AHMEDABAD TO AJMIR
The railway station at Ahmedabad has the unusual distinction of two
striking minarets of brick-work, richly cut and moulded in successive
circular tiers, which rise to a considerable height from amid the
palms and plantains of a small well-watered Eastern garden, with
many straight-cut paths between the thickly planted trees. These are
the remains of a Mohammedan mosque which once stood there. It is an
unusually interesting and pleasant place to wander in while waiting for
a train.
Our bearer secured a comfortable coupé for our journey to Ajmir, which
was to be our next halting-place. We had originally intended to visit
Mount Abu to see the wonderful Jain temples of Delwara, but before we
reached the Abu road heavy rain came on, and as it would have meant a
pony ride of sixteen miles from the station to Mount Abu, we decided to
go on to Ajmir without a break.
Leaving Ahmedabad at 8.15 we breakfasted in the train, there being
a restaurant car put on. The trains not being corridor trains it is
necessary to get out at the stopping stations and find one’s way to the
car and back to one’s carriage again.
The country at first was very flat and generally cultivated, but with
occasional belts of jungle, where monkeys and peacocks were seen. Fine
banyan and acacia trees here and there. Ploughing with oxen was going
on, and the yoke of oxen drawing at the irrigation wells was a frequent
sight.
About the middle of the day dark clouds rolled up and we had a heavy
shower with promise of more to come. Mountains came into view at the
same time as the change in the weather, and it was not long before we
reached Abu Road Station. The fine mountain range on the left of the
line amid which Mount Abu was situated was veiled in cloud and rain,
but as we left the mountains the sky cleared again, and we entered
a flat, desert-like region covered with stunted trees or dry scrub
bush, stretching for miles. A strange-looking country was afterwards
traversed, where huge granite boulders lay on the earth like mounds and
partly overgrown, others might have been imagined to be the shells of
gigantic tortoises. At a station called Mori this characteristic was
the most striking. The stations on this line through Rajpootana were
built after the Moslem fashion and had a superficial resemblance to
mosques, being domed, the smaller buildings and wayside signal huts
being treated in the same manner.
After a rainy sunset of orange and grey, darkness soon fell, and it was
not long before we reached Ajmir after about twelve hours’ travel—a
distance of over three hundred miles. We found fairly comfortable
quarters at the station refreshment-rooms, the bedrooms being above
and opening on to spacious terraces from which interesting views of
the town and country could be had. The only drawbacks were the noises.
What with the shrieks of the engines, and the perpetual conversazione
carried on on the platforms, which were generally thronged with most
picturesque crowds of natives, sleep was very broken.
Ajmir is very beautifully situated, with a fine background of
hills, the town itself being on a slope with an old fort crowning a
height immediately above it. There is a large military station, the
cantonments with the residency and the English bungalows lying on a
plain quite away from the native town.
We hired a carriage and drove around the town the morning after our
arrival, visiting the old palace and massive fortress built by the
Emperor Akbar, who has left so many noble buildings in the north-west
of India to testify to his power and influence in the past. We
entered through a noble gateway into a large quadrangle surrounded by
tremendously high, thick walls and having octagonal bastions at four
corners. A pavilion rose in the centre of the court, raised upon a
platform led up to by steps of marble. Extensive restorations were
being carried on under the Indian Government, so much so that one had
fears they were in danger of going too far in the direction of renewal,
and did not draw the line with sufficient decision at the limits of
preservation and repair. Certainly new work was being put in freely. It
was interesting, however, to see that most beautiful and characteristic
Indian craft of piercing patterns in marble being carried on. The
native carver, turbaned and grey-bearded, was squatting on the ground
busy with a small marble grill or screen. He was drilling a geometric
diaper pattern through a panel of marble which had a worked moulding
for frame. The slab was bedded in clay to keep it from under the
worker’s hands, and to prevent splitting. When the holes were drilled
he finished the work with chisels and mallet, working out the different
bevels and facets of the quatre-foils, and putting in the work that
which gave all the richness and the effect of the pattern. He seemed
pleased to have his work noticed, and anxious that we should see it
in its finished state he went to where a group of native women were
at work on other similar grills which had left the carver’s hands,
cleaning the pierced patterns from the clay, and showed the completed
panels clear cut in the white marble. It was noticeable that the women
only did the cleaning and polishing up, but not the carving.
We had a fine view from the ramparts and minarets of the pavilion.
From the fort we went on driving through the bazaars of Ajmir, which
were highly interesting but less busy and crowded, perhaps, than at
Ahmedabad. Gay coloured cottons and muslins, embroidered slippers,
pottery, and grain of all kinds were mostly in evidence, the latter
arranged in heaps on cloths spread on the ground in front of the shops,
and measured out by the traders squatting by their merchandise. The
fronts of the native houses here were mostly in white plaster, often
painted with designs in blue and yellow of formal flowers in vases,
or quaint animals and figures in profile. There was much fancy and
variety in the design of the little arcaded projecting balconies
corbelled out from the wall, and ogee arched windows, and moulded
plaster and painted ornament.
