Rajasthan live with extremes, they even love, in the fiery colors of saris and the red and orange-yellow turbans. Rajasthani men are wearing the finest that can be found all over India. The arms and ankles of the women’s silver jewelry shines, and in the purple or blue clothing fabrics are tiny mirrors sewn. Like the sparkles, sparkles and shines when you meet in the solitude of yellow sand to the villages of the Thar desert, a group of women and girls who carry on their heads or jugs Astholz collected from the fountain! Rajasthan desert is alive. This is not the Sahara, but semi-arid (semi dry) desert land use where low shrubbery and scattered trees green spots in the sandy, rocky expanse.
Two, three hours drive, without coming to a single larger site, if you in the desert triangle Jodhpur-Bikaner-Jaisalmer road are. There are even more vultures and camels. Suddenly in the sunshine seems to float above the walls and bastions of the landscape - not a mirage, but a city in the ring of stone walls topped by a massive fort Only Rajasthan desert has so many castles, often for centuries, some over a thousand years in the possession of same Rajput family. Singh (lion), the Rajputs have liked to put their name because they belong to the northern Indian Ksatria caste, the warrior caste. Full of heroic legends is the country. When danced in starry nights on large fires with swords to the music of drums, flutes and string instruments, is often sung songs that tell of the tragedies of the fighters and lovers.
Enjoy the cool morning stillness on a palace terrace, perhaps on a lake with early bird calls. The desert state of Rajasthan also consists of oases, large reservoirs and east to attract up to 1700 m high mountain range Arawalli green areas with water landscapes, hundreds of thousands of birds.
For artisans and craftsmen, you will come on paper makers who produce hand-made paper with flower petals and grasses, to carpet weaving and to wood carvers, copper and silver smiths. And anyone who travels to India without visiting Temple? In Ranakpur, Mount Abu, Osian you to meet some of the most beautiful temples.
Rajasthan is a land full of contrasts. India’s capital New Delhi from a four-lane highway through the village fields green landscapes leads to directly to Rajasthan’s capital Jaipur. Desert sand whirls further west on the national roads, camels trudging with highly stretched head over dusty asphalt. Udaipur, however, is the city of lakes and gardens, and in the southeast of the Chambal river flows broad as the Rhine-Hadaoti through the fertile land and its forest valleys. Cave painting, there were already about 20 000 years ago. Yet many foreigners come to this region, once because of the trade routes between Delhi and the ports along the Arabian Sea was strategically important.
Almost every Rajasthani is proud of his country, even if he is not among the Rajputs, the fort was built at their caravan routes. Rajasthan, the land of the ruler of the kings of the land they called the region between the Indus and Delhi and traced their origins directly from cosmic forces her - some from the sun, the other from the moon, the third by fire. For many generations fought for them, or even dominant for self-affirmation - with chivalrous bravery as well as with intrigue, plots and poison attacks. The strongest Rajputenclans advanced to Maharaja, literally, to great kings. The longest tradition can Sisodia-Maharaja of Udaipur with its 76 generations long reign avail.
Around the year 1000, Muslims from Afghanistan and Persia began to infiltrate the Mongols later in the fertile north Indian plain. They established the Sultanate of Delhi and in the 16th Century, the empire of the Mughals. Rajasthan’s Hindu principalities rendered resistance, but were generally tributary to or arranged with the Mughals in political events and treaties of alliance. Much deeper than the 18th since Century Mogul intervened weakening the British colonial rule in the Indian culture. She treated the Indians, unless they belonged to the princely clan, as third-class people with no right to education. Rajasthan Maharajas were under the supervision of the British governors, the political opposition only won with Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance actions of the global response. When the last British Viceroy, Louis Earl Mountbatten of Burma, on 21 July 1948 was his hasty departure, India was already on its way to most populous democracy on earth - and Rajasthan Maharajas and Rajputen abandoned their old and ancient sovereign rights.
There is no day in Rajasthan on the road without hitting in the footsteps of the Maharajas. Today, many of them businessmen and politicians are and can still speak with Your Highness. They send their children to study in England or the U.S. - as early as the time of colonial rule, when the royal family, the British governors and invited to the “elephant-hunting tigers. Some former hunting grounds of the Rajputs are among the most beautiful national parks. Whether you want to come as a bird lover or to see tigers and leopards in India - You have a choice.
In the villages of wealth grows slowly. But if the monsoon fails, have also destroyed crops, livestock died of thirst, and people at risk of falling into poverty. For years, the government provides assistance, such as with food supplies. What is new is the gain in ordered plain area, since water from the Punjab by the Indira Gandhi Canal in Rajasthan and also big flowing groundwater resources have been discovered (south of Jaisalmer, oil!).
If you are a guide, the villages of tribals or Adivasis, the indigenous descendants of the visit, you can enter with his help, even in the huts and ask questions. Although a large proportion of them has migrated to the cities, but many stay turned to the country. In Rajasthan, there is now also in the villages, schools and medical care. A generation ago learned outside of the cities almost every fifth child to read and write, today there are more than 80 percent. An existence with little possession, as traditionally lived for tribals in the villages do not have to mean poverty. And if so, then it is certainly not the kind that we meet in Europe in the form of city-dwellers homeless beggars.
Rajasthan, you discover! If you leave again, you will want to come back. Perhaps because of the wide horizons and the colorful bazaars, perhaps because of the Temple and Tiger districts. Or because of the people who have added you as friendly as it is tradition in Rajasthan.
Lohri (sometimes spelled Lodi) is an extremely popular harvest festival in India, especially North India. Lohri is usually celebrated in the outdoors by friends and family who get together and have a bonfire in the evening. It may be considered the Indian equivalent of Christmas. Lohri signifies onset of intense winter in Punjab and surrounding areas. Cold weather is good for wheat hence farmers celebrate Lohri so that their crops lead to a good harvest.