Pushkar Camel Fair & Kartik Poornima

Pushkar is set in a shallow valley with 500 temples, a strict Hindu town – eggs, alcohol and meat are banned. The festival is full swing and the town pulsates with activity. A roar of echoes through the shallow valley and across the lake and back again. Noisy chatter, praying, chanting, singing, loudspeaker announcements and car horns fill the air. Hundreds of people march from one side of the town to the other, not quite clear of their purpose.

Pilgrims bustle to the ghats along the lake, hurried along by boy scouts with sticks, westerners mingling around slyly photographing the strange spectacle along with upper class Mumbairans as foreign as us to this scene. I find myself in a small temple by the lake and a group of old men beckon me over, I sit a while and we study each other curiously. Under a shaded tree by the lake groups of dreadlocked Indian holy men sit smoking weed with groups of dreadlocked travellers.

Ragged children with gypsy mothers are sent out for a profitable day at the mela, each carrying their silver metal tin, ready for the day's takings. They join the begging queue with the saddhus in their dirty white cloths who have recently descended from the Himalayas for their seasonal migration down to the desert and Ganga plains for the winter mela season.

Desert nomads from across Rajasthan gather at the mela. Tall barefooted men in orange and white cloths baring the wrinkles of a lifetime in the desert, proudly sporting bejewelled ears and an array of colourful turbans – a vibrant range of red, multicoloured and luminous green or pink. They walk separately from the women. Tribal wives bustle around the markets, haggling with traders for pans and cloths; with strong features, eyes of deep ivy green or milky hazel, large exotic gold nose piercings and bangles up to the shoulders, like Amazonian tribes.

Flocks of hawkers from across the region are out in force. I fall victim to a gypsy who hennas me, a dispute ensues and we are surrounded by a pack of vampires smelling a bloody drama.

Every evening a noisy procession phlitters through the town. Wedding parties with hijras tagging along, hiding their faces but shooting secret coy looks from under brown shawls, spying out from their secret worlds. Then come the tall white Hare Krishna men with North American accents, shaved heads and random tufts of hair, irritating with their bombastic insistence we contribute money to their party.

In the stadium there are various sports and activities happening. I see a show combining snake charming and the simulated beheading of a young boy, a strange boy sport where they push and shove each other – a cross between rugby (minus the ball) and British bulldogs and the musical chairs – Indian style with people pacing slowly, edging round the ring despite the pushy insistent umpires hurrying them.

The last day saw a the disorganised closing ceremony with random spurts of “cultural activity”, wacky camel races, music and dancing, a tug-o-war between locals and foreigners and then a cattle show where the bulls run amok stampeding into the crowd – unplanned I think. The thousands of excited pilgrims then rushed off to bathe in the holy waters of Pushkar's lake, Pushkar Sarovar, linked to Brahma – the creator God. Bathing in the sacred lake purifies all your sins, particularly on Kartik Poornima – this day of the year coinciding with the full moon. Like Varanasi I decline the holy dip in dubious looking waters.

Phlittering Indian Boys

Women labour and you boys roam at leisure

clasped together, stroll through town, casual and cool

with coy affection in the fluidity of the afternoon.

Boys, boys, boys

wrapped loosely in sweet sweet entanglements, you tousle and tease

cruising for a good time.

Out for the day to saunter and play, it's boy time,

assert your friendships and phlitter away.

You linger for a while for chatter and chai and pause your 70s swagger,

munching pan your mouths foam a devilish red and stain your teeth dirty brown.

Then led away by your dominant friend's high waistline

your deep brown gaze fades away leaving a black and orange streaked sky.

Cattle Collection

Mother Cow, gentle and serene, part of the Indian urban scene. Providing thick milk for our masala chai.

She wanders through hectic thoroughfares, oblivious to the madness around her, her saggy skin reveals her ribs below, like the canvas of a tent thrown loosely over its poles. Tuk tuks and rickshaws swerve past her as she continues to totter along nonchalantly on her daily round. Knobbly knees as she waddles across the street.

She skilfully manages to work her expectant face through the crowd and waits patiently for leftovers from the samosa stall. She knows what she's due. She knows she reigns supreme and she knows where she's going, so get outta her way! Something I learn the hard way when charged at in a dark city alley by a herd of bulls startled by a stray firework.

Passing pedestrians brush past the bumped holy creature, often giving her a tender stroke or caress, perhaps even stopping to whisper a prayer to the sweet speckled creature.

After passing the day wandering the city streets this homing cow can somehow find her way home in the evening to her owner. Invisible Urban Farmer.

Like many things Indian a strange accepted system that actually works through the chaos – an urban cattle system complete with grazing patterns, ownership and milking. Also aiding a curious city ecosystem where cows scavenge like rats begging and digesting discarded food and shred cardboard boxes.