We presently, at the end of the principal street, approached the
magnificent double gateway of the famous Dargah—named the Dilkasha (or
“heart-expanding”) gate. From the street one really sees three ogee
arches of different heights in succession, one beyond the other, the
highest being flanked by towering minarets crowned with cupolas. The
whole gateway in the bright morning sunlight looked a fairy-like aerial
structure, fair and white, and glittering here and there with gold, and
tile patterns in blue and yellow.
The Dargah of Ajmir is revered as the burial-place of one Kwaja Sahib,
a saint of the thirteenth century. His beautiful white and gold domed
shrine enclosing his silver tomb occupies the centre of the inner
court, and is visited by troops of pilgrims. A great festival is
held in honour of the saint every year, when Ajmir is thronged with
pilgrims. Two enormous iron pots are shown, standing each side the
entrance to the Dargah, in which at the festival are cooked tons of
food freely given to the pilgrims. The biggest pot is reputed to hold
no less than 10,000 lbs. of food. The food consists of mess of rice,
oil, sugar, raisins, and almonds, which is rather suggestive of a sort
of plum pudding, and on this scale costs about £100.
[Illustration: SHRINE OF THE KWAJA, AJMIR]
On first entering the Dargah through the great gateway one sees a large
paved court with several domed tombs and a mosque, and rising high
the old fort of Tarrgarh, white-walled on the brown hill, is seen
above. I noted a very fine bronze many-branched candelabra on one of
the domed tombs. Passing through this court the second court is entered
where stands the shrine. It is surrounded by a low marble balustrade,
and is picturesquely overshadowed by a large ancient ilex tree, through
the spreading branches of which with their masses of rich dark foliage
glows the colour and gold of the richly decorated shrine. Through
the open doors gleam the silver of the tomb, and the ivory-like dome
fretted and crested with gold sparkling in the full light of the sun
pierces the deep blue sky. Curious low tapering pedestals with small
cupolas at the top are placed about the courts and around the shrine at
intervals. These are pierced with small recesses, in which, on festival
occasions, small lamps are placed. Beyond the shrine we come out upon
a high-walled terrace which extends with a succession of bays along
the sides of a deep narrow tank, flights of steps leading down to the
water’s edge at different points.
It is the custom when visitors leave the Dargah for the attendants to
hang garlands of flowers about their necks, and in return for this
graceful attention an offering to the shrine—or to its hangers on—is
expected.
The visitor is, however, rather carefully watched inside the Dargah.
The shrine itself is not allowed to be entered. Shoes must be removed
on entering the court, or the big canvas shoes put on over them. On
sketching intent I was not allowed to pitch a camp stool near the
shrine or in the sacred precincts, and even open umbrellas, for shade,
were objected to by these jealous watchful devotees.
From the Dargah we went to see the roofless mosque of
“Arhai-din-ka-Jhonpra,” which being interpreted signifies “The house
of two and a half days.” It is on the hill opposite the fort, but
on the lower slope, and is approached through narrow streets, and
finally reached by a steep flight of steps which lead to the gateway
of the court of the mosque. It is now little more than a beautiful
red sandstone carved screen of open pointed arches, but the detail is
exceedingly rich and happy in scale, and largely consists of bordering
inscriptions outlining the arches and their rectangular framings, the
texts being in both Cufic and Togra characters, and both these and the
surface decoration generally are delicately but sharply cut in sunk
carving, which preserves a certain unity of ornamental effect. Arranged
along the side of the court are many carved fragments which are the
remains of the Jain Temple, transformed into the Mussulman Mosque in
the year 1236 by Altamash, who conquered the city, and was said to have
effected the transformation in two and a half days.
The mosque was not used for worship. In the court a rope or cord maker
was at work. The white strands stretched over canes from the man
working at one end of the walk to where at the other end his assistant
sat at a sort of wheel by means of which the strands were twisted into
a cord of the required thickness.
After this we drove to the Daulat Bagh (Garden of splendour)—then
passing through a beautiful park full of pine-trees we came to the
white marble pavilion built by Shah Jehan, standing on a marble
balustraded terrace, and overlooking a lovely lake, bounded by
mountains—a lovely spot. The pavilion has been restored by the Indian
government, and looks quite new. Marble, however, does not seem to
weather or discolour in the Indian climate, and the difference between
new and old is not nearly so marked as in European countries, while
the imitative faculty of the Hindu workman and the traditions of
craftsmanship under which he still works help to complete the illusion
when restoration is done. New or old, it was an enchanting place,
especially when the evening sun floods the whole scene with golden
light, streaming through the trees, and filling the marble porticoes
with warm colour. The lake still as a mirror, reflecting the fairy
palace and the dreamy distance in its glassy surface. The chief
commissioner should be happy to have his residence in the midst of this
lovely garden. The lake is as useful too as it is beautiful, as from it
is obtained the water supply of Ajmir.
