Early November. The rain came in this morning. Not just any old rain, but gut blasting, thundery rain of unexpected velocity. Lying in my bed under canvas, I lay thinking about the sound of the rain hitting the canvas and how I was safe and dry.
The dripping sounds became louder. It wasnt until five minutes in I realised the drips were inside not outside, and that the canvas was bowed with the weight of rather a lot of water. Tippytoing around the the sides of my tent I pushed the canvas up and waited for the whooshing of water cascading to the earth. Not one vital thing inside had been rained on. Small miracles.
Pushkar is not exactly high rainfall. This was unexpected. The word is that there’s a cyclone in the Gulf of Arabia and the tail end of it has spun rain into Rajasthan, explains the unexpected torrents in Jaisalmer in early November and Pushkar’s thunder.
The cameleers of Pushkar are camping also under canvas within the confines of the mela. The area where the camels are needs a good clean up, and despite the camels supposed to be centre stage at the fair, there’s a tinge of desolation. The prices for camels are down, and one cameleer told us it cost more to trek his camels from western Rajasthan than had been made from any sales. The man stood leaning on his camels, talking to us and resting his hands protectively on his beast. I felt the traditional pastoral ways of the cameleers ebbing away. His traditional outfit linked him to the old ways, to a simpler artisanal lifestyle where his turban was printed by the local dyers in his community and his wife might have designed the pattern on his shawl. Usefully his pockets were big enough to store his phone.
I hated the scrabble for photographs at Pushkar, where there felt like more photographers than camels at one point, and that we were capturing a fleeting moment of change without understanding what we were looking at. It has pushed me to work harder at developing slower tours, where we take the time to create deeper interactions with the people we photograph. I understand the geographical link between people and their terroir, and want to extract more context for those with me on a photographic journey. Sustainable tourism. Finding ways to interact, and informing our interactions outside the tourism industry. Creating relationships with NGOs that help focus our attention.
Pushkar, with its venal priests at the holy lake throwing money back at my guests because it wasn’t enough of a ‘donation’ for the votive flowers, and someone stealing our guides shoes, did not feel cleansed by the rain. But it provided, in various ways, the incentive I needed to focus direction and for this I feel thankful. Kutch, in Gujurat, is home to many of the old camel villagers, and this is where we’re heading next. Beautiful turbans, tie-dye techniques passed down through the generations, hand weaving of the Rabari sheep wool. Photography with context.
