Carrying the mood of merry Christmas in our hearts, Chalk and Cheese entered the heartland of ‘Khamma ghani’. In this beautiful season of sunshine, warmth and dew drops, we were traveling into the deserts. Chalk’s old school friends were having a reunion to commemorate fifty years of their passing out of school. The once school boys were today’s good old men with greying, balding hair but bursting with enthusiasm like a batch of unruly young children.

As the bus was driving beyond Jaipur city I sat gazing out of the window, soaking in the changing topography and the vibrant colours of desert life. The bright turbans on the men’s head, the ghunghats of bandhni anchal covering the faces of women, bright yellow ‘sarso ke khet’ ( mustard fields) and thorny ‘kikar’ trees (babool) along the roads lead us to Diggi. Our home for the next three days would be the Diggi fort.

This seven hundred year old Diggi fort gave me the opportunity to live in the corridors of royalty, to hear the untold stories of the fort and to admire everything beautiful. The fort had the structural splendor of old architectural grandeur and the meticulous restoration work grandly blended the old era with the new. The architects had recreated the sense of style and comfort to match today’s sensibilities of royalty. 

Feeling like an ancient queen, I took to my chambers where the artistically done up interiors indulged my senses to gradually drown  in the lap of luxury. I was slowly settling down with a feeling like home. For the next two days I mostly kept walking into the interiors of the fort. I did not feel like a tourist or a visitor.

I walked down the corridors, climbed stairs, reached quiet forgotten roof tops. The angans made my imagination run into the fantasy world of bygone days. The Maharaja,  maharani,  the wives,  the concubines, must have all lived in different Mahals of this fort. I imagined the echoing of voices, laughter,  the musical jingling of heavy silver pajebs (anklets), along the long corridors bordering the central courtyards. The lattice work or jafri on the outer walls must have hidden the women folk inside; what world did they see with their deep dark khol-black eyes through those little prisms in the wall? Their world was very different from mine. In these grandly curated corridors I will always be an outsider. The lives that were lived within these walls will always remain an enigma.

My mind was recreating a world which must have been a reality many many centuries ago. The moss covered darkened walls on one side of the fort stood in contrast with the present reality. It stood as a symbol of history, it stood like a watch guard of the fort, witnessing centuries turning the needle of time in its predestined manner.

Outside this strong impenetrable high walls of the fort existed the real world. The small town of Diggi. The juxtaposition of life’s contrast on the two sides of the wall couldn’t be seen more starkly than here. Chalk and Cheese decided to take a little round up of this village called Diggi, to see a little more of this small place in the Tong district of Rajasthan. We hired a tuktuk, not before Chalk was completely  satisfied with the negotiations of the fare for a forty minute ride. While the Cheese in me was planning to ask the tuktuk wala to let me pose on his driver’s seat and to my surprise he obliged. Perhaps he thought it safer not to argue with a half mad, frock wearing woman of middle age.

The tuktuk driver took us to the major attractions of his town, namely the Kalyan ji temple, the bus stand, the four dharamshalas and the Vijay Sagar lake. At the lake I saw women and young girls washing clothes. The scarcity of water must be pulling them to this only natural water body in their town. To my surprise I found the temple premises very clean and serene, here I learnt that local people walk from Jaipur city to this pilgrimage on special days and months of the year. When the riches of life draws a line of divide between people, faith strangely draws an equalizer; bringing the King and the pauper at its gate on an equal pedestal.

I always find myself swaying between the dualities of life, I often get lost in the search of the right road. Chalk my guide comes forward in such times and pulls me back into the party zone of life. Here too I see friends and strangers sitting side by side enjoying an evening together. I shrug off my own thoughts on dualities, of ancient times and dive in the party scene of the present moment. The singer has a melodious voice, we join in humming along with him as he sings “Yaadon ki baraat nikli haye dil ke dware, sapno ki shehnai bite dino ko pukare, dil ke dware…” What an apt song indeed for a reunion of friends . 

After three days of living with friends like a big joint family Chalk and Cheese return to their silent home. When I ask Chalk if he feels the silence too, he calmly replies ” silence is golden “, well everything appears golden to Chalk after the golden jubilee celebration! But I am Cheese, I can’t remain quiet for long.  Virginia Woolf once wrote ” It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels”, and me being Cheese, I feel a lot and I love putting them in words for myself. I will be back again in the same place, with some other chain of thoughts for myself and my friends. Till then, “Khamma ghani” from me to you.