Worth a 1,000 Words: Jaipur & The Dirty Kurta
This picture has always been a favorite, it was taken about 6 years ago, at the foot of the Moti Dungri temple, which translates as Hill of Pearls or Pearl Hill. It sits atop quite a few, steep steps in Jaipur, Rajastan and is dedicated to my favorite Hindu deity, Lord Ganesh.
I’d been pestering our driver Abdul Sattar for quite a while that I wanted to go up the steps and pay my respects to Ganesha. But the real obstacle lay not in reaching the temple perched atop what seemed like thousands of steps. The challenge was actually getting past the dozen or so street kids that appeared whenever a car (preferably carrying tourists) stopped at the entrance to the temple, at the very bottom of the hill.
Abdul Sattar, in his infinite wisdom, decided that the best way would be to get some candy at the nearby Dukhan (street shop). After getting everyone’s order (some asked for “Chingum”, others for “Chocklate”) and handing it out, unfortunately the little fellow to the very left, dressed in a red sweater, was left empty handed. A situation he did not take to lightly and which he quickly responded to by crying big, fat tears and screaming at the top of his lungs. Another trip to the candy man took care of that, thankfully.
But I was still not given the go-ahead to the top of the hill, until Abdul Sattar had taken charge of my camera and snapped this “photo, photo”, as they all shouted in chorus. The smart looking girl to the immediate left of me in charge of coordinating everyone’s position, again pushing little red sweater boy nearly out of the frame.
At the end of my day, as I changed out of my clothes content and blessed for a day spent in the company of Ganesh, Abdul Sattar and the beautiful children of Jaipur, I caught sight of the hundreds of little, dusty hand prints that my new friends had left on my starched, white Indian shirt. I had not realized just how much I had been — lovingly, of course — handled… Just another day in Incredible India, of course!
mylifemystuff:
Feb 21st, 12 at 1:39
the great incident and i m going to read your book……….. and i like your blog site very much cuz its truly touch of indian colour. i came here luck by chance.