Pushkar Camel Fair

As I have earlier mentioned, moving around in Delhi can sometimes be very cumbersome and even dangerous. One starts to long for a proper personal mode of transport when you're stuck crossing the street for ages, under a constant threat of getting run over by reckless busdrivers in their monstrous vehicles, rampant motorcyclists, auto-rickshaw-wallahs thinking they're the maharajas of the road, advertisement elephants, and your average Indian pedestrians, whose walking pace renders a westerner with a lazy mosey a mere obstacle slowing them down. There are many options to choose from and when we heard that on the upcoming weekend the city of Pushkar was finishing its annual camel fair, we thought it would be worthwhile to go and inspect the remaining merchandise, in case we would find ourselves an awe-inspiring humpback to match the road raging Delhiites with their mopeds and Marutis. 

As all trains to Pushkar were already fully booked due to the festival, we had to settle for a night bus. Arriving to the bus stop we were casually informed that the bus will be leaving at least an hour late for whatever reason. In India, reasons for delays seem to be irrelevant, they don't change the state of affairs and therefore there's no reason to be bothered about excuses. Since we had all this extra time on our hands, we decided to use it wisely to search for food. Unfortunately, we happened to be in a neighbourhood mostly inhabited by electricians and car part shops, so snacks were scarce. 

On the other side of the road was a hospital and seeing it was the only option we had, we decided to inspect the place in case they had a cafeteria. The guard on the door looked a bit confused when we enquired for a place to eat inside the hospital, but let us in with a shrug. Outside the hospital, there were huddled masses of patients waiting for treatment, wrapped in blankets. Inside, we saw practically no patients. The maze-like insides of the hospital smelt of disinfectants and drying paint and the occasional whimper echoed from the various surgery wards in the corridors lit by blinking lights as we passed trying to find the staff cafeteria. Finally we found a door, tucked between neurosurgery and gynaecology. Sitting in the dining hall were four surgeons in their white jackets, blue caps and masks hunched over their bowls of dal. As we entered the room, they lowered their spoons and kept staring at us askingly, meanwhile the cashier bumped in letting us know politely that the cafeteria was only for staff and that our presence was not exactly appreciated. Apparently, food had to wait.

We eventually found a small kiosk that sold patties that served our needs. We returned to the bus to wait for departure that still kept delaying. Meanwhile the standing bus filled with travellers provided lucrative opportunities for all manner of salesmen to make a few quick rupees. Sitting in my thoughts waiting for the bus to leave, I was poked by a man: 

Man: You want cold drink?

Me: No thanks, I'm fine...

Man: You want chips?

Me: nah, thanks..

Man: You want 32 gigabyte memory stick? 

Me: Huh? 

Man: You want iPod? Listen here! No? Head massage machine? 

Me.....

As tempting as all these options seemed, I had to decline. 

Eventually the bus started and we finally set course to the city of Pushkar in the state of Rajasthan. 

Some twelve hours later we woke up in the middle of desertous rough terrain, where we were greeted by camel convoys and torrents of women in their colourful sarees and men in extravagant turbans and moustaches heading towards a bustling city standing in the middle of the desert. The holy city of Pushkar, a place of ca. 15,000 inhabitants, hosts annually one of the largest camel fairs in Asia to bring together camel - and other merchants, potential camel customers, pilgrims and tourists together for a five-day celebration of cattle trade, exhibitions and competitions such as the "longest moustache" and "bridal" competition (both of which we had unfortunately missed already). Wikipedia describes the festivities accordingly:

The whole town comes alive with vibrant folk music and dances, magic shows, horse and camel races and various other traditional entertainment competitions.Pushkar, with more than 12 local fairs and festivals of 10 –15 days duration is a year round destination. It is a mellow town by the great lake of Pushkar amidst the perfume of jasmine and rose flowers. More than 4,000 to 6,000 visitors from all over the world come to Pushkar everyday.

The sacred lake of Pushkar is a popular pilgrimage site amongst Hindus. It is believed that the lake emerged when Lord Brahma, creator of the universe, dropped a lotus petal on the site. Nowadays pilgrims come miles away to the surrounding ghats to bathe in the lake, which is believed to cure diseases. The camel fair is also peak season for pilgrimage and something of the importance of the city as a hindu pilgrimage site might tell that the Imperial Gazetter of India mentioned already in 1909 that the city was visited by over 100,000 pilgrims during the fair. The population of India was then around 250 million, today it's around 1,15 billion. One can imagine the increase in pilgrim count.

Colourful saree-clad women observing the party from a roof. The festivities attracted people from all over Rajasthan all dressed up for the occasion. For the most of our short stay in the city, the streets were completely packed and moving from one place to another asked patience and carefulness. Despite the fact that Pushkar is a holy city of the Hindus, which means that alcohol is not sold or served there, during the evenings the merry-making started to get somewhat rowdy, and crazed stampedes of young men among the crowds were not uncommon. At times the crowds had to be dispersed by the police with sharp lashes with their lathis, or bamboo-canes.

A local sweets-maker with his extensive collection of delicatessen for the sweet-toothed. Indian sweets are the bane of the diabetic as all sweets seem to be invariably dipped in liquid sugar, fried in sugar and sprinkled with sugar. A personal favourite are the sweet "squigglies" on the bottom left, known as jalebis, which is basically just batter deep fried and dipped in syrup, but nevertheless absolutely scrumptuous.

Around the festival area, on the way to the field where the camels were supposed to be, groups of snake charmers were waiting to grab the attention of any passing tourist. As intrigued as I was by these men that epitomize the mythical childhood image of India as a land of snake charmers and coal hopping fakirs, reality had to once again shatter my image; not only were these men tourist-hungry touts, the snakes in their baskets seemed to be more bored and bothered than charmed by the men's flute-playing. Lying paralyzed on the bottom of the baskets they looked like they wanted to say "Please, make it stop!".

As we finally arrived in the large field, where the camels were being sold, we were met with a half empty field with mostly scruffy looking camels lying in the sun waiting for their proprietors to take them away. The finest specimens had already changed owners and during these last days all that was left were ones with a limp, a missing eye or other ailments, which of course substantially decreases the value of the camel. A quick enquiry revealed that apparently the standard price of a camel on the camel market revolves around 40,000 rupees (670 euros), which I guess would've been a fair price for a relative large sized animal. However, as we would not settle for any scrawny cross-eyed spitting fleabag, it soon became clear there were no suitable vehicles left for us to conquer the streets of Delhi.

This man was trying to get rid of his last one with 40,000 rupees, which eventually proved to be too much. The thing had a suspicious look in its eyes, as if it was up to no good - there must have been a reason more experienced camel shoppers had left this creature untouched. As we were hesitating, the man was trying to hypnotize us with his moustache to buy the creature, but we were not fooled.

The word "camel" derives from Greek word kamelos, which in turn apparently comes from the Arabic word ǧml, which is derived from the semitic consonantal root signifying "beauty".

After circling the field for a while, inspecting the remaining merchandise, it seemed that we finally had to give up and forget about our quest for a camel. Eventually however, as we were leaving the area, we bumped into a true ship of the desert!

Finally, it was time to head home, over the mountains, through the desert! The camel knew the way...or would have, if we wouldn't have had to leave it to the kid as we left the market area...