In Rural India, It (Finally) Took a Village

By Lisa Singh
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, July 2, 2006

As a mouse scurried across the stone floor of his shop, Wazid the banglemaker pushed a steel plate of food my way. I was in Samode, a 500-year-old village in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, and it was lunchtime. I could have gone up the hill to a tourist hotel where choices included "country fried chicken," "cheese 'n cheese" and "Mr. Chips." But Wazid had something else in store -- a Rajasthani specialty called papad mangodi .

I'd come to Rajasthan for a two-week journey through rural India -- a world that Gandhi called the heart and soul of the country, and where most of India still lives. On arrival, I'd sworn not to let my Western inhibitions -- or a few mice -- scare me off.

Hours before, I'd reached this village of 8,000 Hindus and Muslims from Rajasthan's capital of Jaipur. Along for the ride was a 68-year-old retired city man, Mr. Agrawal, whom I'd hired as translator through this land of a thousand castes and tribes. One of the "civilized persons" -- his words -- he'd left his own village more than 40 years back and didn't share my eagerness to connect with an India far removed from computers, call centers and cricket.

Standing outside the banglemaker's shop, Mr. Agrawal caught sight of the food and frantically waved his hands: "No! No! Do not eat it! Unhygienic conditions!"

I looked at Wazid, a 28-year-old father of four, seated across from me on the floor. Chomping on betel leaves, with a knitted white kufi on his head, he smiled. I tore off some roti, dabbed it in the lentil-mustard-oil mix and ate.

Mr. Agrawal wagged his finger: "Remember, I have warned you!"

Maybe he was right, but I wanted to experience an overlooked side to Indian life. Nearly all Western travelers stick to India's cities. Here in Rajasthan, a largely desert land visited by nearly half of all tourists to the country, those wanting a taste of Indian rural life often settle on a place like Chokhi Dhani. Billed as an "ethnic village resort," it's an amusement park on the outskirts of Jaipur where visitors ride bullock carts, eat in mud huts and watch dancers perform under the open night sky. You'll also hear shrieks of fright from the crowd every time the electric lights inadvertently flicker off.

I was looking for something that feels a little more real, like what I had found more than 20 years back. I was an American kid of 6 when I first set foot in a Rajasthani village where my father was born and raised. After the initial culture shock -- no electricity or running water, for starters -- I glimpsed a world of color, anchored in old ways. Admittedly, I've looked back since then with misty eyes -- something my next trip to the village, in 2004, didn't cure me of. After all I'd heard about the flight of Indians (including some of my cousins) to cities, I expected a scene straight out of a Feed the Children ad. Instead, green fields of wheat and mustard swayed in the breeze. Schoolchildren treated me to dance and song. Women in red saris with gold and silver trim grabbed my hand and led me into their homes for a cup of chai.

For this latest trip, I set my sights on Samode and two other villages in Rajasthan. I'd recently heard about them when India's tourism office came out with an "Explore Rural India" campaign.

"Tourism growth in India started with the development of five-star hotels," said Amitabh Kant, an official with the tourism office in Delhi. "To my mind, that was like aping the West." So his office drew up a list of 31 villages around India where travelers could find the best in rural arts and heritage. As for village food, it's "the most hygienic" you'd find in India, said Kant. Each village is also supported by a local nongovernmental organization (one, for example, teaches rural women carpet-weaving), and is close enough to a hotel or city so travelers can balance rural days with nights of modern comfort.

I didn't want to forgo hot showers, but I was eager to spend days away from the city -- and not a moment too soon. I'd flown into Jaipur in February as a three-week garbage strike gripped the city of more than 2 million and the smell of burning trash filled the air. The day the Hindustan Times reported that strikers "bayed for their leaders' blood," I hired a driver, met up with Mr. Agrawal and hit the road.

* * *

Finding rural paradise turned out to be not so easy.

An hour's drive from Jaipur, Samode is surrounded by the Aravali hills, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. The HBO production of "The Far Pavilions" was shot here. The village itself -- rows of stone houses, some with thatched roofs -- is home to gemstone cutters and other craftsmen.

The first glimpse of Samode wasn't pretty; boars darted across the arched stone gate to the village, and children with too-old faces rushed our car. The dirt path gave way to a winding road. Up a steep hill and past a towering gate, we reached a world far different from the one below.

Ahead was Samode Palace, a 400-year-old yellow fortress built on three levels, each with its own courtyard. Adorned with marble floors and walls covered with paintings of hunting and courtship, the palace sits on grounds that were once home to a nobleman from Jaipur. In 1987, the palace was made into a hotel and has rooms with whirlpool baths and satellite TVs. A Greek and Italian restaurant is being built on the grounds. "Ninety-nine percent of our business is European," said K.K. Sharma, the hotel's manager. "That is the logic."

Mr. Agrawal was still dead set against villagers' food, so we ordered at the palace. Nothing Rajasthani on the menu, though.

Sharma, a village native, had a suggestion: A descendant of the grounds' owner was entertaining tourists at his nearby farmhouse. We'd find food prepared there in the "traditional way," he said.

