Saturday, 29 January 2000
Why Blue?
Why is Jodhpur called the “Blue City”? It is an often-asked question; I had asked it too. It is because in the older parts of the city all the houses or at least their rooftops are painted blue. The common answer is that the people of Jodhpur observed that after a house was painted blue less flying insects would enter. What an interesting method of pest control. I accepted this at least for the time being but the scientific part of my mind had not been satisfied with this answer.
Five years later another detail about blue coloured items arrived at my ears. Recent research has revealed: “Most biting insects prefer blue to any other colour.” What do you say? Maybe, instead of entering the house, the insects fly against the wall and knock themselves out. Is that the trick?
And then the following information came to me. Some time ago (a few hundred years), Jodhpuri Brahmin were ordered to paint their houses blue because of some religious reason. They were told and they did. The ordinary people were offended because, traditionally, since time unknown: “Houses are white.”
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Initially, the people of Jodhpur assumed that the reason for the painting blue was that the Brahmin wanted to stand out and to be special. Whether this was true or not, the action turned against the Brahmin and they were singled out. Alas, even if they wanted, the Brahmin didn’t dare disobey their superiors. So, they told everyone that their reason for painting their houses blue was because it repelled insects. So, everyone painted their houses blue. Aren’t they clever, those Brahmin?
Jodhpur Fort
For over 400 years, the majestic Mehrangarath Fort ruled, almost one hundred metres high above the city on a plateau bordered by sheer cliffs.
And on the side along the ridge without a steep incline, they built a sheer wall. From the balcony, at the upper ledge, the castlers dropped nasty stuff on the intruders who wanted to break the gate in this wall. It had often been besieged but has never been conquered.
On the right of the photo, you can see the ramp of the only narrow road leading up into the castle and this road is very steep, I walked up there. Even the start of this road is protected by a small castle and if anyone could get up the ramp and crack the door in the wall, there were several other gates on the way up.
The main gate, the last and uppermost before entering the castle’s courtyard has two half a meter thick wooden doors with a distance of about ten meters between the doors. In this short section, a large number of red prints of hands were along both walls. It looked quite eerie, what was all that about?
At the time, our tour guide must have been with the students. I was known to walk at my own speed. Later that evening I asked him, the image had still been very vivid in my mind. Here is the story:
Many generations ago, the King of Jodhpur had lost a significant battle. He committed “jotha”, the honourable suicide, as it was his duty as a king. Out of deep love and in his honour, his 36 queens committed Sati, suicide out of love and loyalty, to be with him.
It all happened under the archway, spontaneously when the dead body of the king arrived. The handprints remained as a constant reminder of their profound devotion to their husband. Can we understand? How can we judge?
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At the far end of the fort, the high plateau narrowed to a point. Here the castle dwellers had established fields for crops and vegetables of the size of about two sports arena. The pointy end of the stone balustrades speared out over the sheer cliff like the bow of a ship. If you look at the photo of the distant castle it is on the left side, opposite the big wall.
The parapet was about three metres thick and on the inside only half a meter high. No one was around and I climbed up and sitting there I had a majestic view down onto the city. The cityscape was composed of houses painted in many shades of ultramarine blue, dotted with white small palaces. The garments of Râjasthân red hung up for drying contrasted with the white of the flat rooftops.
Lines of narrow dusty streets and alleys separated the groups of houses, small green parks and places shaded by trees interrupted the geometry with their rounded shapes.
All covered by a cacophony of sound from voices, songs, horns of rickshaws, trucks, the busy hammer of a builder. It wafted up the cliff to me. I was engrossed in this rich experience.
Suddenly, only a few metres away several mighty shadows flashed past me upwards, tearing me out of my tranquil observations. For a moment, I leaned back from shock, terrified of losing my balance.
Searching the sky I realised it had been a group of eagles, now soaring over the city. The crannied cliffs below the castle provided inaccessible nesting places. The Indians told me that the presence of these big birds was regarded as the symbol for nature’s equilibrium.
Nature’s Balance
Still sitting on the balustrade, absorbing the peace of the vastness, a trance sidetracked me into the idea about the balance in nature. During my travels on the Indian continent, I had been faced by much pollution. Waste rotting in the streets for days; sometimes the stench was unbearable. Some of the students got sick from the food we ate. And we bought bottled water.
And now, strangely enough, amongst all this pollution there they were eagles, the symbols of nature in balance. Later in Delhi, I saw forty, fifty of them circling around at dusk every day when I watched the sunset from the rooftop terrace of our hotel. Remember the smell of the pollution from the car exhaust and how we had headaches from it? Here are the eagles.
Back home in Australia, we have pollution too, but often, it is not visible, not noticeable to our senses. “What I don’t see does not exist.” Often the game of the mind tries to delude our worries. When a young child closes its eyes, it believes it becomes invisible.
We are the country with by far the highest rate of asthma. Why? They tell us it’s the pollen. And we believe it. That makes us the best test field for the big pharmaceutical companies to test their puffers as we call them lovingly. We spend enormous amounts of money on asthma research.
Why don’t we demand from the people who cause our silent, invisible problem to stop?
We can drink tap water without any harm, so we believe. It tastes bad but that is another story. And I can’t remember ever having seen eagles in our cities. But that is just me.
