6 Nov WEDS: Pushkar - People and 'Odds & S*ds

The original idea of the Pushkar Camel Fair was to encourage traders to transact their business during the holy full moon Festival.   It has been going now for around a century and is one of the largest cattle fairs in India and attracts up to 400,000 visitors each time.

As mentioned in the previous post, the influx of visitors (tourists) attracts the beggars and hawkers.   We witnessed a coachload of lovely young women and children arriving for the sole purpose of begging.    The women usually have a baby on their hip (probably borrowed or rented) and the kids despite looking incredibly cute are street savvy - they mostly sell 'tat' - peacock feather fans, postcards or plastic bangles.   The women with babies are particularly irritating as they tend to prod and poke to get your attention before asking for money to feed the baby.

David got taken in by a pretty face or two when taking their photos (which cost him dearly - in rupees I mean, not hassle from the wife)!    I took a different tack and did my photographing from afar, zooming in on characters.  I think the photos are more natural that way anyway otherwise the subjects tend to 'freeze' and look very wooden and posed.

One very personable young man made us angry though.  He had a trade stand at the fair but latched on to us and walked with us giving us unwanted information about the camels and horses etc.,  We tried being polite to no avail - he was an artist, working on stone, and wanted us to visit his tent and view his work.    We probably would have done had he not made such a nuisance of himself.   In the end I told him I too was an artist and needed some peace and quiet to take my photos which were for my business and I needed to work alone.    He professed to 'honour my words' and backed off - but still followed at a discreet distance for another hour.  It was like being stalked!  Personal space isn't a concept Indians understand.

Once the Festival/Fair finishes the town of Pushkar reverts to being a quiet (if that's possible in India) rural village again for another year.    

On the road between Jaipur and Pushkar we saw very little agriculture although there were lots of ploughed fields so it might be that they were newly planted after the late Monsoon and nothing has sprung up yet.    Apart from that, the only other industry we noticed was lots of marble/granite works.  Local and imported marble and granite is cut and polished locally before being exported worldwide.

Some of the characters photographed at the Fair (which may or may not end up on my drawing board)

Indian people of all ages are so supple - they squat like this for hours just chatting and relaxing, or they sit crosslegged on the floor.  It helps that most of them don't carry excess body weight of course

In Amritsar I commented to David that we hadn't seen anybody smoking and the streets were devoid of cigarette butts.   There was plenty of other rubbish around but it was so nice to walk the streets without getting enveloped in somebody's smoke trail - or worse still, vape cloud.

We saw several camel traders smoking today so maybe its something to kill boring hours when tending their animals