What Happens in Jodhpur, Stays in Jodhpur

We had dinner at the hotel. The hotel staff set up tables, chairs, and a long buffet on the grass in the courtyard by the pool, almost like a wedding reception. Classical Indian musicians in turbans with long curved mustaches played drums and sitars and sang. A group of children looked down at us from one of the second-story balconies and greeted us with waves and smiles. It didn’t take them long to want to come down and see us close up. Their older sister, a sweet beautiful young woman of around 20, brought them down, and she begged us with that irresistibly musical lilting Indian accent (how I envy those women their voices) to join her and her siblings in dancing to the music on the lawn.

We were so tired from climbing all over the fort that it took a lot of convincing. But she was so charming and warm that a few of us capitulated. I felt like an awkward creature trying to dance. My British body doesn’t move well. It just clunks around unless I’m dancing in a strictly European style – I look right at home with the waltz. I’m just saying, don’t ask me to show you any of my Bollywood dance moves when I get home. What happens in Jodhpur, stays in Jodhpur.