You’ll have to forgive us if words fail us during this description of Jodhpur. But let’s try to picture this historic walled city that renders so many of its visitors speechless.
Jodhpur, made famous throughout the world thanks to those eponymous equestrian strides, is as close as a city can be to a mirage. With a population of more than one million, it emerges out of nowhere in the middle of the Thar desert. A desert – which, like any other – is a vision of yellowy/gold sand.
Jodhpur is known as the ‘Blue City’ on account of the colour of its houses. That’s a huge mass of blue buildings rising from the sandy landscape. When the colours appear next to each other, they create a zinging, luminescent effect. The place creates a flicker on the eye that’s hard to find anywhere else in the world; Jodhpur is the very definition of colour.
And you won’t see that expressed more obviously than in the people who inhabit it. Take the ‘Omelette Man’s’ Omelette Shop in Jodhpur.
The very fact that an omelette shop – comically crammed on to an island in a bustling two-lane road – should become a must-see for anyone visiting one of the most romantic cities in the world, give you an idea about the vivacity of life in Jodhpur. Sure, the masala cheese omelette is as good as any you’ll taste anywhere. But that’s not really the point. The Omelette Man will give you a welcome that will make you feel like a king – or rather a maharajah – and it’s that that will live long in the memory, and has given him celebrity status.
