Jodhpur

Jodhpur was founded in 1459, when Rao Jodha of the Rathore clan moved his capital from Mandore to a defensible sandstone rock nine kilometres to the south and began the fort of Mehrangarh. Marwar, the kingdom he ruled, covered much of what is now western Rajasthan, and its new capital sat on the trade routes that carried opium, copper, sandalwood, silk and dates between Delhi, Gujarat's ports and the desert towns further west. A wall pierced by gates, which still mark the edges of the old city, was thrown around the town below the fort.

Relations with the Mughals shaped the next two centuries. Rathore rulers served as Mughal generals, and Maharaja Jaswant Singh I fought for the empire far from home; after his death in 1678 Aurangzeb's attempt to take control of Marwar led to a long resistance associated above all with the noble Durgadas Rathore. In 1818 the state signed a treaty with the British and became part of the Rajputana Agency, keeping its own rulers under indirect rule.

The modern city grew outside the walls in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a railway, new roads and planned suburbs. Umaid Bhawan Palace was built between 1929 and 1943, a project begun partly to give work during years of famine. Marwar merged into the new state of Rajasthan in 1949. The riding breeches called jodhpurs take their name from the city: Pratap Singh, a son of its maharaja, popularised the local style of riding trouser in England around 1890.

Jodhpur thinks of itself as the capital of Marwar rather than simply a city in Rajasthan, and Marwari, a form of Rajasthani, is heard alongside Hindi. The Marwari merchant families who spread from this region became one of India's best-known business communities, and their patronage shows in the havelis, temples and charitable buildings of the old town. Rathore martial tradition runs the other way, through the fort museum's armouries and the state's horses and polo.

Music is the strongest living art. The hereditary Manganiyar and Langa musicians of the desert, who sang for patrons in the villages of Marwar, now perform internationally, and each autumn the Rajasthan International Folk Festival brings them together with visiting musicians inside Mehrangarh. Ghoomar, the whirling women's dance, and puppet shows with kathputli string puppets are the other familiar forms.

Craft is everywhere in the bazaar: bandhani tie-dye, block-printed cloth, lacquer bangles, leather, and the antique and reproduction furniture for which the city exports worldwide. The blue wash that names the old town is variously explained as a Brahmin custom, a cooling measure and an insect repellent, and householders still renew it. Festivals follow the Hindu calendar, with Teej at the start of the monsoon, Gangaur in spring and Diwali lighting the lanes below the fort; the Bishnoi villages south of the city keep their own tradition of protecting trees and wild animals.

About 1.6 million people live in Jodhpur, making it the second-largest city in Rajasthan after Jaipur, and it serves a much larger desert hinterland as the market, hospital and university town of western Rajasthan. The economy runs on handicrafts and furniture export, textile dyeing and printing, stone quarrying, tourism, coaching institutes for national entrance exams and a long-established Indian Air Force presence. Newer institutions, among them an Indian Institute of Technology and a national medical institute, have added students and research jobs.

Most residents live in the districts beyond the walls — Sardarpura, Shastri Nagar, Ratanada, Chopasni and the newer colonies spreading south and east — while the old city has lost population to them and has gained guesthouses and shops in their place. The working day starts early, pauses through the hottest hours and picks up again in the late afternoon, when the bazaar around the Clock Tower is at its busiest and families walk by the lakes.

Water is the city's long-running problem. Traditional tanks and stepwells once held the monsoon, and much of the municipal supply now comes from the Indira Gandhi Canal system far to the north. Dust, traffic in the narrow lanes and the pressure of tourism on the old town are the other familiar local issues.

Jodhpur has a reputation across India for snacks. The pyaaz kachori, a round flaky pastry filled with spiced onion and eaten with tamarind chutney, is claimed as a local invention, and the mirchi bada — a long green chilli stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in gram-flour batter and fried — is sold by the thousand around the bazaar. The mawa kachori is the sweet version, filled with reduced milk and soaked in syrup.

Full meals follow the desert pattern of the region. Dal baati churma pairs hard wheat balls baked in coals and dipped in ghee with lentils and a sweet crumble of the same dough; gatte ki sabzi cooks gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt gravy; ker sangri combines a desert berry with dried beans from the khejri tree; and bajre ki roti, millet bread, is the village staple. Meat-eating households cook laal maas, mutton in a fierce red chilli gravy, a Rajput dish associated with the courts of Marwar and Mewar.

Sweets and drinks matter as much. Makhaniya lassi, thickened with butter and scented with saffron and cardamom, is the city's signature glass; ghevar, a honeycomb disc of fried batter in syrup, appears at Teej; and besan chakki and malpua fill the sweet shops. Masala chai is drunk through the day, and buttermilk cools the hottest afternoons.