Transcendental Meditation is such a great thing for travel. You can do it anywhere. In airport departure lounges, on planes, all over the place. And you are feeling so fresh and clear afterward.
For instance, this A. M. we meditated at the swimming pool of our Ajit Bhavan Palace resort in Jodhpur, one of the 20 places I am pleased I visited before I die.
I’m ranking this place alongside my favorite spots in the world: the Canadian Rockies, Grundlesee in the the Austrian Lake district, Pokhara in the Nepalese Himalayas, Sun City, Bantry Bay in Cape Town, South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.
We are visiting Jodhpur in north-west India. Its in Rajasthan, the province of the rajas.. Jodhpur is the second biggest town in Rajasthan and has many names including “Gateway to the Thar”, “The Blue City” and incredibly enough if you are a South African like me, “Sun City”. It gets very hot here from April.
Jodhpur Fort Meherangarh
With a population of almost 1 million, Jodhpur is dominated by a huge menacing fort, Meherangarh, perched on a pink ridge just to the west of the city centre. The fort was founded in 1459 and now houses a fantastic museum with a first class audio-guided tourist facility. We saw a superb royal collection of palanquins, howdahs, musical instruments, get ups and arms which gave us a feeling for the immense depth of this culture. Hats off to the trustees who had the vision to utilize this place to sustain Indian culture.
Jodhpur is an incredible city spread along the fringe of the Great Thar desert, and yes, you guessed right, it gave its name to the riding trousers familiar to horse lovers.
Jodhpurs on doorman
It’s a tangle of winding streets, and is built usually of pink sandstone in a characteristic Cubist architecture. It smells of incense, rosewater and sewers, and sells everything from iPods to saffron. The people wear brightly colored turbans and deep pink saris.
Its also famous for its antiques. It isn’t walking country, as the pavements only appear to be maintained for few metres along storefronts. The term blue city comes from the blue paint used for buildings, particularly in the Brahmapuri hamlet area to the south of the fort. Blue is the brahmins colour, gives a subjective coolness and is held to repel insects.
One of Jodhpur’s most colorful forefathers, Maharaja Umaid Singh built a superb 350 room castle, Umaid Bhavan Palace, in the 1930s. The palace overlooks our place, Ajit Bhavan, also built by him. He had RAF wings, founded Jodhpur airfield in 1924 and had international air traffic in here before Delhi. He was in our granddads’ cohort, born in 1903. The airport now homes squadrons of Indian Air Force Mig 29s and Sukhois which could be seen barreling out over the desert after their deafening roaring takeoffs. I even saw one landing with its braking chute from by vantage outside Umaid Palace gate.
Vicki visited a store called Divas today and purchased some cotton tops. Owner Basant was educated in Manchester, and has an eCommerce website selling everything under the sun.
So what type of exotic meditation destinations have you encountered?
Where was your best-ever meditation? Mine was on the 7th floor of a building in Sauer Street in Johannesburg in the old days, sitting with some steel merchants doing a meditation course!
Dr Richard Broome runs the Houghton TM Centre in Johannesburg with his psychologist and TM teacher wife Vicki. He has got a doctorate from the University of Cape Town. He was previously a military and airline pilot and management consultant. His dissertation was on stress management at the worksite.
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