Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
for a few months after the rains. We passed dessicated remnants of
babul, neem, jal, kunta, and rohira. When they could, our camels
paused at the occasional adar tree for a few slow mouthfuls of slim
but succulent leaves that seemed to affect them like catnip, inciting
a friskiness totally out of character.
The vicious little skirmish between my saddle and my bum was
heating up nicely now, like the day itself, and my legs began to join
in a chorus of various other bodily gripes. The next five miles were
the longest yet, as the land on all sides melted into one white haze,
the hypnotic pace and the cocoon of singeing air wrapping me in a
pleasant narcosis. This was assisted, admittedly, by the pea-sized
ball of opium I'd eaten to deaden the pain in my arse. Opium is the
drug of the desert, transforming those long hours of nothing but
blinding sand and rocking camels into a reverie of cooler places, of
trees and water - a nomad's heaven, just as you find in the Holy
Koran. It's good for curing the runs, too. And it's also still a bit of a
social problem in this part of the world. But all I thought of was our
next stop, Ludarva, and the prospect of lunch, then a shady siesta . . .
The Bhatis, who once ruled this blasted bleak realm, traced
themselves back to Lord Krishna, of the Yadav clan, based in Mathura,
south of Delhi. When the Yadavas migrated from Mathura, it's
believed, some travelled west into the desert regions of what is now
Rajasthan. It's possible that this mass exit occurred after the great
Mahabharat war, enshrined in myth and in the world's longest epic
poem,
The Mahabharata
. According to bardic oral histories, the Yadu
chieftains were not especially talented at war, and had trouble
maintaining their power. They kept being driven still farther beyond
the Indus. Eventually they returned, having honed their military skills,
and are thought to have settled next in the Punjab. There the clan's
chief, Gaj or Gajpat, son of Raj, constructed their first capital, a fort
named Gaznipur near Rawalpindi in modern Pakistan. When Gaj
died during a battle with the king of Khorasan, the clan was forced
to uproot itself yet again, heading into the southern Punjab. Several
generations passed before another chief, Shalivahan, built his people
a new capital at Salbahanpur, probably Sealkote now. This new leader
was obviously worth waiting for, because before long he appears to
