Holi in Ranakpur

3/8/12

Today began with my usual readings and prayers followed by favorite breakfast of aloe paratha with pickle on the side, curds and black chai. Then all semblance of the ordinary vanished. I put on my sparkling white Holi outfit and plunged deep into the Holi festival, as you will witness from my pictures. It was great fun, with lots of laughter, singing and dancing. It was as much fun to throw and spread the powdered paint on other people in great playfulness as it was to receive paint or a shower of water that spread the paint everywhere.

It is so interesting to notice my dependence on, or desire for, internet connection and what it feels like to be without it even for a couple of days. So I am writing today and will post this blog  sometime in the next few days.

Tomorrow brings another significant moment in my pilgrimage through Rajasthan. Not many, if any, other visitors will make the journey I am choosing to make. Jawai Bund is the current name for the place in Scottish missionary history called Erinpura. This is the place where, travelling from Bombay, by bullock-cart the first Scottish missionaries Revs. Thomas Blair Steele and Dr. Schoolbred arrived, with Thomas Steele so ill that he died and was buried at Erinpura. JWD tells the story in an article I have come to treasure. The tombstone that I will be looking for reads:

Erected

by the

United Presbyterian Church of Scotland

In memory of

The Rev. THOMAS BLAIR STEELE

one of its first missionaries to Rajpootana:

who before entering on his labours died at Erinpoorah on the

19^th February 1860

Aged 24 years

Asleep in Jesus.

The other missionary Dr. Shoolbred went on to Beawar and founded the mission there and the Beawar church is named for him to this day. However the first piece of land purchased by the Scottish church in Rajasthan was a grave. I will be searching for the grave tomorrow. Today there is no church in Erinpura as there was in JWD’s day. In JWD’s time the congregation there even hosted an all-Rajasthan Church convention. I don’t know what to expect, whether I will be able to find it, where it will be well tended or overgrown, whether I will be able to pause there to pray and to remember and to lay flowers.   

 Evening over Lake at Ranakpur

 Sunset at Ranakpur

The approach of a herd of goats

10:30 a.m. on the morning of Holi

 The party continues