Dining with a view of the fortress in Jodhpur

 THE MEHRANGARH FORTRESS rests on massive rock overlooking the city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan.  At night the walls of the fort are brightly illuminated and can be seen from many places in the city. The older districts of Jodhpur  cling to the lower slopes of the rock upon which the fort rests. To take advantage of the splendid views of the fort, many restaurants in the old parts of the city are located high above street level on rooftops. Some of these eateries are as much as five storeys above street level, and none of them have lifts to reach them.

A restaurant is at the TOP

 One rooftop restaurant, which we have visited twice, is on the second floor of an old building. Called Indigo, we have eaten excellent Rajasthani meat dishes there, and were looking forward to visiting it a third time today (the 3rd of December 2024).

 At about 4 am. on the 3rd of December, I  awoke briefly and noticed that there was no electricity in the hotel and the alley next to it. By 7 a.m., the electrical supply had been restored.  At breakfast,  which is always served on the fourth floor rooftop of our guest house,  Mr Manu, the owner of the place, told us that there had been a fire in the kitchen of the Indigo restaurant,  which we had begun to enjoy. Burn marks were clearly visible from our guest house’s rooftop.

The reason the power had failed early in the morning was that the Indigo restaurant is located close to an electricity transformer, and the authorities were concerned that the fire might spread ⁷to it. Luckily,  it did not.

 After breakfast, we decided to walk to Indigo to offer our sympathy to its charming owner. When we arrived, we found his wife and a few other women seated in the restaurant’s ground floor courtyard. Each of them had very sad expressions on their faces. I felt that it was like visiting the bereaved soon after a loved one had passed away. They asked us to sit with them, and soon after that, the owner arrived.  We told him how sorry we were about the disaster which had befallen him and his family. I believe that he appreciated our brief visit.

 

Had the fire not happened,  we would have eaten all the rest of our evening meals at Indigo during the remaining few days of our stay in Jodhpur. I hope that Indigo will recover soon and that anyone who happens to read this and is visiting Jodhpur will eat at this excellent restaurant.