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A short entry I put together concerning my first visit to the Thar Heritage Museum in Jaisalmer, India, on 12th September 2011. I have a short video series to go with this document that I hope to be able to post as soon as I find myself with a good Internet connection and a spare day to catch up with things. Tomorrow morning I will leave Luang Prabang for Phonsavan, Laos.

The Thar Heritage Museum is located down a backstreet of Jaisalmer’s main bazaar, which is a fair trek from the city fort, at least in the blistering heat that is customary for the region. The cows do a good job of blocking the main drag as they gurn on plastic bags and other rubbish they find piled up on the corner of every side street, while auto-rickshaws and motorbikes blast their horns at every available opportunity as the shop keepers call and beckon every white person that walks past. It is a busy place to say the least; full of bright colours and peculiar odours, busy people and unexpected wildlife. That only makes finding the Thar Heritage Museum more interesting, in that the location of the bulding adds yet another quirky dimension to this already out-of-the-way and less frequented attraction.

I first read about the museum in the Roughguide to Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra. The book, which I happened to be borrowing from my Sister, had so far been a trustworthy and reliable source of information on the trip so far and it had promised a rather interesting experience at this museum in particular. The Roughguide mentions that despite the exhibition being interesting enough on as it stands, it is brought to life by the sole collector of items, Mr Laxmi Khatri, who is able to accompany on your tour of the museum ‘if he is on hand’. Upon arriving at the museum, it appeared as though he was not. A young boy sat twiddling his thumbs at a table by the entrance and bolted up the stairs to unlock the museum for us as soon as we popped our heads curiously around the door. ‘Please. Go.’, he said before pelting out off the entrance through which we had came as we made our way slowly up the steps towards what we understood to be an exhibition. The room was dark and random assortments of items belonging to different areas of interest lay cluttered around the floor below shelves of nik naks associated with camels, pottery and religion. Before no time at all, Mr Kharti appeared. “Welcome to the museum!” he said as he made mad dashes about the place, turning on light switches and fans. “You are the first visitors here in over a week!”… this was almost akin to what I had been hearing from rick-shaw drivers across Rajasthan for the past two weeks – “you are my first customer of the day” they would say, as if that would make a difference to the amount of money they would receive in addition to their fee. Mr Khatri however, had an element of honesty in his voice that clung to chipped and flaking walls around the museum. He then introduced himself formally, “My name is Laxmi N. Khatri”, he said, “and you are?”. We briefly introduced ourselves and he launched straight into an academic flow about the items that surrounded us. It was a fascinating journey; not only was Mr Kharti responsible for collecting each of these items and displaying them, he also paid for the rent of the building and the maintenance of the place out of his own pocket. “It is not cheap to keep this place going” he said in a sad tone, “but I feel like I have to. People come here and they want to learn about the Thar heritage and culture, and this is the only place where they can really do that”. I pressed him on this issue as there were several museums in town that offered information and exhibitions on desert culture. “Yes, that is very true” he said, “but they are all funded by the government and therefore only exhibit things about the social elite. They do not show anything about the real lives of the working people of Jaisalmer and the Thar desert people”. He proceed to explain in great detail a whole host of items used for cooking and calculating measurements. As if this were not interesting enough, he then led the way back down the stairs we had come up and into a smaller room where he had two small exhibits; the first was called ‘Opium Party’, which comprised of a series of items arranged in such a way that shed light on how the desert men spent their evenings chasing the dragon, and, ‘The Office’, which was one of the most intriguing displays I have ever seen at any museum, ever. It consisted of a seating area and a desk, surrounded by hand written volumes documenting transactions between local business people and passing travellers from all over Asia. The exhibition also hosted scales, weights and gadgets all from the same period, which would most certainly be a fascinating for any economic historian interested in the region.

The sad thing about ‘The Office’ and every other part of the museum, was the state in which these items were in. Nothing seemed to be well kept or preserved, despite their cultural value and significance, instead they lay in piles around the floor. This was the best that Mr Kharti could do when taking his finances into account, even though he had received honours from Indian state officials and academics in the past, his museum severely lacks the funding and attention it needs. The majority of the tourists that come through Jaisalmer are part of large organised groups, that do not go to the Thar Heritage museum because of its run down state and lac of prestige. The objects and items there are only really brought to life my Mr Khatri himself and he can not cater for more than small groups of about ten tourists at a time – though he is rarely graced with such numbers. We shot a few clips of Mr Kharti in action and I am trying to work with Mr Khatri in putting together a new website for the museum, though at the present time he is seemingly difficult to contact. If you find yourself anywhere near the Thar Desert in the future, I more than recommend paying the museum a visit – it is definitely a must.

