Bundi, Sunday 3 March 2013
The four days I spent in Mount Abu were among the best I've had in India. Setting aside all the negative things about the British influence in India, I've always been intrigued by the 'charming' side of it... the railways, the bureaucracy (everything in triplicate... I've never seen so much carbon paper), the buildings, the hill stations and, not least, the enduring Englishness still to be found in some of the people here. I found the latter two in Mount Abu - in spades.
But first, to describe Mount Abu. Let's create it, shall we? Let's go right back in time to the earliest days of mountain building, because the Araveli range, on the peaks of which the town of Mount Abu sits, is reputedly the oldest mountain range in the world. These long fingers of mountains are what's left of the lava that cooled from volcanic activity churned up by the shifting of tectonic plates. So hard is the granite that it has survived until today, where the wind and water have whittled away all the softer rock around them, leaving a vast expanse of plains.
Having trouble picturing it? OK. There's a huge patchwork quilt sitting beside you. Lift it by the corners and whirl it out onto the ground before you. That's our plains. Some of the patches are the bright, almost luminous green of young wheat fields (don't worry... they'll take on their familiar yellowy-brown shade when it's harvest time). Add some darker green fields, too, and a fair scattering of parched brown ones where we haven't done any irrigation.
There's a little trowel beside you... carve out a winding river bed, zig-zagging off to the end of your quilt. But don't add any water... it's a dry bed for now. But just wait for the monsoon!
Now to add those mountains. Take some immense chunks of brown plastercene with your giant's hand, roll them out a bit to elongate them, pinch the top a bit to make a few sharp points. Now, stand up and drop them from a height - splat! - onto your quilt. And behind that one, another one. And another. The morning mist and haze can lazily explore the valleys in between. Can you believe they were once higher than the Himalayas? Worn down to stumps of their former selves by millennia of wind and rain.
There's a huge bucket to your right, labelled 'Ayurvedic plants and trees'. See it? Scoop out as many as you can hold and let them fall onto your plastercene mountain ridges - and make sure they're concentrated particularly on one of your mountainous plateaux; this is the one where we'll put the town of Mount Abu. Watch them fall and take root by their millions. Throw on a smattering of other vegetation now, from the smaller bucket next door. Mango trees, date palms, trees with fronds and ones with broad leaves like your cheese plant. But don't overdo it, because 90% of our trees, plants and bushes on the Mount Abu plateau are to be used in ayurvedic herbal medicine.
Let's zoom in now on this one plateau. Grab your trowel and dig out some holes. Put them in beautiful niches, surrounded by hills. Now lift that watering can and fill them up. Lakes and tanks, ready to welcome some inhabitants.
See that squirming sack on your left? Pick it up, lay it down on the plateau and pull off the string holding it shut. Stand back! There go the cobras, the vipers, the pythons... watch as they spread themselves all over the hillside and then disappear. You'll probably not see them again. They hibernate in the winter and try to keep themselves to themselves the rest of the time. Just watch where you put your feet, though, if you're out trekking about or gathering wood in the summer.
Tip on that bucketful of lizards... watch them dart off and away. Throw on some rodents and insects - those lizards and the birds we'll add next will need something to eat! Open the lids on all the jars you've lined up beside you and let the birds soar, like spices hanging in the blue skies over your new landscape. Up, up go the eagles, circling above your forests. The chattering of those green parakeets! So many pigeons. Little bee-eaters - hello wee chaps! Wading birds and kingfishers to enjoy your lakes and tanks. Woodpeckers whose hollow tap-tapping will echo through your trees.
What could be in that other sack... the chattering, jumping one? Set it down and loosen the cord... wait for it... monkeys! Out they come in their hundreds - mummies, daddies and tiny babies, swinging through the trees. Hear the boom boom from the chests of the males.
See that wooden crate marked 'Danger!'? You'll have to be careful with this one... pull up the door from far back. Out come the leopards with a snarl, looking furtively around them. And panthers hot on their tails. In a flash, they're gone. You might only see their tracks in the future, so well they'll blend into the forest. What's that lumbering out after them? Is it dark pigs? No, don't make that mistake. It's sloth bears. Off they go. You'll see their tracks, too. You might even see one in the distance if you're watching the sunset in your forest one evening, but better hope you never cross one with cubs on one of your woody trails.
So, now to add our town. How to begin... plonk on an oblong piece of green grass, bigger than a football field. This is our polo ground. Draw a road either side, one leading to the most lovely of the lakes you created before, with hills all around. Off to the side, throw on a big higgeldy-piggeldy handful of shops in little alleyways. That'll be the Main Market. All along the road leading down to the lake, let's have more shops... restaurants, ice-cream stands, souvenir shops. Scatter on a good helping of people with carts - some are selling fruit, others are boiling and roasting cobs of sweetcorn, or samosas, or hot milk, or omelettes. Dot on some hotels. Put a pier at the lake, with pedaloes and rowing boats to rent. See how the road follows the shore of the lake... more hotels here, I think. And some men and boys offering rides on the beautiful Rajasthani Marwari horses, with their characteristic long, thin ears cocked inwards as though listening to each other's whispers. Drop in a big white balloon, the size of a house, but tether it down, mind! We can offer our visitors rides up and down in it when they come.
Add some houses - 50-odd grand villas perched here and there around our hilltops - summer homes for the various majarajas of Rajasthan wanting to escape the heat of the plains. Some of them are hotels now. Don't forget the simple shacks, though - unfortunately some of our residents won't be so well off.
OK, now for the people... here they come! See the villagers claim their houses and shacks. Watch out for the tourist stampede... in bus-loads they come, from Gujarat to the south and from Rajasthan all around. Don't forget the white faces, too... us visitors from across the seas. Watch as we all mill frantically around, like ants, exploring in and out of the shops and market stalls and swarm down to the lake and into the waiting boats. There we go, pedalling and rowing furiously.
Before you reach the lake, there's a road running off to the left. Let's go up there. Lining the road on either side are the stalls of the Tibetan market. Maybe we'll try on a few tops there later. Come back a bit. See that road heading up hill? There's St Sophia's school at the corner. A legacy of the missionaries. Uphill up the road we go. There on the left is the Shri Ganesh Guest House where you'll spend a few nights. From your room on the second floor, you can enjoy the views out over the hills, but let's not just look at them; let's get our walking shoes on and get out into them, too - that's the best way to taste the wonders of all those ingredients you've lovingly added to your patchwork quilt.
So... a few days in Mount Abu, then...
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