Around Jaipur

Rajasthanis have a way of naming their cities using colours which conjures up wonderful images for the tourists but must require a huge amount of paint. Jaipur is the “pink” city, Jodhpur the “blue” and Jaisalmer the “Golden”. Jaipur turns out to be a rather dusty shade of orange but in the right kind of light I suppose it might stretch to pink. However, the old walled city (now the central business district) has a charm all of its own. Now that we’ve come down off the mountains and are on the plains of Rajasthan, the sun is hotter than ever; a hat (now filthy) and iced mineral water are both vital components in the fight against sunstroke.
The wide, vibrant streets of Jaipur are far more alive than those in Agra and a pleasant contrast to the city museum, which although peaceful, is, it has to be said, rather dull. We stop at a fruit stall to buy a pineapple – there comes a point when curry just doesn’t do it for you – and are waylaid by a young man about our age who begins a memorable conversation about the threat of skinhead attacks on Indians in Britain. Unsure quite how to phrase an answer, conversation turns out to be easy: he tells us he is going to Oxford in October to read economics and speaks very good English. Our interest is aroused and he asks would we like to chat with him over tea?
We are led through a fruit market, which apparently the boy’s father owns, then up some stairs to a tiny sitting room behind a shop. The boy vanishes en route but is replaced by four men of varying descriptions who sit us down. One disappears to fetch drinks. The others engage in the usual conversations except this time their English is good enough to ask “Which country is currently suffering your absence?” One in particular talks smoothly about his “English” friends and has travelled in England on business. He turns out to be a jewellery manufacturer and seems to be doing a brisk export trade. The prospects are good. He has 150 employees each working for 1000 Rs per month (that’s less than one meal in a restaurant per week) but from each of them he makes between 500 and 1000 Rs profit per month. Good for him.
Anyway, soon our suspicions of this little meeting grow. Our student ‘friend’ still has not arrived and bags of rings appear for our delection. It’s all low key but they appear to be looking to start up in export with us. The man tells us he has great interests in “Gemology” and gives a series of lectures to local people on the healing power of precious stones. He freely admits he invented this himself purely for the purpose of selling more rings.
Eventually our student returns and we chat about Oxford. It’s better but we’re soon back on rings. We give them five minutes of looking at Star Rubies, which admittedly are very pretty and not too expensive, but then we invent a spurious ‘dinner with friends’ excuse and make a dash for it. Maybe they saw us coming and do this scam regularly, maybe they were just genuine guys trying to do business. Whatever, we’re better off out of it…

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