.... Continued from North India Part II: Delhi
I took a local bus from Ajmer station to Pushkar. A bunch of passengers were waiting in one bus when another bus' driver announced he would be leaving first, and all of us had to move. As I took my seat in the other bus, one guy waved my wallet, looking for it's owner - I had it in my lap in the previous bus while looking at some papers I had put inside, and had taken off without pocketing it.
I was staying at Kanhaiya Haveli, situated just a couple of blocks away from Pushkar lake. Post check-in, I went for a run on the road heading back towards Ajmer, and then had a delicious Rajasthani kachori for breakfast as a reward.
I headed to the fair area a little past noon. Various events, such as concerts and competitions were slated to be conducted in a mela ground about the size of a football field. The town was on one side of the ground, a line of Ferris wheels on it's adjacent side, while the other two were flanked by an encampment of horses and camels, their traders and trainers, and handicraft and food vendors as far as the eye could see. Events were held in the mela ground everyday up to noon and thereafter in the evening. When I reached there, horsemen were strutting about, tourists were taking camel-cart and camelback rides, and in one corner, a madari was guiding his troupe of macaques to impress spectators. One member of a street-artist troupe was bending a metal rod using her neck.
A group of photography students asked another girl on her team, probably 7-8 years old, to pose for them. 4-5 of them went click-click for a few minutes, asked her to smile as per their whims, and finally gave her a ten-rupee note amongst all of them. Not only was the compensation appalling, they treated her like an object that could change expression as they wished. These guys, with their equipment worth lacs, were poor advertisements for both humanity and the photography community. I bet they will never be good at portraits.
Thereafter I walked around the horse stables for a while. One trainer I spoke to explained to me that no race horses traded here. All those on show would mainly be used for wedding parties. He was from nearby Sikar and spent most of the year traveling around Punjab, Rajasthan, MP and Gujarat, training horses as a freelancer. He had a couple of broken teeth to show for his efforts. When I asked him if he was married, he said men in his community tied the knot late, his idea of “late” being 21.
Further away from the horse stables, the camels and their owners were camped. I walked in the area for a bit and then headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap. En route, I crossed a few shops selling the Malpua that Pushkar is famous for, but I resisted the temptation. A block away from the sweet shops were the vendors offering different types of rolls. I picked one at random and had a falafel roll with paneer and garlic cream cheese. It was quite delicious - the horde of Israeli tourists that flock Pushkar had ensured Mediterranean food had been brought up to speed in this small Indian town.
After the nap I headed to the nearby Varaha ghat for the Maha-Aarti. Photography was otherwise forbidden at the ghats, presumably because women would be bathing during the day. But there were no restrictions during the Aarti, and I got some nice pictures of the birds at the lake. There was supposed to be a folk performance at the mela ground at 6:30 pm, but I couldn't spot it or find someone who knew anything about it. At 7:30, there was a concert by Astitva, a band I hadn't heard about. Their music was ok, but kept me engaged for a few songs given the fun atmosphere around. For dinner I headed to the only dhaba around the ground that seemed to be running full, and had bajra roti with sev tamatar subzi. The food was delicious but heavy and spicy. I couldn't finish even one roti. I felt sleepy after the sumptuous meal and headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep, but stopped on the way at a local boutique to buy a couple of tops for Jyoti.
I woke up early the next morning, picked up my yoga mat in addition to the camera bag and headed to the mela ground. A 6:30 am yoga session was part of the itinerary. The ground was filled instead with 8-10 balloons almost about to take off and give their occupants a birds' eye view of the town, lake and camps. When the balloons flew off, I spotted a saintly looking man and some infrastructure boys on stage. When I approached him, he mistook me for someone else he was expecting. The excitement I saw on his face suggested that I was going to be his only student that morning, a situation I did not relish. I told him I'll come back in a bit once the crowd builds, and sneaked away.
At 10 am, there was a satoli competition between local boys and male foreign tourists. I had played it at times as a kid, but didn't remember the rules in details. The tourists picked up the rules fast and it was a close game that the locals eventually won. A langri tang competition for the women was slated, but never happened, presumably because not enough female tourists signed up. The satoli was followed by a camel decoration competition, whereby each participant paraded his bedecked camel for a minute. The last event of the morning was the camel dance competition. Each participant had five minutes to make his camel perform fancy moves. Most performers used the charpoy as a prop, and some used two, one stacked on top of another. During the competition and later, I got good pictures of the local men, elegantly turbaned and engrossed in the dance, with some twirling their moustaches.
For lunch I went to same dhaba where I had the dinner the previous night and had a spicy, oily, yummy malai kofta with some tandoor rotis. During the latter half of the afternoon, I picked a quiet spot in the seating area, took a nap, worked on this blog, and clicked some pictures of horses running about. An unknown band from Mumbai were setting up their equipment on stage and announced they would be singing Kabir's dohas during their evening performance. I was disappointed at having to leave by then.
I hopped aboard a Jeep to reach Ajmer to catch the connecting train to Allahabad. One of my co-passengers was the Rajasthan sales head of the equine division of Cipla's animal medicine unit, and was at the fair on business. I was surprised his perks didn't include a private taxi back to Ajmer. The other guy was a drunk middle aged farmer, pestering us for drugs and being a pain. For a moment I wished I had taken a taxi myself and avoided this irritating fellow, but realized that would have been against the whole idea of interacting with the locals, and there was bound to be the odd unpleasant experience.
I took a 9:30 pm train from Ajmer which reached Jaipur at 11:30 pm, where I changed to a different one that reached Allahabad at 3 pm the next day. The travel from Pushkar to Allahabad was the low point of the entire trip, not due to the long journey, but because I had to endure one dinner, breakfast and lunch each on Indian Railways.
... To be continued (North India part IV: Allahabad and Lucknow)
No comments:
Post a Comment