Even if you have memorized the map of a new city, you have no feel for its life until you have walked through the streets. I’d left all the planning for Jodhpur to The Family, so I was constantly surprised. It began with my surprise that she chose a hotel right inside the old city, nearly at the base of Mehrangarh. After that the city laid out surprises one after another. We arrived, had lunch and decided to go for a walk. The temperature was twenty five degrees below Mumbai.
The roads of the old city are narrow. Cars will not be able to reach most places, so the default mode of transport is a motorbike or a scooter. Buildings are beautifully decorated. The traditional blue of the “blue city” is a mild colour obtained by adding natural indigo to lime wash. The bright blue of some walls is always a modern chemical paint, and the brightest are those on the walls of cheaper hotels. A surprisingly large fraction of buildings are faced with the local red rock which is often called Jodhpur sandstone. Quite a few use the golden stone of Jaisalmer. The light was wonderful. People and horses were doing their own things. There was something new around every corner. The Family and I were happy to lose ourselves in an unguided walk, occasionally peeping through open doors.
Ranisar lake, Mehrangarh, the blue city, and red welded tuff
We hadn’t heard of the Rao Jodha Desert Park before we looked at a map of the area around Mehrangarh. Nor, it seems, had the auto driver. We had to coax him along the well-marked road to the visitor’s center. An enthusiastic young man called Denzil then marked out a short route for us on a map of the park and explained what was special about the place.
The 700 acres within the old city wall of Jodhpur was painstakingly freed of an invasive species of plant, and local species were planted into the holes left by the deep roots of the invader. Repairs to the city walls were completed in 2005, and the process of recovering the desert ecology was started the very next year. The unlikely banker behind this army of eco-warriors was the Mehrangarh Museum Trust.
Mehrangarh, the fort which Jodhpur grew around, stands on a hill of volcanic rock made of hard rhyolite, the mineral which also forms the volcanic plugs called the mesas of Arizona. Here, they stand in flat slabs which you see everywhere. Around this is a softer rhyolitic rock called welded tuff, which is made of volcanic ash pressed together while still hot. There is a red coloured welded tuff which is commonly known as Jodhpur sandstone. Our walk took us down an ancient aqueduct quarried out of the crack which formed between a face of the welded tuff and the hard rhyolite, so we got a good look at both (see the two photos above). You can easily see the difference in the photos here. The path led down to Ranisar lake (featured photo). Very logical for an aqueduct to drain into a lake, I thought. The blue city and the fort can share this water. Wonderful planning against sieges which seldom happened.
We passed many different kinds of trees and bushes. Over the next few days I learnt to recognize the cactus-like bush of thhor (Euphorbia caducifolia), the leafless spurge. This was also my first view of the tangle of leafless stalks called the kheer khimp (Sarcostemma acidum) or rambling milkweed. The kheer is added to the name because of the milky sap it exudes from a broken stalk. There were stands of geedar tambaku (Verbascum chinense) and many other shrubs and herbs which I still cannot recognize. You can see some of them in the photos (do let me know if you can help me identify them). Many of these can also be found deeper in the Thar desert.
The desert park behind Mehrangarh with red welded tuff
Later on our walk we met Denzil again, when he showed us one of a pair of vagrant Eurasian Scops Owl which had nested in a thicket of trees. Walking back with him we learnt a little more about the effort involved in restoring the ecology of the area. That’s a story which newspapers have carried, so I won’t tell it here.
Don't hold your breath 