The Week India - July 29, 2018

60 THE WEEK^ • JULY 29, 2018

COVER STORY

TRAVEL

●Th e priest who

made a sales pitch

G

ajender Sharma was a

tall, wiry man, slightly

bent. His eyes, a little

red-rimmed, wore a

hooded look, as though he always knew

more than he revealed. He was a priest at

Samode, a small village 42 kilometres from

Jaipur. I met him at the Samode Palace,

built in the 19th century as a Rajput fort

and later converted into a heritage hotel.

Th e palace exerts a gravitational pull on

the village—more than three-quarters of

the villagers were employed in it in some

manner or the other.

We were in Samode Palace to take a cam-

el ride through the village, which, some-

where submerged in my subconscious, I

knew was Indian gimmickry at its best. I

mean, who goes on camel rides through

dusty villages except gullible goras on the

lookout for an ‘exotic’ Indian experience?

Sharma, who was called to give us a tour

of the palace as we waited for our camel,

shot us a knowing look, as though saying,

“Gotcha, you poor suckers!”

His tour was thorough, and his eyes lit up

as he showed us each ornate wall and gild-

ed painting of kings and queens. Once, he

paused before the portrait of a rather wasp-

ish-looking woman and proudly exclaimed:

“Our own Mona Lisa.” As I didn’t see any

resemblance to da Vinci’s iconic work, I

kept quiet. But he would have none of it.

“Don’t you see?” he asked.

I didn’t.

“She looks at you wherever you go,” he

said exultantly.

I uttered an enlightened “ohhh” and,

I hope, looked suitably impressed at the

lady’s glassy stare.

After a while, we stepped out on to the ve-

randah to get some air. As I fanned myself, I

asked him if he had ever come to Kerala, where I

lived. No, he told me, but he had travelled exten-

sively to other parts of India.

“Do you like travelling a lot?” I asked.

“Not much,” he said. “I used to travel on work.”

I wondered whether all priests in Rajasthan

travelled a lot.

And then he said:

“You see, I used to be a Jockey underwear

salesman for 15 years.”

What?

I dared not ask him how he could become a

priest after selling underwear for so many years.

After all, undergarment merchandise is not ex-

actly what you would like to put on your resume

if you planned to pursue a divine calling.