Travelogue: In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Durgacharan Rakshit travelled to most parts of India

Jaipur

We reached Jaipur in the morning and put up at the pilgrims’ inn of Thakur Fateh Singh, just adjacent to the railway station. Clearly Nature here is very different from what we had previously seen and were familiar with. It is a land of sands, and distant hills. There are fortresses surrounding the foothills.

We had our bath and went to visit Govindaji’s temple and the city. The entire city is surrounded by a boundary wall and as we entered the city gate, we saw a long and wide main road in front of us. All the structures, including the houses and the roads, are built of stones. The concept of brick structure seems alien here. We reached a point of the road where it got divided in four different directions—east, west, north, and south. The houses which stood on both sides of the roads were identically constructed and were made of red stones. None of them had balconies other than bay windows. The walls had decorative stone webs at the top. There were water taps all along the roadsides and there were gas lampposts. The royal palace was enormous in size. It occupied a large area of the city outskirts. To us, it looked almost like a complete locality and not a single palace. In an enclosed area, there were numerous separate palatial buildings.

The Govindaji temple is inside the royal garden. It is said that the deity of the temple is actually the original deity of Govindaji from Vrindavan. It was brought here when worshippers, scared of Aurangzeb, wanted to protect it against the Mughal onslaught.

However, the temple of Vrindavan still exists and is considered to be unique by itself. The idol undoubtedly is unique too. A devotee informed me that the interesting aspect of the idol is, once you see it you develop an insatiable thirst for seeing it again and again. The priests are all from Bengal. Seeing we were new to the place, they started enquiring our whereabouts.

From there we visited a huge water reservoir full of crocodiles. Since we had got some meat for them, we hung the meat down to the water with a rope and called the crocodiles to come and feast. Suddenly, a crocodile was visible from afar swimming towards the meat, then in no time a group of crocodiles gathered round the meat and started tugging the rope. Finally, their fearsome faces were visible to all of us.

It is not possible to visit the palace premises without the permission of the British Resident, so I applied for a permit and got one. After lunch, an emissary arrived from the Residency and took us to the palace. After crossing several boundaries, we came across a number of tombs and palatial buildings. Compared to Kashmir’s planetarium and Delhi’s Mann Mandir, the planetarium of Jaipur is far more enriched in terms of the number of items. Added to it, it’s far better maintained and looks almost new. But to us, it was just a collection of instruments and nothing more.

Then we visited the technological museum and the art gallery. Interestingly, in the art gallery we came across gold coins bearing Bengali inscriptions. The rest of the day was spent under the shady trees of the garden. We left Jaipur late at midnight.

Ajmer

Pushkar Lake is situated just nine miles away from here. After alighting from the train, we immediately booked a horse carriage and set forth for Pushkar. On our way, we came across two Bengali residents of Ajmer. Since it was Sunday, they too were on their way to Pushkar. Among them was one Mr Prasanna Kumar Chakraborty with whom we were to put up. The other gentleman’s face appeared very familiar to me. But I couldn’t place him at first. He seemed to have recognized me instantly, possibly because he had already received a letter from Shib Chandra babu. After a few exchanges I suddenly asked the gentleman, “Aren’t you Nandalal babu?” He replied, “Yes”. It was a strange coincidence, meeting him after a gap of maybe thirteen or fourteen years. Since he had changed quite a bit, I couldn’t recognise him at first.

By now we had already left the plains and were in hilly terrains, so instead of the horse carriage we had to walk our way up. I enjoyed talking to Nandalal babu, reminiscing our yesteryears, and trudging upwards. The soil texture of the hilly tracts indicated we had arrived in the land of deserts. There were no leafy trees around but only different forms of cactuses. The colour of the soil, too, looked dry and totally sunburnt.

Three sides of the Pushkar Lake are cemented and up above it stands various temples and rest houses constructed by different kings and rich merchants. The temple of Lord Brahma that exists here had been constructed by King Holkar. There is no other temple dedicated to Lord Brahma in the country.

It had already grown quite late, so we desisted from visiting the Savitri hill. The priest informed us that visiting Savitri Hill is considered to be very auspicious for married Bengali women. People from other provinces don’t generally visit this hill. We had to feed a few brahmins here. The priest had already procured a few soured sweetmeats and pakoras for the purpose and we too had to eat them in order to satisfy our hunger.

We returned to Ajmer in the afternoon. Like Jaipur, even here the houses are all made of stones and are really very clean. The city, too, is bounded by a wall. It was almost twilight, so we spent the rest of our time at a temple premise, listening to the mellifluous bhajans and accompanying music. At night we went to see a festival called Sanjh. An interesting feature of the city is every locality has a canopy set in its middle which is illuminated with lights in the evening. And on the ground are laid multi-coloured mats. On enquiry, nobody could tell us for certain the significance of this practice. Mr Prasanna appeared to be a perfect gentleman. His family consists of his wife and several daughters. He took great care of us and we felt as if we were actually residing with our own kinsmen.

The next morning, we climbed the Taragarh fort and viewed the entire city of Ajmer. It looked as if the city, comprising of clusters of white houses, was a collection of marble structures on one side and beautiful gardens and orchards with isolated British-style bungalows on the other. Had Anasagar Lake been added to this landscape, the sight would have been simply superb! Yet, the natural beauty that we had seen in Kashmir from Takht-e-Suleman, is something beyond comparison. But as a cityscape this was exceptional, not found anywhere else.

From there we descended to view an ancient structure which could be either a Buddhist temple or a Hindu temple, Adahi din ka jhonpra. The intricate carvings on the walls were too good to describe. Some time between 1211 to 1236 it was converted to a mosque. At 10 am, we started our journey towards Abu Road station and reached it at 2 am. The station master, being a perfect gentleman, allowed us to stay at the railway retiring room for the rest of the night.

Excerpted with permission from Journeys Across India, Durgacharan Rakshit, translated from the Bengali by Sarbani Putatunda, Speaking Tiger Books.