For Those Of You Wondering Why I Haven’t Posted Any Photos From My Trip Thus Far…I won’t have enough Internet access/time until I return to the states. Until then, Follow Me On Twitter or Facebook to see some random images whenever I find a free WiFi signal. Upon Returning To The States I’ll Probably Spend As Many Days As I Do Updating The Blog From India Sharing Photos Of The Trip.
Awaken shortly before the 3:30am…nope, sorry, that was yesterday. It’s all running as one long film reel in my mind. Sleep in a tent in the West Indian desert comes easy…at least until the sun rises. Red wine and a Xanax helped. My roommate is deathly ill? Oh, could’ve fooled me! He didn’t keep me up all night with his snoring and coughing. I was out like a light as soon as my head hit the horrible excuse for a pillow on my tiny little tent bed.
Breakfast today was cold cereal, Masala Chai tea, and toast. All the breakfasts thus far have been British traditional fare, baked beans and boiled eggs and lots of toast. If this is normal or if there’s such thing as a traditional Indian breakfast (curried eggs? waffles paneer?) I haven’t a clue.
Morning was a guided walking tour of the Pushkar Fair (or Pushkar Camel Festival) grounds with stops at Pushkar Lake — a sacred Hindu site and one of the most important pilgrimage locations related to a water-body in India — and the Jagatpita Brahma Mandir temple, which is devoted to the creator-god Brahma, and is the only temple in the country dedicated to him. The fair is held in honor of Brahma, and it is an adjunct celebration to the large gathering of pilgrims who come to Pushkar at this specific time of year to bathe in the lake.
There seemed to be two distinct parts to the fair, one of which centered on the lake and temple — a sprawling bazaar and carnival — and one which centered on livestock storage, selling, and trading. I guess you could think of it in terms of a music festival with a makeshift campground attached to it. The separation between the two areas was cool because you could interact with the “country folk” and their livestock, OR the pilgrims and vendors. The walking tour consisted only of the lake and temple section.
Immediately upon entering the fair tourists are bombarded by hawkers trying to sell cheap jewelry, postcards, magnets, and assorted other trinkets. They glom onto any roving group of white people holding cameras, and follow closely like remora to a shark. The best way to fend off the hawkers is to simply ignore them. And as a man in a group of women, 95% of them don’t even approach me. Unfortunately, those that do usually want to talk or practice their English. And once their vocabulary has been exhausted, THEN they start to offer you their wares. And I, being the consummate friendly foreign traveler hoping to interact with and ingratiate myself to the people, fell for it several times. A small child with bad skin and a purple-and-green-striped t-shirt approached me and asked where I was from. I said America. He asked where. I said California. He asked if I liked Barack Obama. He asked my name. He told me his name was Ali, and he was from Agra. He mentioned that he attended a school there for boys. I told him I was going to Agra. He asked how I liked India, if I had any brothers or sisters, and then he tried to sell me his jewelry. I took the opportunity to point out my sister in a crowd up ahead, told Ali her name, and let him know that she loved buying jewelry. He raced off to talk to her and I figured I was in the clear. Alas, Ali found me several hours later and reminded me that I hadn’t purchased anything, so we bargained for a few minutes and I paid him about 1000 rupees ($20) for six or seven bracelets I can give my lady friends back home. Bye, Ali!
It’s important to note that the people hawking their goods don’t NEED our money. They’re not poor. The poor people in India are the ones who are diseased or deformed or socially shunned by the rest of society. These people were also represented at the fair. Limbless, lepers, veiled and hidden from view, crawling through streets, eating whatever scraps of food they could find, pushing along cans and hoping for donations or laying in the streets hoping for a bite of food. It’s tough to watch.
On the walk to Pushkar Lake we passed the Brahma temple and the enormous crush of people trying to ascend the stairs towards it. We were caught in an exquisite procession with costumed performers, dancers, and children, throwing marigolds out as they moved through the streets. Unbelievably cool and beautiful.
At the lake, priests dedicated to individual families pray with them and chart the generational changes year-by-year in large books, keeping a recorded history of each family that is updated yearly with births, deaths, and changes in age and health. Men take their sacred baths in the river wearing just underwear. Women must bathe fully clothed. It is an intensely holy site. Along the banks of the lake over 500 temples have been built. According to Hindus, the ritual bath leads one to salvation.
From the lake, only six or seven of us decided we wanted to try to visit the Brahma temple and brave the crowd. We had to discard our shoes around the block at a cafe. No one told me that they offered socks to wear, so I walked barefoot the streets and stairs covered in piss and shit and refuse and God knows what else to reach the temple. A huge mass of people were clamoring to get to the top, to the temple, and the stair climb was a bit treacherous. They separated men from women and I was lost from my group, but I did my best to wing it and look natural approaching the sanctum sanctorum, the central icon of Brahma. Slowly sliding my feet upward and forward, treading on whatever 100,000 people have brought on their bare feet to this holy site in Pushkar. Me in high school, OCD and germaphobic, would have died watching me nonchalantly maneuver barefooted in such unsanitary conditions.
After returning to the base of the temple, retrieving my sandals, and finding my group, we returned to the desert tents for lunch (Paneer? Again!? Ugh!) and rest. The afternoon offered an option of staying in the camp or a free return to the fair. I wanted to explore on my own so I chose to take the bus back to the fairgrounds. I spent another two-or-three hours there before sunset and was so happy to get to do so. A single white face can disappear completely and travel without incident, without confrontations with beggars and hawkers. The only time I was stopped was when a teenage girl in an orange and blue sari with a gold nose ring and arms full of bracelets asked me where my group from the morning went. I said I was there alone and she responded by stating that since nobody bought her bracelets this morning, I owed her money. I explained why, in fact, this was untrue, but handed her 20 rupee (about fifty cents) anyway and thanked her for remembering me.
Most of my time at the fair I wandered, talked, shook hands and traveled side streets to see all the different areas I could. I brought only dollar bills and small denomination rupees to tip people for taking pictures. I went back to the lake and a priest handed me a marigold and instructed me to walk down and toss it in the water for good luck. Shoes off. He walked with me, tried to hard-sell me on the full prayer package, but understood that I didn’t want to pay him anything, so he let me alone to toss the flower into the lake.
I wish I could more accurately describe the sights, sounds and smells of the Pushkar Fair, but it’s difficult to capture the essence of the place, from vendors offering sweets and savory dishes to the small spice markets and produce stands hidden in tiny alleyways, the stunning, vibrant wardrobes, the desert sand, soot and dirt filling your lungs, the beautiful as well as hideous people. It was such a remarkable place, easily one of the furthest-out, unusual and fascinating spots I’ve seen on this Earth.
Back at my little tent city a mile from the fair, the carnival lights are glowing in the distance. Music filters through the dense desert air. Fireworks light up the sky. Campfires burn. Stars shine brightly in whatever nooks in the sky are not filled with pollution from all the lights at the Fair. The temperature has dropped. More red wine. Tomorrow we’re onto Jaipur, which is a jewelry and textile hub. Not at all interested in shopping. Want to see more sites. Want to learn more. This is rad.