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We say and believe our pollution does not harm us. Perhaps our pollution is of such sophisticated nature, so unnatural and synthetic that our bodies cannot recognise it as such. The body’s defences, therefore, do not even realise that an attack is in process. It does not know how to handle it and as a result does not react with starting the defence or show any symptoms. In the worst case, the pollutant is stored away somewhere inside the body.
Today, I hear everyone complaining about being tired and stressed. Why don’t we recognise these expressions of our bodies as symptoms? The amount of cancer patients increases drastically, and so do all sorts of mental illnesses. Yeas, we are getting older but is a life of suffering pain worth living?
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In India, our bodies responded very quickly. The defence of the body realised instantly when we ate something that our stomach considered not good to be digested and the feedback was vomiting.
If the undesirable foodstuff slipped through this first line of defence, the intestine corrected this mishap with diarrhoea: “Let’s get rid of it as quickly as possible.” These are not the normal ways of processing food. Therefore, pain is involved with it. Often this pain is psychosomatic because we are not used to those ejection processes.
In Australia, those reactions happen, too, but only when we eat “naturally” spoiled food. It does not happen very often because our food is dead, sterile and even the bacteria don’t touch it any more. But we eat it, food with no life content, no real nourishment. We eat it and our stomachs are full but our bodies are still hungry, we starve on a full stomach.
We consume carbohydrates, sugar and fats, which are all dead. Our bodies take in all this stuff in ever-increasing quantities because they believe that we are in a famine. Could that be the reason for galloping obesity? Where can I pluck an apple from a tree, pull a carrot out of the soil or just anything fresh?
What is the long‑term effect of pollution? Is it the cause for many of our new illnesses and the epidemic increase of those, which are known?
Modern Medicine
Most of our medications are synthetic, made from complex chemical solutions. About their long-term effects and symptoms, we have not much understanding. The medical industry ridicules it away: “Detrimental effects unknown” while producing more drugs and making more and more money. Perhaps some people show detrimental effects but those who know have their reasons for not telling us.
The disclaimers, warnings about possible side effects that come with the medicines have swollen into booklets. As a result, the pharmaceutical companies have stopped including them in packages. They say: “If you are interested in possible side effects, go to our website and you will find the most “up to date” version.”
Does that mean that they still find new side effects? Accepting without critique have we turned into unconscious pill gulpers? Are we used as guinea pigs and even pay for it?
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Our medical society only treats visible and measurable symptoms. But what does that mean? Just because no one has yet discovered them and there is no equipment does not prove its non‑existence. It only means that we have not learned yet how to measure it. In conclusion, I could say: I still do not feel well, but there is nothing to be diagnosed.
They give it a name, “Chronic illness” and that’s good enough. If you “consult” your doctor they roll their eyes and say: “Try this and come back in two weeks.” That’s why a doctor’s practice is called this way, they practise and are the guinea pigs and they make the money. And we come back.
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What could be a possible consequence? We could all leave the country but where would we go? Could we vote for governments who prevent these things from happening but whom would we elect instead?
This is not even an issue that has reached the consciousness of the media or our leaders, or do they know and create other problems diverting us from this one? We would change our lifestyle and the pharmaceutics companies would earn much less money?
We have an ever-increasing rate of cancer. Who still talks about HIV? It’s still rampaging but who cares. It is almost socially acceptable. Do you really enjoy using condoms? We do as we told. Viruses become more resistant. Why does no one ask why?
Could all these symptoms we accept so patiently not be the long-term results of viral and bacterial pollution? Or even worse; it might be a type of pollution that our bodies and instruments cannot detect? Our bodies suffer from it whether we can measure or see it or not.
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Just recently, a large hospital was knocked down and replaced within one year (at what cost? And what a short time span?). Who asked why? It was too old and it did not satisfy the safety standards, I was told. To alter it would have been more costly than building it anew. Why was the interior incinerated? It seems a very costly and unusual way for Australia to get rid of waste. We have so much space for “clean” landfill.
Extinction
How many species become extinct daily? Why? Do you question the answers presented in the news, by the “authorities”? When have they proven to deserve our trust? A North-American Indian proverb tells us: “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish caught we will realise we cannot eat money.”
Maybe, if blind like sheep we continue on this current path, where the heap of money collected is our only focus, we may not experience this ultimate nightmare because Western World Rat Race would self‑extinguish before.
Oh sure. Our infant mortality rate is much lower (and who wants to look after people with disabilities?). We have a hospital system second to none (because we need it more than others?) and there is a lot more money to be made than in poorer countries.
And we have traffic regulations (that are ineffective) and a police force that writes tickets (and is unable to protect citizens). We have pensions and aged care (because we don’t respect our elderly). Sorry, I think you are right and I am just a bit oversensitive, overactive and quite unappreciative.
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While I had been absorbed by this avalanche of thoughts, which probably only took a few seconds but some time to write down (as usual), my eyes had found a still point along the hazy horizon three hand‑widths away from the setting sun.
With a sigh of relief, I returned to the pleasant now. The turrets, towers and domes of the new royal palace Umaid Bhawan cut a beige silhouette in the faint purple sky evoking fairy tales in the dusty mist of the East.
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written: Jodhpur, 29 January 2000
published: 30 November 2019
Read the next story… not yet 🙂 The next chapter is Jaisalmer
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