I had the constant grouse about my New Year eve being never any different, spent at the same place year after year, though in the always so refreshing company of friends and families. Thankfully this one was different; as I welcomed 2010 in the majestic, erstwhile princely, place of Jodhpur, which falls in the state of Rajasthan. Rajasthan is a state I have come to love for all its rich history, majestic splendor and palatial opulence.
It was a seven day trip starting from beautiful Bikaner, followed by sandy Jaisalmer, and then the royal Jodhpur. Bikaner, the first stop on this tryst with royal Rajasthan, is in middle of the Thar Desert and has now a touch of modernity coexisting with the huge and magnificent forts and palaces along with ancient temples and traditions.
The star attraction is the magnificent fort of Bikaner, or Junagarh fort as it is called. It is a huge man made marvel in the heart of the city built in 15th century by ‘Raja Rai’, one of the most able and trusted Generals of Mughal Emperor Akbar.
Rajasthan is truly a royal state having been ruled by the Rajputs, who were avid fort builders, and their fetish for architectural opulence still stands in most of the tourist places of Rajasthan. It has, with all the trappings of luxury and grandeur, an architectural similarity to the Amer fort in Jaipur, which I visited last year.
The overall beauty of the palace is astonishing but it was this mix of devotion and indulgence, the ‘Jhula’ or swing for the lord Krishna and his beloved Radha, that particularly caught my eye; it is a testimony to the richness and lavishness of the bygone times.
The bedroom left me gaping with awe. The elaborate carvings and embellishments, and the whole ambience cannot be measured in monetary terms; it is an invaluable creation. The walls were coated with pure Gold and precious jewels studded the designs and paintings.
Another common aspect of the Rajasthan forts is the beautifully geometric gardens. The design style has been influenced by the Mughals, who left a great impact on Indian culture.
But Bikaner is much more than the fort and the palaces. It houses National Camel research centre, which has an incredible variety of Indian camels.
The innocent eyed ship of desert is a remarkable animal and the information on this board left me with tremendous respect for the unique adaptability of this animal to the desert environment (Click on the photo to enlarge and read the board).
The handicrafts and hand woven Durries (rugs) are a specialty of Bikaner.
Hand weaving is becoming an endangered Art on account of the economic hardships which these exceptionally skilled but poor artisans have to face. Thanks to tourism the Government has woken up to the plight of these people and several steps are on to showcase their skills at an international platform.
Nothing managed to hook my little one...
...as much as this famous temple -‘the Karni Devi Mandir’, and not at all for its religious value, but for completely bizarre, unforeseen and, almost literally, biting reason.
The temple, a much revered one, is home to scores…err no, hundreds…no, thousands of Rats…in fact around 20,000, as the guide told me! There are Rats everywhere. They run with gay abandon, unconcerned and unaffected by the thronging devotees. The rats have become the most attractive aspect of the temple…it does sound paradoxical though. The temple was built in the 15th century and it is said that local mystic, and demigoddess, ‘Karni Mata’ had forecasted that none of her family members will ever die and will continue to live on as rats in the premises of this temple.
We all have customs, traditions, folklores; sometimes irrational, sometimes strange, and sometimes downright bizarre. But despite their lack of logic, they add richness to our life. They are a great bonding force. Just imagine a life totally ruled by logic – mathematical, insipid and robotic – and the need for some irrationality is immediately felt.
I started planting flowers without any conscious attention towards attracting butterflies. Gradually, as the garden evolved, so did the kind of life forms visiting it. It was this year, my sixth with the house and its garden, that I got a whole lot of butterflies gracing the place. Watching these magically beautiful insects, I felt like reliving my childhood dream.
Inspired, I thought about consciously making the place more butterfly friendly. I surfed the net for making an ideal butterfly garden but the information was either woefully inadequate or of places having a very different flora and climate from mine. So, it was by sheer chance that I got some of the right kind of flowers for butterflies and felt like sharing my experience here:
The first and foremost requirement for a butterfly garden has to be the plants which attract them. Lantana being the universal favorite, tops my list! 
Pentas, a shrub with small star like flowers, too attracts a number of butterflies to the garden.
Single petaled Dahlias were an interesting package this spring. They seemed to hold a very special place in the butterfly heart, as I could find two, three, and at times even four butterflies sitting together on a Dahlia rosette! And mind you, the big gorgeous double Dahlias had no takers as far as butterflies are concerned!!
Helichrysum blooms too were always surrounded by butterflies and this rare Silverline butterfly visited this garden only once and had its eyes set exclusively on the paper like bloom, leaving aside fancy ones like Roses and Amaryllis. 
Verbenas, acting as a perfect host, too had groups of butterflies looming around for nectar
Sunflower and Gaillardias, the summer annuals, welcome the butterflies even in scorching summer months
Buddha belly plant whose virtues I have discussed before also, brings butterflies to my garden almost throughout the year
Then there are those plants on whose leaves caterpillars thrive. There are hundreds of these horrible looking butterfly precursors gnawing away greedily on the leaves of plants they set eyes upon. These include Amaryllis, Lemon,Radish and host of others, a classic case of beasts molting into beauties. These things have voracious appetite. They reduced the leaves of a full lemon plant to skeleton in a matter of day!
Another point that came across for a butterfly garden was an absolutely zero use of insecticides. Last year too I had the same flowers but the butterflies were absent. This year I decided not to use any insecticides, mainly because of the horrible things I had read about them. An unforeseen bonus was the sudden increase in the number of butterflies, though I had to tolerate some extra, nasty, mosquito bites.
