This tour of Rajasthan ends today as we return to Delhi (a 4 hr drive we figure will take us 6 hrs). Tomorrow we have a 6-hr drive to Rishikesh where we’ll be attending a yoga festival… we figure it will take 9-hrs of driving & stopping).
This little town we’re in now has very narrow streets, mostly motorcycles and carts drawn by donkeys travel on these roads. They’re digging alongside the road to put in pipes… the first time some of these homes will ever have running water and sewers (for toilets).
Yesterday we walked the street to get a feeling for this area. It’s known for large houses rich merchants would build for their families…. decorated by paintings on the walls. We skipped the “your” in place of more shopping. As Annie went into the shops, I began my “work”. I felt like the Pied Piper (I’ve also been playing the ocarina as we go thinking of the e.e. cummings poem – “in just spring, when the goat footed balloon man whistles and the kids come from far and wee”…. the gang of kids following us down the narrow streets kept getting larger. When Annie stopped in a shoe maker’s shop, I had to enter with her to get away from the kids. The shoe maker kept yelling at the kids to back up…. he was afraid they’d break his door.
As Annie explored his shoes, I put a few in big clear round balloons and he hung them on his ceiling…. Since he was okay with this, i put some of his tools in other balloons. He looked at the sharp metal tool I put in one balloon and said something about his father…. (he’s the 2nd or 3rd generation here and the tools were passed down from one generation to the next)…. I had a feeling I might have gone too far, so broke the balloon and “freed” the tool.
Later we passed the shop on the way back. His young son and old father were both there. I made a hat for the father and began putting the tool into the balloon again…. the shoemaker looked like the gods were going to shoot lightning at us any moment, so I stopped and put two other shoes in a balloon. They all laughed, posted for photos, we shook hands, said “namaste” and left….. followed by the kids the rest of the way to our hotel.