Another of our evening drives was through the cantonments outside the
native city. We passed through the English military quarters, and
saw the long low barrack-like bungalows of the soldiers, clean and
neat, but bare and ugly. There were more comfortable bungalows of
the officers and other English residents in gardens and amid trees,
with entrance gates and drives, almost suburban, allowing for little
differences in detail. The names of the residents, for instance, were
painted in white block-letters on ugly black boards placed outside the
gates of the gardens. There was the usual club house in a landscape
garden, and here a military band of native infantry was playing,
conducted by a man in a straw hat. English ladies, and children with
their native aejahs and bearers scattered about the lawns.
On the road a little distance from the town a large number of natives
were busy making up the road over a new bridge across the railway. Many
of these coolies were very attenuated, and might have come from the
famine districts.
Passing through the bazaar on my return from sketching in the Dargah, I
noticed among the stalls of a crowded and picturesque native street a
craftsman at work putting a border pattern upon the edge of a piece of
orange-coloured muslin. He first printed or stamped the border, a small
leaf and flower pattern, from a wood block with some sort of size of a
brown colour, and when this was sufficiently “tacky” he laid on silver
leaf over the pattern thus defined by the block in size, and finished
by brushing away the superfluous leaf with a soft brush, much as our
gilders do.
A quaint effect was produced by the camels here, laden with great
sheafs of sugar-cane, which trailed behind, spreading out over their
hind quarters in a way that suggested skirts or a crinoline—viewed from
behind.
[Illustration: THE CAMEL’S CRINOLINE (SUGAR CANE) AJMIR]
From our terrace over the railway station we could observe the varied
groups of natives which continually thronged the platforms and the
yards outside. Certainly the native in India makes constant use of the
railways, although the railways do not take any trouble to make them
comfortable. The native carriages seem always in an overcrowded state,
and many of them are rather suggestive of cattle trucks with rough
wooden partitions. Troups of natives will come to a railway station
and camp all night waiting for some train in the morning. On inquiring
what classes or manner of people these poor travellers mostly were, I
was told that they comprised chiefly pilgrims to various shrines and
festivals in different parts of the country, and small traders. The
Ryot, or agriculturist, did not travel much, as might be supposed.
The people usually bore great bundles with them, bedding presumably,
and other necessaries for long journeys. These the women carried upon
their heads. In the evenings groups of natives would be seen gathered
round fires made on the ground. These were often mere flares of straw,
and did not last very long, though they may have served to mitigate the
chill of the nightfall, which is always so sudden in India.
As evidence of the extraordinary variety of colour arrangements in the
costume of the natives in the bazaars, here are a few notes made of the
colours worn by passers-by, both men and women, at Ajmir observed in
the course of a few minutes.
1. Citron tunic, emerald green turban, white trousers.
2. Buff turban black tunic, white trousers.
3. (Woman.) Large vermilion cloak, pink skirt.
4. Pea green turban, crimson velvet tunic, white trousers.
5. Orange turban, black tunic, white trousers.
6. White turban, wound round a red fez, deep brown orange cloak thrown
over brown jacket and white breeches.
7. Orange muslin simply covering head and body, scarlet trousers.
(Mohammedan woman.)
8. Turquoise turban, golden orange tunic (long) lined with pale yellow.
The agricultural country folks generally wore white, though it was
rather a dusky white. Groups of herdsmen were occasionally seen with
long straight wands, their dark faces and bare limbs emerging from
white cotton turbans, tunics and cloaks.
Travellers in India as well as English residents are often greeted
with salaams in the native bazaars and passers-by on the road. The
word “salaam” is pronounced by natives sometimes in a tone almost of
command, but as far as I could understand it was intended to suggest a
mutual exchange of salutations, or even the word alone might be taken
as a salutation sometimes; but it is always expected that an answering
salute of some kind will be given, but it is said that one should
never salute with the left hand if it is wished to avoid offence.
The ordinary mode of salutation in any country should be carefully
observed, as in no way can offence be more easily given, however
inadvertently, by any apparent neglect of what are considered the
ordinary courtesies of life sanctioned by the customs of a country.
It is true that the native children seemed sometimes inclined to mock
at a stranger, in a spirit of monkey mischief, perhaps, but there
are little street gamins in any city, and the latest product of our
civilisation, the London street arab, would be difficult to beat
anywhere, East or West.