The ‘Real’ Thakur
In spite of the bonfire, our backs were freezing, for temperatures in Mandawa, Sikar and Jhunjhunu often fall to freezing point in winter. Tables colourfully bedecked in mustard and maroon were set for dinner. A single candle on the table offered romantic but inadequate light for the meal. Kesri Singh was in high spirits. I heard from a waiter that he often ate his chapatti dipped in rum, but have no evidence to support this. By nine, the exhausted group of tourists retired to their rooms to prepare for the next day’s sightseeing.
Now, only Kesri Singh, Shiva and I were left. As Shiva and Kesri Singh continued to enjoy their drinks, I began to look for an excuse to leave, preferably after dinner, but reconciled to leave even without it. Then Shiva, fishing for information, started one of his typical recce conversations, laced liberally with spirits and a sense of mischief. A kind of probing, of what made Kesri Singh, the castle and Heritage Hotels tick. Before I could heave a sigh of relief at these “safe” subjects, he took a neat, unforeseen side-step into what Kesri Singh must feel not to be a “real” Thakur anymore.
Excerpted from Beyond the Dunes by Juhi Sinha Rs 275 / Pp 235 (With permission from Penguin Books)
A cultural melting pot
Admittedly, few agencies in the world would be equipped to cater to the huge number of migrants that the city has attracted in recent years. Delhi’s polyglot nature has aided that process: it welcomes nobody but accepts everybody. In recent years, the most visible—some would say most welcome —change is that the city’s strident Punjabi culture has been strongly diluted by the new economic immigrants at the corporate and entrepreneurial level. Delhi’s contemporary charm lies in the fact that no community dominates. Punjabis now represent less than a third of the population, with the result that everybody is a minority, making the city truly a melting pot of ethnic identities.
Excerpted from Delhi Then & Now
by Narayani Gupta and Dilip Bobb.
Rs 2,475 / Pp 202 (with permission from Roli Books)
Once upon a time in Jodhpur
Why is it that when the Rathore caravans halted at Mandore to lay the foundations for their new kingdom of Marwar, they did not erect those ramparts on the huge rock where Mehrangarh would later be built? Perhaps we shall never know, but in time, Mandore was abandoned and Jodhpur came into being, and the eagle’s eyrie that is Mehrangarh, rose citadel-like to dwarf everything around it.
It is a sight that still affords a gasp moment, that first glimpse of the basalt walls rising up the sheer escarpment to end in a frothy lace of pierced stone windows and balconies. A city spreads below, sprawled between Mehranagrh and the Umaid Bhawan Palace, dusty and tatty at the edges, but decidedly regal.
Excerpted from Royal Rajasthan
by Pramod Kapoor and Kishore Singh.
Rs 2,975 / Pp192 ((With permission from Roli Books)
