Uneasy dreams of Bundi

If, today, Rudyard Kipling were to come back to Bundi, in Rajasthan, he would find that nothing had changed nearly a century since he last was here. Indeed, travelling to Bundi is a bit like travelling back in time – except that our time machine has to be a decrepit taxi hired from nearby Kota. After hours of shallow breathing, trying to escape the industrial fumes of Kota and the heat and dust of the road, we finally enter a town the beauty of which not only seems to be from another era, but from another place altogether.   For centuries, the tour groups have come, seen and conquered nearly all of Rajasthan, from pink Jaipur to golden Jaisalmer. But they have continued to ignore brown, sandy Bundi with a vengeance. Perhaps for that reason the town's rough charm remains undiminished. Tucked neatly into a valley at the foot of the Aravalli Range, the town remains a figurative crevice in the fold of time.   As we take the last bend in the road, the first thing to greet our eyes is the Taragarh Fort, looming large in the distance.

The same sight must have greeted Kipling (whose name crops up regularly in discussions around the town) as he entered Bundi, which he described as "an avalanche of masonry ready to rush down and block the gorge." Bundi, believed to have been established in the mid-13th century by the Rajput chief Rao Deva, must have held the same allure for Kipling that it does for today's visitors, most of whom stumble upon it by happy chance.   Water is the most precious commodity in the desert, and there are elaborate ways to access it. Bundi is rightly famed for its 50-plus stepwells. Traditionally, these baolis were not just reservoirs, but also served as bathing places and social hubs – places to meet, chat and catch up on the news of the royalty. Today, most of the baolis have dried up, but it nonetheless seems logical to start our explorations of Bundi from one of them. And so, we head to the most famous of all of the stepwells, the raniji ki baoli, where the queens would have bathed eons ago.