Her water buffalo cousins gather at the Ganga for their daily bathing ritual in the holy river. Bringing good luck to festivals and holy occasions, particularly the five legged variety who is worshipped for her strange deformity, adorned with jolly orange decoration and groomed by a holy man.

Kill a cow and you go to prison. 

Luminous City of Lights

A day at the ghats of Varanasi. The holiest of Hindu cities, city of Lord Shiva, variably called Varanasi, Banaras and Kashi – luminous city of lights.

Rich and poor pilgrims from across India perform their puja and chant mantras. After performing puja at city shrines and dizzy from circumambulation a rainbow crowd of colourful saris head to the ghats. Barefooted pilgrims descend stone steps, gradually entering and breathing the holy water, elixir of life, they recite statements of intent, offer flowers and with ritualised splashing their whole beings are purified. Immersed with the power of Lord Shiva. In Hindu mythology Shiva has the Ganga in his head and when he smokes ganja he goes mental.  

 The pilgrims join bathers who are scrubbing dirt with dirt, brushing their teeth in the river – a murky green broth scattered with orange petal croutons, drizzled with creamy chemical effluence and spiced with sewage.

 

Laundrymen stake their place on the ghats. They fiercely beat clothes on wooden slabs before carefully laying out clean sheets on the dusty pink sloping walls. A patchwork of whites, creams and gold silks that have adorned the city walls forever.

  Meanwhile, groups of male relatives trot quickly through the narrow bustling lanes chanting an urgent mantra, carrying corpses wrapped in orange silk. Even the irritant motorbikes stop and the cows step aside respectfully. This funeral procession route has been followed by the mens' ancestors for hundreds of years on a mission to swiftly take their deceased relatives to the Ganga. They dash through the labyrinthine city, a city of folk who continue to observe the trade of their caste – catch fish and weave silk. To Manikarnika Ghat, seeped in mythological history, the most sacred of Hindu cremation grounds. On arrival the family engage in standard Indian negotiation, to procure wood, kerosene and pay Untouchable guardians to facilitate the cremation.

Among the blackened stone ground and temples of the burning ghats a million thoughts and prayers mingle in the smoky air and thicken in the heat of the funeral pyres and midday sun. Three long boats are awaiting to unload large loads of timber. I feel a forbidding mood and am uncomfortably aware of my fascination and voyeurism. It is a vision that takes time to comprehend, segments hover unrealistically in the air, in my mind. A ghostly pink face of a corpse is visible, orange silk shrouds the rest of her body. Her men wash her body for the last time on the shore, surrounded by piles of black ashes. It's an alien scene of a living ancient civilisation that continues to cremate their loved ones 24 hours a day in this sanctified location. For a scene of bereaved family members there is a curious absence of tears, perhaps overtaken by the ritual at hand and happy their relatives are being brought salvation and final release at the ultimately sacred place. The chosen male in the family dressed in a white dhoti leads the ritual cleansing and lighting of the pyre – he won't touch anyone now for ten days.

  Around the ghats touts vamporise tourists and even here amongst the cremation ceremonies I am sickened by their unashamed behaviour polluting the holy place. Irritated when a vampire attacks, asking me to donate money for the “wood of the pyres” I leave and slide my way further along the ghats. I navigate through the suction operation of monsoon debris and Ganga sludge, dodging stray dogs, cows, monkeys, chai wallahs, weasels and more vampires. Sinister motivations can belie charming faces in this city. Not long ago a group of tourists were deliberately given food poisoning so they needed to enter a fabricated hospital and pay extortionate medical fees – several people died.

Above the ghats there are great sandstone walls and intriguing buildings with an air of faded glory. Dusty read Maharajah temples now hospices and ashrams housing holy men who have devoted their lives to this holy place. I wander further to the end of the ghats and when I walk past four men excreting I realise I have entered a toilet area and return back towards the ceremony area.

  On the opposite shore of the great Ganga a large sandbank has formed in this dry season where I see a dreamy image that strangely seems to be from the Sahara. A great yellow tent with red flags flying high and men on horseback.

As darkness falls handsome Brahmin boys dressed in cream act out an ancient ritual, firm and proud, elegantly twirling hands, ringing bells and offering fiercely burning urns, an image of perfection. They write a smoky message to Ganga, sweet incense billowing through mosquito ravaged air. A gaggle of tall blonde Germans huddle in the sea of colour of faithful Hindus who happily mouth the words to the catchy religious music pumping out of large speakers. A powerful spirituality is palpable in the air and the atmosphere of positive energy is wonderful.

  I am struck by the draw of the Ganga, Varanasi and Lord Shiva, their powerful symbolism and the conviction of belief. The layers of myth and symbolism of the river and city are complex and intriguing. The whole city is in fact regarded as the great cremation ground for the entire corpse of the universe. I am energised by the spirituality of the city but also a little saddened by the faded glory of the architecture, overcrowded conditions, filth and pollution.