Embellished Culture of Rajasthan Glitters the Eyes

The Culture of  Rajasthan is very remarkable and beautiful that stands out exceptionally unique and worthwhile out in India Tours. Diverse topography, history and intriguing culture and lifestyle is what gives Rajasthan a different flavor. The rich heritage of the state is visible in every aspect of the people’s lives and landscape. Right from the flowing colorful hand woven dresses, gem studded jewelries and ornaments which even adorn the pet animals to the palatial palaces and havelis of the Rajput families, the special culture of  Rajasthan is what governs the lives of people who are continuing the legacy of their ancestors and maintaining the traditional practice in its true form. The diverse and joyous fairs and festivals are all symbols of the rich and unique Culture of  Rajasthan which are colorful days filled with folk music and dance, fables and street plays. Any festival and occasion is celebrated with much enthusiasm and joy over here.Festivity and feasting are a regular feature in the lives of Rajasthani people who live daily with aplomb and style.

The most commonly spoken language in the state is Hindi whereas the natives are fluent in Marwari. The people here also follow their religious and rituals piously. Hinduism is mostly practiced, followed by other religions such as Jainism, Islamism, Sikhism and Christianity. Famous temples like those of the Lord Brahma’s in Pushkar is worldwide known for it’s the only temple dedicated to the Hindu god of Creation Lord Brahma. Birla Mandir, Balaji of Salasar are also other well known temples in the state. The architecture needs less description of the state as it is already well appreciated and known by people for the exquisite and amazing forts and palaces built by erstwhile kings.These magnificent mansions speak volumes about the royal grandeur of the place.

City palace, Amber fort, Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar, Umaid Palace Bhawan etc is the most visited ones. How can one get forget the embroidery for which the state is most famous in the world and from where the fabric and art forms sent all over the world? The unique thing which makes it stand out is that it is purely done by hands and nowhere is the machine’s assistance involved. The designs like block printing, zari, bagaru, tie and die, sanganeer are the most common ones. Rajsthan  is also well known for Rajasthani bandhni saris. Kundan and gold jewelry, brasswork, handicraft items, wooden toys and wares, carpets and other decorative items are the best shopping and gifting items found here.

Miniature paintings of the different schools of  Rajasthan are famous too which depict themes of the various myths and legends. The art and culture has been influenced by the Persian elements during Mughal era and can be seen in Bikaner paintings and frescoes on palace wheels. Devotional in nature, these paintings depict Lord Krishna’s life whereas Kota paintings also drew hunting scenes and beautiful women. Rajasthan Tour  is famous for its mirror work, done on clothes, cushions, even walls.The folk dances of Rajasthan are known for its lively and rhythm in rich ghaghra and armful of bangles dancing to the tune of the Sarangi, a Rajasthani string instrument. The folk poets of Rajasthan, recite ballads as they wander from village to village entertaining the people enroute. The varied, colorful arts and folk dances lend color to the barren Desert of  Rajasthan.

The Adventure of the Disheveled Desk

Here's one for the Sherlock Holmes fans out there. Imagine that you have just entered an unfamiliar place. Your surroundings are shrouded in darkness, above you is a drip that keeps licking from the ceiling, and the ground beneath you is unfurling like a great Persian rug that can be swept from under your feet at a moment's notice. You have never been more aware of your surroundings. Everything is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying and you're half-expecting some bedraggled skeleton to sneak up from behind you at any minute. A position, where the door at the end of a long hallway holds every hope and fear you have ever imagined. You move slowly forward to open it, with each heavy breath and passing moment leading you closer to the end. And you have the uncanny sensation that soon—perhaps very soon—you will uncover that thing you've been searching for, or, in the infamous words of 50 Cent, die tryin'.

This feeling, often reserved for underground caverns, dingy narrow alleyways, and only the seediest of London bars, is curiously the same sensation I have in Taigu after returning home from a long vacation. In the year-and-a-half that I've lived here, I haven't had a particularly good track record when it comes to going back home. Take my return from a summer of travel last August—entering my room only to be met with my posters and tapestry ripped savagely from my walls, my books and papers lying in unorganized heaps across my shelves, and everything on my desk either shoved aside, toppled on to the floor, or lumped on top of my bed. I soon learned that the Foreign Affairs Office had hired workers to come in and repaint and repair our houses while we were gone, though no one had bothered to tell us before we left that we should expect to return to rooms that looked as though they had been ransacked by thieves.

Exhibit A: My desk in utter ruin following my return to Taigu in late August of last year.

For anyone who knows me, I keep my living space meticulous. Books are never so much as misaligned, stacks of papers are neatly squared, and every item on every table surface retains its composure and spatial placement in harmony with those around it. It's not to say that I don't have clutter, because I do, but even the clutter seems to have an imbued sense of purpose and resolve for where it exists and why. I joke with James that if he so much as came into my room and used a tissue, I would notice, but in all honesty (and haplessness), I truly believe that I would. What's great about my relationship with James, though, is that rather than criticize each others' obsessive compulsions, we provide mutual commiseration for their breeding. Case in point: James has to check the front door three times before he leaves the house to make sure he hasn't left something undone (unplugged the space heater, turned off the stove), whereas I go into a mental flurry when I realize that someone has been in my room, borrowed something from my kitchen, or washed their hands in my sink, no matter how seemingly insignificant the infraction.

