Sonar Killa

In Satyajeet Ray's Acclaimed Sonar Kella (The Golden Fort) ...the protagonist is a young boy who is haunted by images and memories from a previous life ...where he lived in a fort whose walkways were scatterted with gold .

As we made our way across the brutal Thar Desert and came face to face with the Jaisalmer Fort from 1156 ..sandstone walls imposing a presence that you could feel in the air ...I believed it .

Jaisalmer fort is the second oldest fort in India . Built in 1156 By King Jaisal , it is the largest living fort
in the world and about 40,000 people live inside it .
In the afternoon sun , Jaisalmer fort stands out in the middle of the Desert and blinds everything nearby . There was a really old saying ( translating this now :) ...that to go to Jaisalmer you needed a horse of wood (so it didnt eat or drink) ...and armor of steel and a heart of stone ...to cross the treacherous desert for days .
We drove there in a brand new Toyota SUV ..so at least the part about the steel armor was true :)

The fort was completely mesmerizing and I spent the batter half of a day just walking around .I had this very overwhelming feeling because I knew how very old this fort was and just thinking about all the battles it had witnessed .

Then we went on a desert safari on camels with some villagers from Jaisal and saw the sunset in the desert.My first time on a camel ! I was so excited ! ...the camel owner told me that it drank over
50 liters of water everyday and ate 40 kgs
in the morning and in the evening . So much for my plans of owning one ! :)
But our camel was really cute ..his name was Moonglia and everytime I said something to him ...he's turn around as if responding in his camel like way ...you can hardly imagine how excited that must have made Kau :)

Then the next day we went to a place called Bikaner - which was a trade capital in India in the 13th century . About 60 kms from Bikaner was the famous "Rat Temple"
This temple was featured in a series of documentaries on Discovery and National Geographic .
The goddess in the temple is called "Karni Mata" ..in Hindu religion every God has an animal as a carrier ..like a Tiger or a Eagle .For this particular goddess , its a mouse.When you enter this temple theres like over thousands of mice in the temple ..its absolutely insane and its your worst nightmare multiplied by 2-3 times
The mice dont bother you ..they just run araound everywhere ..its mad ! ..u cant take a step back or fwd or anything .

My mom has never looked so upset ...not even when I brought a hen and some chickens back home when I was in the 2nd grade because I thot ppl were trying to kill them ..( lol! )

But now for the real story - at 6.30 pm ..when the sunsets ...the high priests in the temple perform a "maha aarti" ..this is a religious ceremony where songs are sung and they light a fire and such . The stunning part is that as soon as this ceremony starts ...none of the mice move . The all stay still . Like they are praying or something . Its so mad to see this ..we were
simply shocked . And I was just thinking ..that I really didnt have to travel here all this way to see a miracle ..because life itself was a miracle ..
and then it happened ..I saw some mice ..stand up on 2 feet and bring their hands together

...

I was sooooo shcoked !!!!
I couldnt even talk the rest of the evening ...blind faith is a concept that some of us struggle with ..especially after all the schooling
and science but it was very good ..that I went to this temple to see if it was true ..half expecting it to be like any other TV commercial ..but it wasnt and I did get to see something unique .

(But really - I have never seen so many mice and god help me if I ever have to again :)

All in all ...Rajasthan was like living a story in the Arabian Nights ...exotic ..mysterious and utterly beautiful . From the colorful people ..turbans ..the little kids with sand streaked hair , the jain temples
the fog at night and the cold breeze blowing across the dunes carrying stories from years long gone.
A stunning visual ..that the lens simply could do no justice too ..for it was one of those things that needed to be seen with the mind's eye .