THE JAISALMER DESERT FESTIVAL

As mentioned in our previous post, this and the next few posts would focus on our grandfather's visit in Jaisalmer. 

On our grandfather's arrival our father got leave from office to give him a tour of Jaisalmer. We decided to begin the tour with a nice meal at our favourite restaurant, Desert Boy's Dhani. The restaurant was famous for its Rajasthani dishes and candle light dinners (I believe it still is) which were served in an open roof garden. Our grandfather was unfamiliar with the dishes we ordered, since he was used to common, plain dishes, he'd never had something like Mushroom Masala. After a hearty meal, when the bill arrived our grandfather was awestruck by the amount. As our father began counting the notes to pay the bill, our grandfather couldn't take off his eyes from the notes, add to it the surprise when father gave the additional tip. That was the moment when grandfather blew up saying "Tum bachcho ko akal hi nahi hai ki paise kaha kharch karte hai. Itne bill ka toh mai mahine ka ration bharta hu".

The time of our grandfather's arrival was also the beginning of the Desert Festival. The festival is held at a place two hours drive away known as Sam Dunes in the month of February. 

Jaisalmer 050 - Desert Festival 2011" by Ben Beiske is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

The Sam Dunes can be said to be the boundary of the sand dunes of the Thar desert. At times, the sand dunes can shift across a large distance. We ourselves found a road buried under the dunes, it was clearly visible for all to see, a stretch of asphalt of around 10 metres surrounded by the dunes on all sides. It is also the place where the armed forces train many a times, my brother and his friend even found used bullet shells while digging up the dunes. And of course, it is the location of one of the biggest festivals in Rajasthan, the Desert Festival.

      "Desert Festival" by Nick_Leonard is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0

The festival is held annually, attracting visitors from practically all over India. It consists of camel rides, folk dances, classical musicians, stunts including walking on red hot ember, parajumping by the Armed Forces, sand sculptures and goes on through the night. There is no stage or shed, visitors sit on the sand dunes while the performers perform on the sand dunes. The Thar Desert is as cold at night as it is hot during the day, extreme on both sides of temperature. 

The camel ride although fascinated grandfather, he still had his reservations about approaching the camel, an animal he had never approached before. It wasn't that he was not used to large animals, he once owned a horse, a few buffaloes and oxen. Somehow we convinced him for a camel ride. He joined me on the ride on the pretext of mine falling off the camel. And really, the camel moves front and back a lot while rising on its feet to give a ride.

 

 The festival was a total hit in the eyes of our grandfather. If the festival continued throughout the year, I have no doubt he would have remained there for the rest of his life. He even danced along with few others on the tunes the local musicians were playing. We returned to our home the next afternoon. For more exciting adventures stay tuned.

TO BE COUNTINUED.............................................................................