It came, then (at least to me), as little surprise that someone had once again come into my house uninvited during the time I was away during break. As far as I know, the only people who have the keys to my house are me, James, and, perhaps ironically, the Foreign Affairs Office. In the past, they have used this privilege for both good and evil—sometimes to fix leaks in our bathroom when we are out of the house, but also to ambush us on Saturday mornings with news that we have an impromptu banquet to attend or a scientific paper that needs English revision. To most people, this would come as a gross breach of privacy, and to be sure, it took me a while to put aside my American need for personal space and accept the notion that I can be walked in on or interrupted at any moment. But since there was nothing I could do to change that, I realized that I'd simply do my best to plan accordingly.

What I haven't yet been able to put aside, however, is the thought of someone entering my house without forewarning while I'm away and making a mess of my belongings without a legitimate reason to account for the intrusion. In the case of the summer, the mess was attributed to house repairs. This time, it may have been a simple matter of having a clean room to greet me when I returned. The irony, though, is that whatever “cleaning” was done in the way of dusting corners and sweeping my floor, was undone in the sheer amount of time I had to dedicate to painstakingly rearranging back all of my belongings to my liking. However, the strangest thing about all of this is that unlike the summer, when all of my possessions were somewhat understandably tousled due to the refurbishing, this time around, there was hardly rationale to explain why someone would have been as deeply entrenched in my belongings as they were. Rather than simply being stolen or indiscriminately scrapped, many of the situations in which I found my things were so utterly bizarre that I had to make a list detailing all of the oddities:

1. Flash drive inserted into one of the ports on my USB hub, despite the fact that it wasn't attached to my computer.
2. Cap to my flash drive found at the bottom of my laundry hamper.
3. Two AAA batteries removed from their box in my drawer.
4. Empty bottle of jasmine tea found on the shelf above my bathroom sink.
5. Discontinued 10 RMB currency note missing from my collection of foreign money.
6. Five blue binder clips separated from a box of multicolored clips in my drawer and arranged in a circle on my desk.
7. A single match removed from my matchbox and lit.
8. A short clip of staples removed from a box of staples in my drawer and put on my desk.
9. External hard drive noticeably manhandled and instructional insert removed from its case.
10. Student gift unwrapped and separated from its cardboard sheath.
11. Peacock feather removed from my wall.
12. Two napkins used and discarded in various parts of my room.

It helps to reiterate here that none of these acts, even in my wildest dreams, are things I could have possibly left unattended to leading up to a two-month vacation. The real mystery to me is that aside from the 10 RMB note, nothing (to my knowledge) was explicitly stolen, and it's not like there weren't other valuable things in my room—all kinds of foreign currency, books, electronics, clothing, etc. And still, there are so many other questions left unanswered, like: Why specifically blue binder clips? Why take only one bill and leave the dozens of others untouched? Why light a match? Why mess with my flash drive and external hard drive but not actually steal them? The only thing clear to me now is that whoever had come into my room was not trying to be discrete, or at least, didn't know who he was dealing with. After I showed pictures I had taken of the state of my room to the other foreigners, some joked that a similar thing could have happened to them and they wouldn't have even noticed. Is it my fault for being entirely too anal?

I'm questioning even now whether or not I should bring it up with the Foreign Affairs Office. There were no signs that my house had been forcibly entered, so they are the only people who would have been able to come and go. And although I wouldn't accuse them of foul play, I don't trust the integrity of the workers they hire to come in and do repairs. To this day, they have never mentioned a single bad thing associated with their mid-vacation check-ins, and even if they did trust that I was telling the truth, it still may be impossible to pin down exactly who was responsible for the hi-jinks. I'm upset with myself for letting this get to me, but at the same time, it is frustrating and really quite eerie knowing that someone was so clearly taking liberties with my belongings, potentially lifting information from my drives, or at the very least, being crude and disrespectful in a stranger's home.  I still can't help but feel violated. If I can't be sure that my own house won't be broken into every time I leave it, then I can't truly feel safe in Taigu. As Scooby and the gang might say: It looks like we got a real caper on our hands!

Homecoming and the Construct of Home

Nearly two months—indeed, my longest time ever untethered to even the scantest conceptualization of home—and exactly zero blog posts later, I'm back in chilly Taigu, getting used to snow, air pollution, and the dry chalky feeling that I wake up with in my mouth each morning. By most accounts, the transition hasn't been easy. As it is, I'm still picking sand from the bottom of my backpack and going through intense withdrawal from condensed milk-saturated coffee and banana juice. But through it all, I came back from the end of break eager and excited to start my last semester here in Taigu—a thought that simultaneously excites and terrifies me—both because of how mentally prepared I feel to be back in America and how anxious I am at the thought of extricating myself from the little town I have called home for the last two years. More serious than that, though, is the fear that I won't have enough time to follow through with all of my goals for the next four months.