Mr Khati curating items in ‘The Office’

Books and novels are an inevitable part of the backpacker’s luggage allowance. In some cases, taking a few hours to read presents the opportunity of transporting one’s thoughts and focus away from the immediate environment. However, due to the nature of the backpacker and the endeavour that they set out upon, that is not so likely to be the case. More often that not, it is the environment that creates the perfect opportunity to sit and dwell on what one is reading.

I have been reading William Dalrymple’s ‘The Last Mughal’ rather intently since arriving in Laos. A combination of gorgeous mountain views, a relaxing environment and an 23:30 curfew in Nong Kheaw made for more than ample reading time and I seem to have raced through the book in a few days.

The author tells the story of the Emperor Zafar (1775 - 1862), the Mughal’s relationship with the British and the city of Delhi shortly before and after the sepoy rebellion of 1857, which saw the deaths of thousands of people and the absolute destruction of one of the most fascinating cities that ever was. Through citations and references gathered from archives in London, India and Myanmar. Dalrymple has created a truly remarkable account of Delhi life and society in the 19^th Century as well as an explanation of the often frightening and extreme diplomatic engagements between the British and the Mughals.

 A very crude outline of the story is as follows. The British recruited thousands upon thousands of Muslim, High Caste Hindu and, crucially, Sikh soldiers during their advances across Asia. The Empire provided a basic salary, training and shelter for the soldiers as they moved from place to place with their imperialist agenda, allowing for law and order to be maintained in each city and province as they did so. Due to a lack of cultural understanding, the Hindus soldiers were subjected to performing military tasks that went deeply against the grain of their religion and they rebelled. There were a range of tasks in particular that sparked this rebellion, but the main cause, it seems, involved biting cartridges that were greased with cow products in order to load their weaponry. Cows are of course considered sacred in the Hindu religion and so it is no wonder that there was a negative reaction. Groups of soldiers, or sepoys, began to rebel without the driving force of a military leader, or indeed an immediate plan, and they began butchering the British Men, women and children who resided in the capital and the surrounding areas. The rebels then advanced to the Red Fort in Delhi where they asked for the blessing of Zafar so as to legitimise their acts of violence. Muslims and Jihadis also joined in with the proceedings, emphasising that it was time for the Mughal Empire to reclaim its preponderance over the British and to rid India of all the Christians who had moved there.

 The story delves deep into the lives and the thoughts of its characters in accordance with their diary entries and correspondences. Most intriguing are that of Theo Metcalfe, who swears the most brutal revenge when his friends and family are butchered by the sepoy rebels; Zinat Mehal Begum, the Emperor’s favourite wife who plots and schemes with the most sharp and tender cunning; Ghalib the Poet, a wonderfully talented Urdu wordsmith and commentator and also one of the few Muslim survivors of Delhi after it is rampaged by the British; The Reverend Midgely John Jennings, a crafty religious fanatic intent on converting as many people as possible to Christianity; Harriet Tytler, the wife of a British soldier who ends up giving birth in a cart during the British siege; John Nicolson, a heroic brute of magnificent proportion who insights little but inspiration and fear in his fellow Englishmen; and The Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II himself, a timid and intelligent Emperor who clearly finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 Through the words of these choice characters and of those around them, it becomes apparent that the form of revenge the British chose to take was typically ghastly. They ensured their share of barbaric carnage after taking the city of Delhi by force in September 1857. The degree of intolerance and ignorance displayed by both sides of the rebellion are disappointing to say the least. What Dalrymple is able to achieve however is a positive insight as to how these errs might be avoided in the future as he points to the current situation in India and Pakistan as well as the Middle East.

I tried to imagine Dalrymple in Delhi as young man, formulating his apparent bond with India and its past. The man clearly has a love for the country and its history and I wish to learn more from this fantastic scholar. As it happens, I stumbled upon a bookshop today in Luan Prabang and found a copy of one of his first book, entitled ‘In Xanadu’. Tomorrow I shall try and exchange my copy of ‘The Last Mughal’ for this earlier title and continue with my reading escapades in the sweet serenity of the fantastic landscape that seems to surround every settlement in this wonderful country of Laos.