Bikaner

Bikaner was founded in 1488 by Rao Bika, a son of Rao Jodha, the founder of Jodhpur. Leaving his father's court, he marched north with a few hundred followers into the scrubland known as Jangladesh, won over or subdued its Jat and other clans, and built his first fort on a ridge in the desert. He had the support of Karni Mata, the goddess-saint of Deshnoke. The town prospered as a halt on the trade route between Central Asia and the Gujarat coast, an oasis with adequate spring water in the Thar.

The dynasty's fortunes rose with the Mughals. Raja Rai Singh, who ruled from 1571, served Akbar as a general, and between 1589 and 1594 built Junagarh, the fort on the plain that withstood repeated attacks. His successors added palaces inside it for three centuries. Under Mughal protection the Jain and Hindu merchant families of the city, the Rampurias among them, grew rich enough to raise the carved havelis of the old town and later to found businesses across India.

The most consequential ruler was Maharaja Ganga Singh, who reigned from 1887 to 1943: he built the Lalgarh Palace, created the Bikaner Camel Corps that served in China, Egypt and both world wars, sat on the Imperial War Cabinet, and built the Ganga Canal, completed in 1928, which brought the Sutlej's waters to turn part of his desert into farmland. The state joined India in 1949. Bikaner today is a district headquarters with an air force station nearby, far from the main tourist circuit, which has kept its old city intact and lived-in.

Bikaner's culture is Marwari and mercantile. The Jain and Hindu trading families who built the havelis still shape the city's habits: vegetarian cooking, temple patronage, careful business and a web of connections to the Marwari diaspora in Kolkata, Mumbai and beyond. The Karni Mata temple at Deshnoke, where rats are revered, draws pilgrims from across Rajasthan, and the city's calendar follows the Hindu festivals, with Gangaur processions in spring and the Kolayat fair at Kartik Purnima.

The city has its own crafts. Usta work, gold-emboss painting on walls, ceilings and later on camel-leather vessels, came with artisans who arrived in Akbar's time under the patronage of Raja Rai Singh and still decorates the palaces of Junagarh; a few families keep it going. Carpets, woollen goods and camel-leather items are traditional trades, and Bikaner has long been a centre of the wool business for the surrounding desert.

Camels are the identity: the state camel farm, the former Camel Corps, the annual camel festival, and the camel carts that still move goods through the lanes. The miniature-painting school of the Bikaner court, which mixed Mughal and Deccani influences, is admired by specialists and shown in the fort and museum. Manners are courteous and conservative; the city is less used to foreign visitors than the big Rajasthan destinations, and curious, friendly attention is normal.

The city has about 650,000 people and is growing. Government, the air force station, the railway, the wool and leather trades, and food processing are the mainstays, and the snack industry founded on bhujia employs thousands in workshops and factories; the Haldiram's story began here. Agriculture in the irrigated districts to the north, gram, mustard, wheat and the famous moth bean, feeds a large trade in grain and pulses.

Old families still live in the haveli lanes of the walled city, though many of the finest mansions are locked up, their owners in Kolkata or Mumbai, with a caretaker in a side room. Newer colonies spread east and south along the roads to Jaipur and Jodhpur, and Gangashahar and Bhinasar to the south are busy Jain commercial suburbs. The day starts early to beat the heat, bazaars open mid-morning and stay busy into the evening, and in summer the city slows to a halt in the afternoon.

Water is the long-term question in a city on the edge of the Thar, dependent on the Indira Gandhi Canal and groundwater; heat, dust and traffic are the daily ones. Tourism is modest and seasonal, and the city is debating how much to promote itself without losing the ordinary, unrestored character that visitors notice at once.

Bikaner is India's snack and sweet capital. Bhujia, fine crisp noodles of gram flour and moth-bean flour fried with spices, was first made here in the 19th century and carries a geographical indication as Bikaneri bhujia; it is the base of hundreds of namkeen mixes and the city's most famous export. Papad, thin lentil wafers dried in the desert sun, is the other big product. Sweets include the Bikaneri rasgulla, spongy cheese balls in syrup, ghevar, a honeycomb disc of fried batter soaked in syrup for Teej and Rakhi, and sweets of milk and ghee sold by the kilo from glass counters at Kote Gate.

Everyday food is Marwari and vegetarian, built for a dry land: dal baati churma, hard wheat rolls baked over coals, broken into ghee and eaten with dal and a sweet crumble; gatte ki sabzi, gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt gravy; ker sangri, a dish of desert berries and beans; bajra rotis of pearl millet; and kadhi, a yoghurt curry. Kachori stuffed with spiced lentils or onion, sold hot from street stalls with chutney, is the usual breakfast.

Camel milk, sold at the research farm as milk, tea, ice cream and sweets, is the local curiosity. Chai is everywhere, lassi and chhaach, thin spiced buttermilk, cool the summer, and the bazaar around Kote Gate is the place to eat the city's sweets and snacks fresh from the pan.