He was half-right. Beside a wheat field, tourists sat under a canopy eating lunch prepared by men in the sort of crisp white chef suits you'd expect at Le Cordon Bleu, not here. A nearby table included macaroni, brownies and vanilla mousse. There were a few rural touches, though: Women with faces shrouded by saris churned buttermilk in clay pots and cooked millet roti over a horseshoe-shaped stove made of cow dung.

Music filled the air. Men in turbans played harmoniums, sitars and drums. One crooned a song, " At ithi devo bhava" -- "Our guests are like gods." A few yards away, artisans showed off crafts: hand-cut gemstones, hand-woven fans, pots.

By the edge of the field, a man in a dhoti stood by his camel and beckoned with his hand.

The camel ride was great -- all three minutes -- until the man demanded about $25. Later, at the banglemaker's shop, I encountered a similar scene. After lunch, the owner offered a picture frame for $6.50. As I fished through my wallet, he upped the price to $11.

Samode was starting to feel a lot like city life, so we stopped by a 20-acre garden, Samode Bagh. It was built 150 years ago by the son of a rajput-prince (part of a centuries-old military caste) and is lined with rosebushes, mango trees and, nowadays, air-conditioned tents with marble bathrooms. Like Samode Palace, the grounds are separated from the village by a high gate.

All well and good, but was this the closest a traveler could come to appreciating rural India -- by holing up in a pricey retreat?

* * *

Neemrana didn't ease that suspicion. Thorny trees and shrubs dot the land around the 460-year-old village, and open sewage lines flow between stone houses. As for artisans, when we stopped by a potter's house, he rose from a nap, then stumbled half-naked in a dhoti toward us. Mr. Agrawal said we'd return when the man put some clothes on.

The best the village had to offer was Neemrana Fort-Palace. The fort was built up on a plateau in 1464, then was converted into a hotel about 20 years back by two businessmen, from Delhi and France. The 25-acre property, with gardens, a pool and an amphitheater, is a frequent weekend getaway for residents of nearby Delhi. Unlike in Samode, there are no rural touches, unless you count village women sweeping the grounds.

Whatever color and life Neemrana lacked, the village of Haldighati made up for.

February is wedding season in India, and we soon got a chance to crash a party or two. From Jaipur, we traveled southwest, past the city of Udaipur, farther into the Mewar region -- one of the greenest areas of Rajasthan. The region is best known for one of the most famous events in the history of India: the 1576 battle between Maharana Pratap and the Mogul emperor Akbar.

Weaving through serpentine roads that overlooked green hills and homes framed by neem trees and bougainvillea bushes, we came across members of the Garasia tribe, a clan exclusive to Mewar and the neighboring state of Gujarat. With a red-turbaned groom in tow, a group of them, mostly children, walked by with steel pots of water on their heads. They'd just drawn the water from a well for planting wheat in honor of the upcoming wedding.

A woman with a huge hoop nose ring grabbed my hand and led me into the courtyard of a stone house.

"Dum-dum, dum-dum . . . " Inside, a barefoot old man with a white mustache and turban stood by the wall, beating on a large leather drum adorned with swastikas -- a peace sign in India. As children and other villagers gathered around, a dance began: A woman with a pot on her head twirled about, her face concealed by a sheer sari. Other women, in pink and peach saris, joined in, swaying to the beat.

Farther up the road, girls offered a taste of halwa -- a dessert made of semolina, sugar and butter -- that they'd prepared for another wedding. Mr. Agrawal still objected to eating village food but gave in that time, and the next, at the home of a dirt-poor Bhil tribesman. As flies swirled about the man's mud hut, he offered a dish of buttermilk and maize -- a sharp, sour mush.

By day's end, we saw Haldighati's other attractions -- a terra-cotta artist and a man who concocts ayurvedic potions. My stomach was starting to turn, so the man gave me a drink of rose water and cane sugar. It didn't help. Later, along a bumpy, winding road, I asked the driver to stop the car, then stumbled across a field looking for the nearest bush.

Mr. Agrawal shouted in the distance: "I had warned you! Time and again, I had warned you, but you would not listen!"

I staggered into the courtyard of a stone house covered with lime and spotted a cot a few feet away. A man put a wicker mat on it. I plopped down. Someone else placed a cushion under my head, then, a second later, a velvet one. Women gathered around, clutched saris to their faces and uttered, "Oh, Bhagwan, Oh, God . . . "

A woman boiled milk for chai, another placed sugar wafers on the cot, then rice and puri, a wheat flatbread. A gray-bearded man, a Rajput farmer with ruby-studded earrings, a vermilion smudge between his brow and a turban of red, green and purple, stood looking down. He handed me his children's wedding invitations.

Mr. Agrawal sat nearby, silent, shaking his head. What was he thinking, that it was time to call it a day, get back to the big city?

"Such hospitality," he said finally. "You could not imagine it in the city . . . "

Here, in India's heartland, they really do treat guests like gods. Even sick ones.

Lisa Singh is a writer and editor in Washington.