Jodhpur RIFF (and Jodhpur Straight Up)!

Early in October I traveled to Jodhpur (in Rajasthan state) for a couple of days to take in the RIFF - the Rajasthan International Folk Festival, a yearly five-day long music festival that brings together Rajasthan's storied folk musicians with musicians from around India and the world. This is an excellent take on the usual folk musician fare, which is usually pretty great as it is, but when "fused" with musicians from other places creates some pretty interesting collaborations and synergies. The day (or rather night) I was at the festival a group called Dharohar, which is comprised of Rajasthani folk musicians and a couple of musicians from the UK (this year a beat boxer and a guitarist), played an awesome set!

RIFF performances take place in Jodhpur's Mehrangarh fort, an imposing setting both during the night as well as day, so I spent a day exploring the fort. All the images are below.

In the interest of full disclosure: My sister tangentially works with the organizers of the festival, which is how I came to know about it, and I was basically accompanying her to take in some of the events!


Jodhpur RIFF

Dharohar performing in a palace courtyard of Mehrangarh Fort







Mehrangarh Fort

The fort, which has its origins in the 15th c., sits on top of a hill - which is more like a rocky outcrop. Many of the fort/palace structures would have been built in later centuries.

Mehrangarh fort with Jodhpur city spread out below




The fort's high ramparts




Jai pol, the first of many gates on the way up to the fort


The winding path up to the fort




Views of Jodhpur




Path leading down to Fateh Pol


Courtyard and rooms on the way from/to Fateh Pol




The final gateway before the palace buildings


Palace buildings and courtyards














Musicians and dancers (through the two arched doorways) in the palace courtyards




Colored glass panel in a palace room


Palace rooms




... and in the middle of all the typical Rajasthani palatial architecture, an art deco staircase!


More hints of art deco in the palace buildings


Chamunda Devi temple



Jodhpur City

Views of the city, from the palace and the road up to the palace. The first three images are panoramas that you can click on to enlarge. Click here to go to the flickr set that has the panoramas, and clicking on any of the other images will also take you to the same flickr set.




















Jodhpur at night. I took these photos on the night I was at the festival. The last one is a bit shaky but I like it anyway!