Chokhi Dhani- A mere deception?

It’s Thursday morning, 9 A.M. and thanks to shutdown, I have the luxury of lazing around right now, curling my feet on my cosy bed. Life’s good (mostly) these days with lots of time to do the lot that I usually want to. I went on a short trip to Jaipur with my friends last weekend. Though, I did manage to enjoy owing to the company I had, the trip offered few major disappointments. A big spoilsport being Jaipur’s scorching heat, there was another bigger let down. The main item on our Jaipur itinerary was Chokhi Dhani- a much heard about place in Jaipur. Almost every now and then, I hear Delhi’s much of the elite heading towards this place and I well, was quite tempted to check this out. All that I feel about it now is that it’s evidently more of a fad than anything else.

Chokhi Dhani is a resort in Jaipur which tries to capture the cultural heritage and charm of Rajasthan and its village life. The question here is, why do we even need this? Ain’t places like Chokhi Dhani a dime a dozen in a country like ours which inherently is the “land of villages”. Even today, the Gandhian belief that villages should remain the main building block of Indian society stands so true. When roughly 750 million of India’s 1.1 billion population still continues to live in it’s 680,000 villages, Do we actually need these village kind setups?

I guess the only people who get actually benefitted by these places are it’s owners. The place is way overpriced and considering the crazy hordes of people who rush there every weekend, I bet, the owners have their hands, all in black. But what does it actually offers to an average middle class Indian like me?

Imagine the plight, a place jam-packed with minimum 1000 people, scorching heat, dust all around, and after literally an hour of waiting in a queue, I get to have the so called traditional Rajasthani food, which again was just average considering the other places that I tried in Jaipur.(Here’s a tip: We tried a place called LMD in Johri Bazaar. It did assuage the disappointment that Chokhi Dhani offered. ) By the time our turn came, half of the dishes were simply not available. It was evident that they were just not able to manage the large number of people who have turned up but still we had to pay a whooping 350 bucks per plate for a disappointing meal.

India is a land of diversities. With more than 29 languages spoken by more than a million native speakers, and radical cultural shifts every thousands of kilometers, India sure has lots to offer. I would like to see and experience every bit of it in it’s actual manifestation rather than by paying thousands of bucks to some rich businessman. The owners of Chokhi Dhani have surely done a great job in bringing multiple facets of Rajasthani culture at a single place. Such places do nicely mimic the whole village set ups but they can never capture the essence of India’s ethnicity.

A tale of two days.....

A silhouette of mountains standing splendidly with all its grandiose, the majestic ganges flowing quietly amidst the rustic surroundings, a white sand beach next to the river, startling pebbles scattered meticulously all over the sand, and there I’m standing, a trifle entity, watching it all totally mesmerized. The serenity of the surroundings are seemingly bringing me closer to where I belong. It’s so quiet that I can actually hear the musical sound of ganges gushing through the rocks. I’m not dreaming!! This is nostalgia. It’s a consequence of my recent trip to Rishikesh for river rafting. The two days have perhaps been the most adventurous days of my life and I’m wondering where to start. Few excerpts from my unbelievingly intense encounter with nature.

We stayed on a beach camp in Byasi. There were small little tents lined up on a majestic sand beach. As I headed towards mine, a strange kind of serenity was settling somewhere inside me. The very thought of living in a tent was so enticing that I felt ecstatic, yet so much in control of myself. A little downside were the tent washrooms but as they say, “No pain No gain”. Living in a tent, by the river side was actually an amazing experience.

After having our breakfast, we embarked for rafting. Just to add few pieces of information here, Rafting is mainly done on WhiteWaters where the currently is bubbly, or aerated and unstable; and the frothy water thus appears white. Coming back to the buzz, 4-5 hours of Rafting were amazing thrill. As we maneuvered our way through the emerald green water and entered the rapids, the seemingly quiet river gradually manifested into brisk turbulent spurts. In a gist of moment, our raft was potently hit by the waves, leaving us all drenched and euphoric. I practically got my first glimpse of real thrill and was craving for more. Whenever, the flow was regular, all of us actually jumped into the cold river water and simply swam, floated. It was amazing. Floating in a vast river which has been flowing continuously for years as if I’m a part of this vastness. Made me feel kinda majestic. Anyhow, the most awe-inspiring part was cliff jumping towards the end of rafting. This was to jump from some 25-30 feet cliff straight into the water. Sounds remarkable ?Yeh! I did it :), though after minutes of mustering courage, but I actually did it…… !!

By the end of rafting I was so damn tired; I had my lunch and quietly dozed off to sleep. When I woke up, it was dark. I went outside and gosh!, I was completely spellbound by the starlit sky, silhouette of the mountains, moon gleaming on the river, rippling sound of water, lanterns shimmering in the dark and a camp fire right outside my tent. It was totally spectacular and romantic. I enjoyed the bonfire for some time and then along with some friends, went for a walk towards a rapid named ‘The wall’. Walking on the beach amidst the rocks in a starlit night had its own mystic charm.
Next day wasn’t as adventurous but was equally fun & enjoyable. I did rock climbing & rappelling. We did lots of water splashing, got ourselves drenched, clicked some amazing photographs, enjoyed a nice meal at Rishikesh , made a mess during the return train journey and reached Delhi around 12 o clock.
My two days filled with thrill and excitement were thus over leaving me with many wonderful memories to cherish….. all kudos to the unmatched thrill, serene and rustic surroundings, and most importantly, the spirits which each one of us had :)