Welcome to Advanced Culture Chronicles for the month of February.

I'm Peter, and I'm joined by Rebecca.

Hello, Rebecca.

It's great to be here, Peter.

Where are we going today?

Oh, goodness.

We're always going somewhere with Culture Chronicles.

That's the point of our little program here.

You can also find it in the magazine, of course, as its own one-page feature.

We look at a cultural festival of some sort somewhere in the world, talk a little bit about that, talk a little bit about the historical context in which it's taking place, just help you learn a little bit more about this great big world that we live in.

But in answer to your question, Rebecca, today we are going to India, the country of India.

If you're near there, February 10th to the 12th, you can participate, or at least visit, the city of Jaisalmer, Jaisalmer in the state of Rajasthan in northwestern India for the Jaisalmer Desert Festival.

Now, Rebecca, why is it called the Jaisalmer Desert Festival?

Because it is in the town of Jaisalmer, and Jaisalmer is actually a famous town because of its color, and they have, in Rajasthan, they have different colored cities, and Jaisalmer is the golden city.

And outside of Jaisalmer is the desert you just mentioned, the Thar Desert, and the Thar Desert has lots of camels.

Camels have been a very important part of the desert economy and desert lifestyle for thousands of years.

Right, and they're a big part of the festival too, these camels in the Jaisalmer, excuse me.

So if you're into camels, you can compare camel tattoos, and I think there's a camel parade even.

So if you're into camels, the Jaisalmer Desert Festival is the place you want to be, February 10th to the 12th.

Now, Rebecca, you've been to India, haven't you?

Yes, I have.

And even to the state of Rajasthan.

I have been to Rajasthan, because I've heard about its beauty and there's so many legends around Rajasthan.

So in 2011, I did visit Rajasthan and I visited the city of Jaipur, the pink city, Jodhpur, the blue city, and we were going to go to Udaipur.

Udaipur is known for many palaces on a lake, but we actually missed our flight.

So India actually beat Sri Lanka in cricket the night before.

So our driver was partying all night and he forgot to pick us up.

So we missed our flight to Udaipur.

But we did go explore the other cities and it was really, really beautiful.

Oh, good.

Yes.

And I am just learning about the state of Rajasthan through learning about this festival and the cities you mentioned that are color-coordinated.

I was fascinated by that.

It's a city in the state of Rajasthan in which almost all the houses and buildings are painted the same color.

And I was reading a bit about this.

Like you said, there's a pink city where the buildings are mostly all pink.

There's one where they're mostly all blue.

And this was apparently done to impress foreign visitors, very important foreign visitors like heads of state and such, or to imitate the wealthy members of the town who, I think in the case of the blue city, Jodhpur, had decorated their homes with blue.

And so people in the city said, hey, let's be like the wealthy and make our houses blue too.

And it caught on.

And so Jaisalmer is the golden city, like you mentioned, because it's right next to the desert and the golden sands and everything.

But yeah, if I ever go to India, I think I'm going to have to go to Rajasthan.

You have to.

Rajasthan is beautiful for the many palaces of the Raj, the kings, and the many forts.

You'll be so impressed.

We talked about the blue city.

Outside the blue city is a fort.

I never can get the pronunciation correct, but there's a beautiful, huge fort right outside of Jodhpur.

And that's another place you have to go.

It was one of my favorite forts that we visited in Rajasthan.

Oh, yes.

Now, Rebecca, maybe you can help us here.

Why is the state here, and there are 28 states in India, that's the way the country is divided up, Rajasthan is one of the biggest, why is it called Raj-a-stan?

That's a really good question.

Now, the word Raj means king.

In the local language, it means king.

And stan means the land.

So Rajasthan just basically means land of the kings.

And about 1,000 years ago, it was basically divided by, there's many princely clans in Rajasthan.

So every area would have its local king, the Raj.

So the Raj, he would build a beautiful palace with a huge fort around the palace, and he would rule his land.

So there were 36 Raj in Rajasthan.

And when the British, when they conquered India, and they made India part of the Commonwealth, part of the British Empire, Rajasthan became part of India.

It was one of the last places for the British to conquer.

And once they conquered Rajasthan, they put all the lands of the Rajas together, and it formed a state.

So that is the state of Rajasthan.

Of Rajasthan, the land of the kings.

And I did a little research just on my own, Rajasthan has been populated by humans since, for thousands of years, going back to before 2,500 BC.

So this is one of the oldest parts of the earth, one of the oldest parts of human civilization.

And it sounds like just a great place to visit, either for the festival or for just to soak up that history, or to see the colored villages, the colored cities.

Yeah.

If you're planning a trip right now, think about India.

If you haven't already been to India, Rebecca's been to India, I haven't been yet to India, so if you do plan a trip to India, drop me a line and I'll see if I can jump on the plane with you or something.

Anyway, I think that is about all we have time for today with our Culture Chronicles thing.

Thanks, as always, for joining us.

Rebecca, great, of course, to always have you with us.

It was really fun to be here.

And I really recommend Rajasthan, friends.

If you haven't been to Rajasthan yet, make sure to make it part of your bucket list.

The Jaisalmer Desert Festival, February 10th through the 12th in Rajasthan.

We'll be back next month with another Cultural Chronicle for you.

For now, though, I'm Peter.

I'm Rebecca.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye.