Ranthambore: Hotel, Safari, School, and Village

I am currently in Ranthambore, at what may be the most amazing hotel I’ve ever stayed at. This is the home of Ranthambore National Park, and yesterday we took a safari through the park. And today we visited a school supported by Grand Circle Foundation and a village where we spent “A Day in the Life” with local residents.

But first…

My dear friend Joy asked me to share about the family where we had our home-hosted dinner the other night. Home-hosted dinners are one of the regular features of OAT tours. They connect us with local families, usually with multiple generations, and we visit them in their homes, get to know them, and enjoy a meal together. This is always a highlight for me. Not every home visit is as good as the next, they are all a fascinating way to learn about how people live and ask questions on a wide range of topics. At best, the connection feels authentic and personal, and the visit ends with hugs.

Our group of fifteen broke into three separate groups of five and visited three different homes. My group visited Veejay, a labor lawyer, and his wife Meghna . They have twin 15 year olds, a boy named Sam and a girl named Rubali.

Our visit

When we arrived, Sam met us outside and brought us in. Then the family showed us around their house. They live upstairs from Veejay’s mother. (His father died earlier this year.) It is common for newlyweds to move in with the groom’s parents, and at first they lived downstairs. There was no upstairs at the time.

It is common practice in India for a woman, especially if she is married, to cover her face with a veil in the presence of elder men. It is a sign of respect, modesty, and dignity. Meghna was uneasy having to live with her face covered at home all the time in her father-in-law’s presence. So she asked Veejay if they could move to a different house. Veejay told her he couldn’t afford to buy a house, so she asked if he would build a room upstairs. He agreed.

The room upstairs expanded over time to an entire apartment. The kids share a bedroom, Veejay and Meghna have a bedroom, there is a study, a living room (seen in the family photo above), and a kitchen. There is also a balcony. (I assume there is a bathroom as well, but I didn’t see it.)

Veejay said his parents were distraught that they were moving so far away!

In their living room is a shrine where they can pray. The kids told me they don’t really use it. Meghna said she was not very religious, but in 2014 Sam was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and she began to pray. He lost a kidney but has been cancer free for ten years, and she has become more of a believer.

Dinner

Meghna had already prepared dinner for us, so we sat down to eat and had a wide-ranging conversation about life. They told us about their arranged marriage (90% of marriages in India are arranged) and the six-day wedding celebration. We looked at family photos. They asked us about our lives, and we all shared stories. 

When it was time to go, we were all sad to say goodbye. We could have spent the whole night chatting and sharing about our lives.

Nahargarh Ranthambore

We arrived at our hotel, a short distance from the entrance to the national park, early yesterday morning. My room is huge and beautiful. The entire hotel is beautiful (and huge). The food is fabulous.

There’s a wedding taking place, and everything is festive and colorful. 

Safari in Ranthambore National Park

Yesterday our entire group went on a safari ride through the national park. We were warned that there is just a small chance of seeing a tiger. We saw two! Plus a range of other animals, birds, and reptiles.

School and Village and School

This is taking me a while to write, and I want to rest before dinner, so I’m going to conflate today’s activities and cover them in brief.

We drove to a village where we were supposed to visit a school supported by Grand Circle Foundation. On the way we passed another GCT-supported school, where the kids came out front and waved to us excitedly.

When we got to the village, we drove to the school, but it turned out the students were taking exams, and we wouldn’t be able to interact with them. So we went to a house where we met a group of women of various ages. There were wives and daughters and daughters-in-law of men who lived there. The men were all working on the farm, except for one who has a part-time government job. I actually am not sure the exact relationship between all the people we were visiting with.

We sat and talked with them for a bit, though they didn’t speak English (Ashish translated for us). Then we went for a walk and saw a few of the houses where they live. Then we went back to the house and had lunch. I helped make roti. I wasn’t very good at it, and the woman took back the rolling pin and made three in the time it took me to make one.

We enjoyed a good lunch together, then went in the house for some dancing.

Then we left and went back to the first school and had a chance to interact with the students there. So it all turned out to be a successful day.

Dhonk Crafts

We made one last stop before heading back to our hotel, at Dhonk Crafts. I’ll quote from their website about their mission:

Dhonk derives its name from the Dhonk tree. This tree compromises 70% of Ranthambore’s Tiger Reserve. The way the tree provides fodder and shelter to the tigers and the forest beings, similarly Dhonk aspires to give sustainable job opportunities and shelter to the tigers’ neighbours. The Mogya tribe present in this region was responsible for the 2005 Ranthambore tiger poaching crisis. In an effort to reform them we have been persistently working with them by providing an alternate means of livelihood and job opportunities. Likewise we work with the villages that are at zero distance from the forest.

Dhonk is weaving a social fabric of change that helps to conserve nature while at the same time create a small efficient army of micro-entrepreneurs. The local villagers are trained in skills for making handcrafted products — which ensures a better and more secure source of livelihood all year round.

This has helped enrich the social, economic and cultural outlook of the villagers and empowered them towards a better life. At Dhonk, every thought is from the heart — hence whatever is earned, gets ploughed back into the society. Dhonk believes in fair trade practices for all its stakeholders.

Shirts

I bought two shirts in the last two days. One was custom made for me from the gift shop at the hotel. The second I bought at Dhonk.