A bumpy 15km vikram ride from Jaipur under a lavender desert sunset brings you to Choki Dhani, an ersatz Rajastani village designed to entertain wealthy Indians with their own history. Or at least the watered-down trappings of history. Upon arrival a visitor is greated by a thin old man wearing a respendent homespun turban playing fantastic poly-rhythyms on rajastani leather drums. He picks up his sticks and beat when he sees visitors approaching and holds put his hand for a baksheesh (a tip) when he finishes. Decidedly, this sets the tone for the evening; entertaining and sometimes magical hokum, but not without a little guilt and a lot of greasy palms.
Inside the dusty and decaying amusement park guests are encouraged to ride aging indifferent camels, watch diminutive circus performers shimmy up bamboo poles, sit cross-legged with greasy fingers eating spicy curries from banana leaves and believe in the dove disappearing acts of soporific magicians. This is tribal simulacrum Indian style.
As the warm dark sari of night falls over the village hiding shoddy paint jobs and cheap costumes the candlelight provides shadowy authenticity to the pagan celebrations under oversized plaster cobras and thirsty palm trees. Deep inside an imitation forest, over plastic bridges and through stucco caves young we came across five young men savagely sporting leopord-print costumes dancing with sticks around a fire, a real fire. The dance ends and the dark boys crowd around demanding a tip. Soon a large dinosaur replica looms out of the darkness adn middle-class Indian families, frightened, hold on to one another and their rupees.
Our waiters that evening were all from Bikaner, a large city on the edge of the desert 250km north of Jaipur. We were told that 100 coolies working in Choki Dhani are from Bikaner. Most of the men have families there. They have migrated to this artificial village, populating and giving life and lie to this deceitful history, entertaining middle-class families on holiday, so that they can send money home and briefly live authentic penury lives with their families in veritable Indian cities. This certainly explained the sad weathered faces we'd noted during our visit, that smiled long enough to receive their baksheesh.
At one point, early in our dizzying evening, I was embeaced by a hookah man who insisted on taking my photo wearing his sweat-damp homespun. I took a hoot of his pungent tobacco, reluctantly accepted his sudden embrace and left him standing with a saddened expression that left me feeling cold. That was before we accustomed ourselves to the ritual of baksheesh. Before we knew the whole city was from Bikaner.
