Jaipur and Bhaonta - one country, two world's

Rajkumar was driving us from Jaipur to Bhaonta. Bhaonta is a small nondescript village about an hour and half's drive from Jaipur where Rajendra Singh, Magsaysay Award winner and water man of Rajasthan, started working his wonders. Testimony to his work is painted on a wall in the village where the President of India gave him an award. More important is the sight of water streams in villages in that area that were bone dry for decades and the grateful look in the eyes of the villagers when one mentions the name of Rajendra Singh. It had all started with my request to Rajendra Singh to interview him And he said before that you must see the work we have done. So that is what brought us to Jaipur that day.

But this story is not about Rajendra Singh, this one is about Rajkumar. There was something about Rajkumar that told us from miles away that he is a rajput - the moustache, the walk and the proud head held high. Rajkumar graduated from being a mechanic in a two-wheeler workshop to driving a tourist taxi. While working as a mechanic, he fell in love with a college student who used to come to the garage with her two-wheeler. His love was reciprocated and the two love birds got married after much opposition from the girl's parents (naturally, right?). Rajkumar's wife went on to do her post graduate studies in English and today teaches in a local college. Rajkumar continues to drive the taxi.

His wife has also started an export business - exporting local handicrafts and Rajkumar is in the process of trying to get her a loan from a local bank. He deals with the local bank officials because "they do not treat women well". He with his traditional rajput aggression and bravado is better at dealing with the bank officials. Rajkumar and his "Rajkumari" seem to be destined for a happy ending, the kind we see in movies where the rich educated girl and the poor illiterate boy live happily ever after.

I asked Rajkumar, whether he plans to buy his own car and run a taxi service some day.

"No, sir. There is no money in running a tourist taxi. There are just too many taxis and too few tourists. And a majority of the tourists do not use taxis and use auto rickshaws," said Rajkumar as we passed one of the many forts in Jaipur and hit the highway full of advertisements for Omaxe City and many other cities and shopping malls coming up with a vengeance.

"In fact there is more money to be earned by being an auto rickshaw driver than driving a tourist taxi," he concluded.

Huh, what was that! "Is that so, then why don't you...?," I started to ask.

Before I could complete my question, Raj answered my half completed question and also gave me a lesson on immigrant labor and its success. "Sahib, I am from this city. People will say "Rajkumar rajput is driving an auto" and that will lower my prestige in the society. Therefore, I will continue to drive the taxi even if I can earn more doing something else. It would be different if I were to go and work in Delhi or Kolkata. There I would not mind even working as a manual labor. Here in Jaipur, it is people from Bihar and West Bengal who come and do all these jobs, stay in tiny one room pigeon holes and when they go back to their home towns, they boast of their earnings and better life style and bring in more people. All this drives down the wages and earnings for us because we cannot do the same. These people from Bihar and Kolkata also work harder and for longer hours, because they do not have anything else to do."

"Do you regret not studying?," I asked.

"No, sir. There is this friend of mine who studied and is a graduate. But there were no jobs for him here and the jobs that were there, he felt, were beneath his dignity. His father was well to do, so there was no urgent need for him to start his livelihood. He has got married, started a family and his father still supports him. At times I tell his father to throw him out of the house so that he starts earning his livelihood. That would be the biggest favor the father could do to the son. Otherwise what will happen to the son after the father passes away? That is the problem with education, sir. It makes you incapable of doing certain jobs and there are not enough opportunities for what you think you are qualified for," he confidently concluded. Reminded me of one of my favorite stories by Somerset Maugham - The Verger.

We had reached Bhaonta, a small dusty village with scattered huts, very little vegetation, stray cattles and surrounded by brown barren hills. After locating our guide (Rajendra Singh had informed one of his co-workers of our visit), we trekked for a kilometer or two to see how the johads were built and ground water was being replenished. It was a hot sunny day and after about an hour of steady walking we were thirsty and slightly breathless. We sat under a tree near a well and Rajkumar virtually barked at a cattle grazer nearby to fetch us some water from the well after ascertaining the caste of villagers who used that well. The cattle grazer ran to fulfill Rajkumar's command and first offered him water and then to us. Right from the time we had reached the village Rajkumar was in command. You could seethat he was strutting around and in some way exuding power, which you could feel from a distance. I was stunned.

"I am a rajput," was what he offered as a matter of fact explanation. One and half hours out of Jaipur and caste equations were alive as they had been many decades back.

"I cannot drink from the same well as a lower caste person or eat with him. This is the way life is in villages. A few months back, I was driving back to Jaipur and stopped to have water in one of the villages. The people chased me till I told them I was a rajput. Otherwise I may have got lynched that day for drinking water from a particular well." continued Rajkumar.

"But what do you do when you are in Jaipur? How do you know the caste of the person who is sitting next to you in a tea shop," I asked.

"In the city it is different; we do not care about these things out there," laughed Rajkumar.

We returned to Jaipur after dusk and after meeting the Waterman checked into our hotel well past 9:00 PM. Settling down to a warm Rajasthani meal washed down with a chilled beer, it seemed we were light years away from where we where the whole day. Which of the two are real? Or are both real? Can one of them influence and change the other for better? What is better?