Indian notes for general circulation
9. Jodhpur: The Blue City
A hostile arrival, one unexpectedly comfortable room, and a city whose famous blue could not overcome my first impression.
Disclosure: This essay is my original work; AI assisted with translation and language editing, followed by full authorial revision.
Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Former capital of the kingdom of Marwar.
After marvelous Udaipur, I felt as if I’d ended up in hell. A crowd of people swarmed me; everyone wanted something. The city is filthy.
After I got off the train, I was surrounded by a huge crowd, and I guess that was the first experience of that kind for me. Later, it won’t get less exhausting — just less shocking, for sure. So my first impression was spoiled.
Disclaimer: the text that follows will be framed through that impression, so I reiterate the utter subjectivity of the whole experience.
I failed to find someone who would like to host me via Couchsurfing, so I picked a random car (not even Uber), gave up common sense, and let the driver deliver me to a hotel. By doing that, I failed not only proper management of the route and expenses but also the elementary act of bargaining the price for the ride in advance. From today’s perspective this looks like weakness — or maybe mental laziness — but I remember that feeling well: the electrified, humming, bumping world jumped on me, and there was no mental or physical barrier between me and it. That’s where I stopped being so put-together after the previous segments of the route, including the last train trip and the experience that preceded it.
After the taxi ride I found myself in quite a neat-looking lobby (where I’d been delivered for some percentage of the room price, I suppose), and the building itself looked well-designed.
The room was good — actually, one of the best I had during the trip. But the sheets. Stained with that goo which is the basis of Indian food. I asked them to change everything, but the guy at reception answered that almost all their bedding looks like this because Indian tourists eat that specific food in bed.
Okay.
It had actually been looong before that when I had to start repressing the punctiliousness in me.
And here is the problem with the city: aside from a few minor personal details and some pretty worthwhile sights, I have nothing to share about Jodhpur. My reason tells me I have too little incoming data to draw conclusions, but my intuition — spat on and humiliated by a century of rationalism — was telling me that the city’s vibe is low, and that I shouldn’t spend too much time there.
Out of the cacophony that my fragmented memories of this city have turned into, I’ve managed to extract one thing: it’s the “Blue City.” But it preserves its “blueness” far worse than Udaipur preserves its “whiteness.” Some rooftops and walls really are blue, yes, but overall the city looks closer to a typical South Asian metropolis, with its motley, chaotic development.
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There’s an impressive blood-red sandstone landmark — Mehrangarh Fort, towering over the city — but even that doesn’t outweigh the overall impression.
Here are a few photos of the fort (not the Red) I forced myself to visit. And while it’s interesting to look at, in essence it isn’t much different from what I saw in Udaipur.
Bonus track:
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