Unlikely Pilgrims in Pushkar
Pushkar, Rajasthan, India
We stepped out onto the road, fair game for the boys who shoved brass camels and sandalwood elephants in our faces. In her running shoes, jeans, polo shirt, and a baseball cap over her short ponytail — obviously a tourist in desperate need of a cheap figurine– Madhu stunned the boys in mid-pitch with a few words in Hindi.
We had just left Madhu’s miniature realm. Her “luxury tent” complex was one of several that sprout up every autumn on rented farmland outside of Pushkar in the northwest Indian stat of Rajasthan during festival time. Amused by the chance to play tourist and guide at once, she’d immediately agreed to make a foray into town with me.
But first she had to greet new arrivals, give standing orders to a battalion of workers, mollify warring folk dancers, and smile hard at the tax inspectors who counted the tents and scrounged free meals. Finally, in the heat of the last afternoon, Madhu appeared at my tent and said, rather than asked: “Shall we?”
It was the afternoon before the full moon of the month of Kartik. On this night every year, two hundred thousand devotees celebrate the god Brahma’s creation of Pushkar’s holy lake. I had come in search of a fixed spot where I could stand and let “India” — in the guise of a livestock trading fair and a religious celebration — swirl around me.
Not a worshiper of the gods, not in the market for a sporty racing camel, I was drawn to Pushkar for its promise of India distilled. I had already walked through the fair grounds into town several times over the past few days, but now I wanted Madhu, as an “insider,” a Rajasthani and devout Hindu, to fill me in on everything.
Up ahead, to one side, a ferris wheel loomed. To the other side, a temple perched on a sharply tapering hilltop. We followed the crowds pulled along by the threefold allure of the Pushkar fair: spiritual purification, entertainment and a good buy.
People were still coming in on camel carts, on tractors, in buses, and on buses. Men with heroic mustaches under pink or orange turbans lugged sacks. Women in bangles from shoulder to wrist balanced suitcases over mirror-work veils. A stranger could only guess at the family, caste and regional bonds that held each tributary of pilgrims together as it flowed into the greater river.
Indicating some women in densely embroidered and sequined black, Madhu said: “They’re Rabari nomads from Gujarat,” (the desert state south and west of Rajasthan).
“That family over there? They’re from western Rajasthan, I should say.”
Madhu, from an aristocratic family, with a teenaged daughter at boarding school and a husband vaguely in her past, ran a travel business in the big city of Jaipur. She’d made the tent grounds her home away from home by bringing her maid and several cousins and by placing a small Krishna under a tree, in imitation of the maharajas and maharanis who used to set up portable shrines while on pilgrimage. But now she was outside her dominions.
“And where are they from?” I asked, nodding towards two women wearing deep red saris sprinkled with golden dots.
“God knows.”
We reached the spot where policemen turned back all vehicles, except the ones that drove on anyway. The shouts of hawkers, the loudspeaker announcements, and the live and piped temple music grew louder.
We passed the sandy hills of the camel grounds. On my first morning, the trading grounds had overflowed with grunting camels: velvety brown and sand-colored camels, gaunt and well-fed ones.
But now that the livestock trading had ended and the religious festivities were in full surge, only a few beasts remained. The strong, bushy-eyelashed ones were Bikaneri draft camels, said Madhu; the racing camels wearing ornate saddles were bred in Jaisalmer.
Madhu especially wanted to show me the pilgrimage houses build by royal families on the lake shore. But, once we reached the old town with its knotted confluences of streets, we struggled against cross-currents in the human stream. “This probably isn’t the best time for sightseeing,” I said.
“True,” Madhu agreed, and we pressed on.
Pilgrims coursed up the long stairway leading to the Brahma Temple. We passed white scalloped arches of temple gateways and edged along streets overshadowed by lattice-work balconies. Eventually, a gap between buildings revealed a wide stone stairway — a sacred ghat — leading down from the water’s edge.
Madhu said “Shall we,” and two burly Brahmins let us pass. A cow licked the polished stone landing as the faithful scattered grain. Following Madhu’s lead, I left my shoes behind before approaching the water, letting the stone cool my feet.
With some help from the priests, Madhu identified by name the royal pilgrimage houses of white stone along the far shore: “Maharaja of Kishangarh…Maharaja of Gwalior…” The names mingled with the sounds of bells and chanting, punctuated from time to time by the sound of a worshipper dipping into the water.
Pushkar Lake, the legends say, appeared where Brahma let a perfect lotus fall. I had a peaceful moment to contemplate this image before the priests prodded us to start the lakeside rites. Madhu could switch from sightseer to pilgrim, but she was worried about me: “Watch out for those priests– they just want your money.”
She crouched down at water’s edge and let one of the priests begin the ritual after first extracting a promise from his colleague to leave me alone. The second priest waited a beat before launching into a chant in a language that I gradually recognized as English.
Before I knew it, he was leading me through the rites, placing petals and coconut husks into my palm, directing me to throw them into the water. He put a ritual mark on my forehead, tied an orange-red string around my left wrist, and scooped up the rupees from my other hand.
“I tried to warn you,” said Madhu, as we sat putting on our shoes. Was she vexed at me, the Brahmins, or herself? I felt like an audience member called on stage as a foil for a magician’s act: bewildered but impressed by the trick.
Tired, I suggested a short cut through an alley. “It will be filthy,” Madhu protested but let me be the guide for once. “I had no idea how difficult it must be, to be a tourist in India,” she said, without detectable irony, as we picked our way through debris.
Out on the camel grounds, six women walked slowly and companionably, barefoot across the sand. The setting sun and their copper-colored veils fringed with small copper discs gave their faces a warm glow.
“How beautiful they are!” Madhu exclaimed, setting off an exchange that she translated after we’d moved on.
Madhu: “You are all so very beautiful.”
One of the women: “Then take our picture.”
Madhu: “You’ll ask for money.”
“Yes, yes, you should take our picture and give us money.”
Another woman: “Please take us with you to your country.”
Madhu: “This IS my country.”
Woman: “Then [gesturing towards me] take us to HER country.”
Back on the rattan thrones of Madhu’s open-air parlor, we doused our eyes with water and Madhu dispatched a servant for a pot of masala tea. She apologized for the noise and confusion of the fair on its most crowded day.
Not to be outdone, I reminded her that the walk had been my idea. The elaborate trading of apologies broke down in laughter.
Though my hopes of getting an “insider’s” view of the fair had been deflated, I felt more than compensated by a glimpse of Pushkar through Madhu’s eyes. Madhu didn’t seem choked with regret, either.
With each sip of the spicy tea that first prickled and then soothed, I let the day’s jangled impressions recede. What remained was the image of the lake, the calm presence at the center of it all.
After a while, my eyes had healed enought to see the full moon through the trees. But I closed them again until I could see the moon’s reflection shattering and re-forming as one pilgrim after another entered the purifying waters.
“Look– the moon,” I said.
“Yes…” Madhu smiled and studied the moon for a moment before she broke the silence again. “Do have some more tea.”
