Discovery at the Pushkar Camel Fair

Article by: Zahid Sardar

Fri November 22, 2013 | 00:00 AM


I am in India at Rajasthan’s Pushkar Camel Fair, which usually peaks in November about two weeks after the Hindu New Year begins. It is the twelfth lunar day of the year and the wet odiferous patch in the sand is probably camel piss. It is freshly filtered and as pure as it is going to be.

On this crisply cold, foggy morning the sun is edging above the Aravalli Range that borders the 20,000-person-strong town of Pushkar, and change is literally in the air. As if to symbolize the modernity that is creeping into the town’s raucous, messy 800-year-old festival, hot air balloons float above neighboring sand dunes where several hundred thousand camel, cattle and horse dealers are huddled under thick blankets, around smoky camp fires and under makeshift tent canopies. Within five days when the moon is full, the crowd will swell to nearly a million when many more dealers and buyers will join devotees of Lord Brahma, the supreme creator. The reputedly 2,000 year-old Brahma temple in Pushkar was destroyed by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb during the 17th century, but was rebuilt because it is the only place in all of India where Brahma can hold full court according to the ancient Vedic Indian epic, the Mahabharata

As the story goes, Lord Brahma, cursed by his wife Saraswati for his dalliance with the Gujjar milkmaid Gayatri, can be worshipped only on the banks of this petal-shaped lake that sprang up when lotus petals (pushp in Sanskrit) fell from his celestial hand (kar) to earth.

The faithful have come once again to commemorate the event in the month of Kartik and consider Pushkar Lake second only to Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest venue on the River Ganges. True devotees of Brahma need no luxuries. Nonetheless, this annual gathering so close to Jaipur has become a magnet for troubadours, gypsies and nomadic tribes like the Jadulias (cart makers), Lohars (metal smiths and cattle traders), Kalvelias (dancers), Gatiyas (flour millers), Bhils (archers) and of course, Gujjar herders, who all vigorously peddle their wares all around us before they once again disperse into the desert or to distant towns. This is an important trade fair, but for some of them it is also the only place to glimpse other desert tribes, and for that matter, city folk like us.

Rajasthani, Ajmeri, Shekhawati, Marwari and Mewari languages are spoken here, but hand gestures, Hindi and even English with a proper dash of lucre can cement any deal. With the proper language skills, money and luck, you might find yourself going home with a camel, bull or horse, or at least with colorful camel trappings, saddles, or black pom-pom tassels to ward off evil.

Luckily for roadside campers, pots, pans and clothing are all on sale. Each morning during the days leading up to the full moon, the crowd thickens. Sand dunes covered with thousands of camels to be traded in the afternoon sun for as little as $400 each seem all the more surreal as the day wanes into a hazy, cold evening.

Disproportionately, an hour-long aerial view of the proceedings from a balloon costs as much as $250. Horse breeders, who sometimes outsell if not outnumber those trading in camels these days, can fetch as much as $1,000 for a less-than-perfect horse and a good Marwari horse—a status symbol—can fetch as much as $10,000.

The best of the camels, joyfully caparisoned with beads, mirrors and pompoms compete for prizes in an ovoid stadium space next to large Ferris wheels and other rides that light up at night. A best-dressed award can help to raise the asking price but wary buyers still want a well-trained camel. It is, after all, meant to work. They make it go through the motions of running in the sand (I found myself in the path of a gaily festooned camel lumbering by on a test run), laying down on command and then of course there is the ubiquitous inspection of teeth and hooves.

Clearly, my friends and I are at the largest camel and cattle fair of its kind on the edge of India’s Thar Desert, but I am drawn more to the tribes that convene there annually. Gujjar women with flowing sunflower yellow head-coverings punctuate the exhilarating scene. Gypsy children dressed as goddesses ply the crowd for alms while Brahmin and Gujjar priests called Bhopas in and around the nearly 1,000 large and small shrines around the lake offer expensive blessings to devotees circumambulating the sacred lake. A dip in the lake can presumably absolve any of them of sins, and cleanse both body and soul.

The goddess Gayatri, like Brahma’s other consort Saraswati, promotes knowledge and so worshippers are encouraged to remember their ancestors during a ritual called deep daan. Others come to Pushkar after scattering the ashes of loved ones in Varanasi to complete their veneration of the dead. Brahmin priests document and preserve their family histories that go back many generations and some mourners weep as they name their kin, and perhaps feel linked in this way to the Universe. 

Meanwhile, at Brahma’s temple, the growing, persevering crowd climbs in unison up a long flight of stairs to enter the sanctum and gaze for a moment into the eyes of the four–armed creator, Brahma. Darshan—the swift eye-to-eye encounter with gods who symbolize creative and destructive energies—is a curiously personal Hindu ritual. And, despite—or perhaps because of—the pushing, jostling crush of humanity as you approach the idol of Brahma, you also experience the cosmic thread of life. Raw. Unfiltered. 

 

Zahid Sardar is the former design editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and a San Francisco author, writer and editor who specializes in design, architecture and lifestyles around the globe.

All photos by Zahid Sardar