’t be uploading them to my Yahoo! 360° site. In any case, I was using Yahoo! 360° just to share pictures. I did use its blogging feature to blog about our last trip to Rajasthan, Agra and Mussourie, and then switched over to Wordpress. Well actually, Blogger first, then Wordpress.

Now I find Flickr is great for photo-sharing so I moved ll my photos there. The good thing is you can log in with your Yahoo! ID, so you don’t have to go through that igmarole of creating a new username and password.

So, the next bunch of posts will be all about the trip we took in Oct-Nov 2006.

What is it about grandparents that kids find so appealing? Thaïs has been with my mum for two days now and I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get her to come back home. She does the same thing with Mario’s parents. Once she goes there, getting her to come back is a nightmare. Are they more lenient? Well, okay… maybe so, but whatever happened to that mother-daughter bond??? One more myth shattered.

I’m going to have to bribe her with some ice-cream or chocolate or, the most recent, ‘yestauwant’. Yes, I’ll have to wine and dine my own daughter in order to get her to agree to come home with me.

Now that’s a courtship to remember!

I’ve finally made the shift from Blogger to Wordpress and let me tell you, Wordpress is GREAT! It’s been only a couple of days, and I love it already. Everything is so much easier, starting with the migration process. It was all automated and took about 30 seconds to import about as many posts. Now if only there was an automated way to import my Yahoo! blog. If you know of one, please enlighten me. The way I see it, I’ll have to copy each post manually…. Maybe one day when I have the time… when the little one’s away… Not that there are many posts – I’ve been blogging for only about 6 months now, just the thought of having to do it manually…

So far, just one negative point for Wordpress – the themes. I think I preferred my chosen theme on Blogger. Wordpress does have one fully customizable theme that I know of, but that would mean messing around with CSS and whatever else, which I’ll get into later, and then maybe I’ll come up with a theme I like. For now I’m quite content checking out the available widgets and other options.

I’ve also found that the Technorati-Wordpress relationship is much better than the Technorati-Blogger one. Ever since I made the switch, all blog details, update info, tags, etc. show up on Technorati the way I expect them to. Unfortunately, that’s not something I could say when I was using Blogger. Back then, getting that tag cloud to work was not very easy. I did manage eventually, though. And then I migrated to Wordpress!

All in all, Blogger’s great for the absolute novice, as it was for me, but when you want a little more flexibility, Wordpress is the next best (free;-)) choice.

And Jack and Jill
Went up an ‘ill
To setch a pail of water down
Jack fell down
And byoke his gyound
And Jill came kyumbling after

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

Baa baa black sleep
Have you any wool
Yes sir, yes sir
Twee bags full
One’s a my master
One’s a my dame
One’s a the likkle boy Thaïs
Lives down the lake

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

I ear tunder, I ear tunder
‘Ark don’t you, ‘ark don’t you
Pitter patter yaindyops, pitter patter yaindyops
I’m wet tyoo, I’m wet tyoo

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

Can you imagine having to listen to this all through the day? Ok…. it was cute for the first 2-3 days. But after that I had to plead with her to keep quiet for a while. Her nursery rhymes, together with the regular screaming and shouting had given me a headache. Whether she took pity on me or just needed to give her mouth a rest, I’ll never know, but when I finally got a few minutes of peace and quiet, I lay down and shut my eyes. Imagine my shock when she came to me and yelled, “Tana, open your damn eyes!”

Thaïs: What’s your name? My Thaïs…

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

The other day Thaïs called out to me from the kitchen. I was in the bedroom, so I didn’t hear her. I went into the kitchen and said, “What did you say, darling?”

“I wanna eat something. Are you deaf?”

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

I needed the Vaseline yesterday and was looking for it in its usual place, unaware that it had been moved to the top of the TV.

Thaïs: Mummy, what you looking for?
Me: The Vaseline. Have you seen it?
Thaïs: It’s here… on the TV… Blind bat!

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

Thaïs asks to be taken out for a walk every evening. After about 5 minutes of walking:

Thaïs: Please carry me. I can’t walk. My legs are broken…!

=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=0=

Mario: What’s mummy doing?
Thaïs: She’s giving all dishes a bath…!