Rajasthan diary!

There were always a few things I wanted to blog about my trip to Rajasthan. The touristy stuff were caught on camera. But there are things just stay in my mind. Small things that just lingered a little longer.
One such person was the our driver, frankly I never caught his name, so he just remained "Bhai saab" for the 4 days he was with us. There was a certain degree of simplicity to him. He came from a small town, Nagaur as he proudly mentioned. His sense of pride for his place and his state stood out for me. He was always at a respectable distance. Vani was always Bhabhiji! It reminded me of someone from a few decades back, cause we come from a generation where everyone including people 10 yrs senior to you are addressed with their first name.
He always had a titbits to tell me.. about himself.. about the place... politics.. development.. bollywood.. what not! The first interesting bit he told me was about a Bullet bike, which belonged to the son of the local panchayat, who was killed in a road accident. The damaged bike was promptly moved to police custody, where it would start by itself!! It was declared possessed and now is an item of interest. People come from far away places just to have a look. We were more fortunate, we just had to look out of the window! and no it did not start by itself! :-)
Jodhpur, apparently still has a respectable royal family, a family that cares of its people in the true sense of term. Zubeida was loosely based on the present king's dad. More fascinating was the fact that he suddenly mentioned Salman Khan. The black buck wasnt exactly fresh in my mind. Thats when he told me the local gossip of how Salman Khan had a little fling with the princess of Jodhpur and the locals and the royal family did well to keep him behind bars for a while. Quite a story I thought. Script in the making? Anyway, our bhai saab also mentioned how our sallu bhai is a man with the golden heart, the local Robin Hood.. savior of the poor... the good samaritan. Extremely filmy, but true!