realised it was about the upliftment of widows she even offered her palace for me to shoot in i used her palace to show the houses of raj babbar and amjad khan in the film there was a swing at the palace from where you could watch miles of yellow sands it was beautifulnot so simplethe next time i returned to jaisalmer with the film unit this time we flew to jodhpur and then were revisited by a battered ambassador again which would take us to jaisalmer after travelling for a while dimple said that her sister simple who was accompanying her had got a cut and needed a tetanus injection there was no question of finding a good hospital or clinic anywhere finally after much detour we found a shabbylooking health centre the doctor there barely heard us out before barking out instructions at simple ulta soyiye pyjama neeche keejiye and jabbed her on her bare bottom we were done in two minutes flatthen on we went along the way we discovered the intricacies of rajasthani cuisine dimple was really interested and encouraged by her we tried out all of them mirchi fry a combination of sev gur and gheethe rustic route santosh sivan was my cinematographer he insisted on waking dimple and me up at 4 am and go with him to check out the light quality lets discover the world hed say and the world we discovered was beautiful seeing dimple without any makeup and the orange sunrise reflecting on her face santosh and i decided exactly how wed shoot her when we showed her young she used no makeup only lip gloss and kajal later when we showed her ageing we shot her in the afternoonmeanwhile simple designed the costumes for me she would take me to the village and go into peoples homes and actually borrow widows clothes from them she had them laundered and made dimple wear those clothes she also bought some fabric found two tailors and set them to work on an advance payment of a bottle of rum eachthe villagers were really cooperative the only thing that angered them was when we used tankers of water to show rain they couldnt understand this waste and i remember an eightyearold boy telling his mother in amazement that there was water falling from the sky in his eightyear life he had never seen rainps i learnt a lot about real india from this trip it wasnt just the poverty but the acceptance of this poverty that was surprising the villagers hardly had any water yet they kept their vessels polished with sand no wonder ive never gone back to jaisalmer again i discovered it like a hitchhiker and the memories are very special i dont think i want to go back and create any new memories there