Original women

Today began by offering a visual feast. Sitting in the palace, just outside the entrance to the museum, was this crowd of visitors from Gujarat. Tribal women in swirling maroons and blues wearing a lot of extraordinary jewellery. Arms and ankles full of silver, gold, and white plastic bangles. Multiple piercings. Seriously big nose rings with chains linking to ear lobes. (Georgia, eat your heart out.) Huge silver earrings the size of the fattest rings attached to the tops of their ears. Some barefooted. Some in blue or green thongs. Apart from being women, footwear was the only thing we had in common. But we smiled at one another, and they let me take their photograph. Then the camera was passed around as they viewed their image, fairly nonplussed.

I wonder what kind of painting Howard Hodgkin would make of this glorious spectacle.

Indigenous people are called Adivasis which means original inhabitants. Original inhabitants obviously being a relative term. The Bhil people are the Adivasis from the Udaipur area and they feature quite prominently - dare I say nobley - in local lore. They even show up on the Mewar coat of arms!