So far, things have been going to plan well. Four out of four weekdays in my first week back I had dinner with Chinese friends and have been painstakingly trying to get my Chinese back to where it was before my two month hiatus from almost all manner of speaking and reading. One of my closest Chinese friends—Crystal—who was once just another non-student who I reluctantly let sit in on my English classes, has recently left for work in Beijing. She found a teaching job, one that suits her interests perfectly—early education and tutoring in English—but even knowing how happy she will be there as opposed to being stranded in Taigu halfway between college and grad school still doesn't quiet my sadness at losing one of the friends I've known the longest here.

But not all of the news has come with a heavy heart. One of my former students told me that she is getting married in May and invited me to what will be the first wedding I have ever attended on any continent. After dinner at my favorite hot pot restaurant, I got treated to a night of mahjong and girl talk in one of the dorm rooms of some of my closest female Chinese friends. In the interest of expanding our male friend base, James and I started trying our hand at a popular collectible card game (think the Chinese version of Magic: The Gathering), and made a morning of playing it with our Chinese tutor and a couple of his male colleagues. And just this week, I finally mustered enough courage to ask my student from Shenzhen to teach me Cantonese, and in our first lesson, was struggling through new palatal placements with a difficulty not too dissimilar from my first time learning Mandarin.

Of course, traveling had its perks too. Under the pretenses of eating incredible food, seeing new places, and meeting up with old friends (though not necessarily in that order), traveling led me to places far and wide, but mostly, just away from China. Culturally, it couldn't have felt more different—listening to mosques blaring the “call to prayer” in Islamic Northern Sumatra in Indonesia, seeing churches lit up with gleaming red crosses at night in Korea, or hearing monks chanting in Buddhist wats all over Laos and Northern Thailand. Overall, the whole trip was incredibly rewarding (if more than a little exhausting), but if I had the chance to do it again, I would probably leave out one country, spend the extra 10 days scattered amongst the remaining ones, and come back to Taigu a couple days earlier. At this point, I feel like I've got a decent sense of Southeast Asia so that the next time I come back, I will have a more clear idea of what I want to see. This trip was more like an appetizer sampling plate—lots of different things to try, but only a tiny bite of each. Next time, I'm ordering the main course.

Though I haven't stopped trying to challenge myself, I can't help but feeling that since I've been back, the things I'm doing here in Taigu aren't especially new or groundbreaking. By most accounts, it's been back to the old comforts and routines of teaching, writing, exercising, and going out to big dinners with friends. As a town, Taigu has hardly budged in the two months I've been away. As one of my former students roughly put it, “the restaurants are still bright and gaudy and the road still looks like shit.” But for exactly that reason, there is a certain comfort that comes with being in a familiar place. I never realized how much I genuinely liked China until I came back this time around. I've been here long enough now that even moving around Beijing comes with a high degree of intimacy. In spite of the shoving and shouting, the poverty and the grime, the censorship and the corruption, it feels, somehow, cathartic to be in a place again where I can speak the language, interact meaningfully with the locals, and adjust to the local diet, all without having to adapt to a new environment every two or three days during travel.

Indeed, the closest thing I get to travel nowadays is on local buses through town, that, rather than being marked in big English letters with the names of famous sites and tourist attractions, adopt their Chinese stop names from those of local landmarks like “Agricultural Bank of China,” and “Shanxi Agricultural University, Student Dormitories.” On my last bus trip on my way to the supermarket, I saw a traditional farmer funeral going on in the street. It was maybe the second time I had ever seen one here—a procession led by old men and women (presumably good friends of the deceased) dressed in white head scarves and robes covering the majority of their bodies. Their heads were bowed and their hands adopted a praying position in front of their chests. Behind them, a caravan of white pick-up trucks adorned with large peacock-colored wreaths—quite like the psychedelic flashing lights you might find outlining pinball machines—systematically bore through town, obscuring the flow of traffic.

I've been contemplating starting a new blog entitled "China Big Red Balloon" as these things are literally everywhere.  Here's one in front of one of our new favorite restaurants in town.

This certainly isn't the first time that this reference has been made, but I feel like I've got one foot in one world and one in another. One need look no further than the smog that has been blanketing the school of late—when afternoon trips to the gym yield clipped footprints in the snow, long silhouetted shadows, and near desertion in the streets. James and I have gone ahead and started a new lifting program, knowing full well that we won't be here long enough to see it through to completion. Such is the feeling that consumes my everyday. Why start something that you know you can't finish? Why foster new friendships that will only be doomed to failure? Why keep studying Chinese when you will only fall behind in America? What I realized was that unlike the transience of travel, this is my life—that the seemingly trivial elements contained therein are nonetheless substantial and meaningful, and no matter what the future has in store for me, I have to live the next four months with the resolve of one facing an ever-expanding present, laid out before me like patched cobblestone streets, brick smokestacks, and fiery pink sunsets.