We wake to the morning call to prayer and bird song in the beautiful Sardargarh Fort overlooking a wetland full of birds.
After a fabulous breakfast on an open air terrace we are driven through farmland, bushland and small villages, much of the country is a mixture of rocky hills or fertile floodplain. Wherever we drive in this big country there are new things to see and learn, today we saw small enterprise brick making.
In Rajasthan, the “dome clamp” style is a traditional, semi-permanent method of firing bricks. It is a variation of the classic clamp kiln (locally known as pajawa), where the bricks themselves form the structure of the kiln.
Unlike modern continuous kilns with tall chimneys, the dome clamp is an intermittent kiln—meaning it is packed, fired, cooled, and then completely dismantled for each batch. There characteristics.
• Self-Supporting Structure: There is no permanent building. Raw “green” bricks are stacked in a specific circular or square pattern that tapers toward the top, often creating a subtle dome or pyramid shape.
• Fuel Integration: Layers of fuel (typically rice husk, wood, mustard stalks, or coal) are sandwiched directly between the layers of green bricks.
• Mud Insulation: Once the stack is complete, the exterior is “scoved”—plastered with a thick layer of mud and straw. This acts as insulation to trap heat and creates a pressurized environment that helps the bricks fire evenly.
• Intermittent Batching: A single firing can take anywhere from 15 to 30 days to complete, including the cooling period.
We arrive at Deogarh and go to the Khamli Ghat railway station to board a 1930’s heritage train to travel to Phulab through the Aravalli mountains. The country is reminiscent of scrubby rocky hills near Townsville, QLD the exception being the exotic birds and the monkeys.
Our final stop for the day is the Brahma Temple in Pushkar, the only one dedicated solely to Lord Brahma and there is a river of young and elderly humanity streaming to the temple and adjacent sacred Pushkar Lake, to which the temple and legend has an indelible link. You are not allowed to film inside the temple.
