Our first day at Jaipur ended with a visit to Choki Dhani. We entered with heavy feet and tired bodies after the early flight, travel, temple hoppings, museum and city palace and hawa mahal visits. I was already overstimulated. But one look around the various activities gave us a new boost of energy. This was helped by some "maherpan" feels. As we entered we saw a group of women in probably their 50s laughing and chatting and pulling each other's legs. It was so refreshing to watch them. Sone pe suhaga - the chatter was in Marathi. There's something about the mother tongue which instantly helps make connections. One of them zoomed in to my neckpiece asking me from where I got it and praising how beautiful i looked (unbelievable), soon the others gathered around me and heaped more praise. I was dumbfounded like I usually get when praise is involved while navra was smiling from ear to ear as if he himself made me by sculpting a stone or something! Further introductions revealed few of them were from Borivali (my Maher) and as soon as I told them our connection was tightened further. Knowing we stay in Pune now they started teasing us- ata mumbaikar nahi punekar zalat (which no true born mumbaikar can take lying down). The hassi mazak continued as we all roamed around and I clicked a bunch of their pics (Should have clicked one with them) . I must have clicked hundreds of pics of random strangers on their phones, be it couples or families with kids or friends groups. I believe there is something approachable about me that people freely ask me to click their pics and in many instances when I see them struggle with selfies I myself approach them and ask if they want to be clicked. The smiles I get then are blissful.
Coming back to Choki Dhani, the sensory stimulus was unending right from the food stalls, to the games, the mehndi, the traditional dances, music, puppet shows, the lac bangles and other merchandise. Ooo the mehendi woman too praised my jewelry and "imaginary" beauty par woh toh kher tip ke liya hoga. I did have a lovely chat with her. The dinner spread toh was totally amazing with all Rajasthani delicacies which we stuffed ourselves with. I was so hungry that didn't click pics of that but the best food was the makke ki roti, teekhi chatni, curd and gudh we had while roaming around. It was served in a small hut as two women in local attire cooked it on a chulha. We stopped to watch even more dances after been stuffed full as well and just before exiting met my fan club again who told adi "amchya muli chi kalji ghe" (take care of our daughter) phir kya waterworks started and that's how I ended my first day at Jaipur with some good old sobbing 🥹
For more pics - https://www.facebook.com/share/p/gEpzwaBbQwzcRmaE/?mibextid=oFDknk
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