Dancing Camels, Fathom-Long Mustaches, and Empty Wallets (Pushkar)

Pushkar & the Fair

Pushkar is a small, sandy city in Rajasthan that comes alive every November for the world’s largest camel fair. Thousands of dromedaries and hundreds of thousands of people gather for a pageant of garishly-decorated hoofed mammals under the sun and stars. After hearing only the title, we obviously both felt compelled to attend, and we set about planning transportation and lodgings well in advance since hotels and improvised tent cities in the area all fill up for the festivities.

The camel fair is also associated with a set of Hindu religious festivities, and Pushkar itself is considered a very holy city – especially the lake at the center. This brings with it a fair share of holy men, fascinating ceremonies, and regular prayers broadcast from tinny loudspeakers which add to the milieu.

Perhaps the most severe downside to Pushkar’s holiness is it’s effect on local gustatory culture. Both meat and alcohol are completely prohibited within the city. You’ll see from our wholesome appearances in the below photos the health benefits of this, but may also notice the creeping madness growing behind our eyes.

Pushkar’s central lake is an oasis of water amidst the Rajasthani desert

The holy overlords of the city streets, bracing themselves for the temporary onslaught of tall, odd-smelling, and ornery interlopers

Historical mansions dot the old downtown

The central lake in Pushkar is a famous pilgrimage site

Everyone likes a little scratch behind the ears

Just a monkey burning trash, nothing to see here

As has been forcefully brought home to us, India likes putting up festive lights on any occasion, and the camel fair is no exception

Despite many prohibitions on photography in the restaurant, we sneakily staged this one when all waiters conveniently stepped into the kitchen at the same time

The town’s tranquil, spiritual atmosphere means that Pushkar has long been a magnet for hippies, and these days it provides a temporary home for a relaxed crowd of backpackers and soul-searchers. We did our upmost to embrace the ethos, and enjoyed the side benefits of the tourist density – large helpings of fresh vegetables. We even found some tzatziki which, after weeks of buttery, fiery curries, made Jess feel pretty amazing.

Ethan attempting to penetrate the mysteries of Buddhism

A short prayer to the gods of fresh vegetables – lovingly washed in filtered water

Even the carnivores (secretly) enjoyed a vegetable interlude

Fried tofu with a tangy bean sauce, mashed potatoes with sprouts, and a salad

Caught in the act of inhaling tzatziki with the help of a spoon

We arrived while the camel fair was still warming up, and the focus was squarely on buying and selling between traders. We spent our first day ambling around, dodging herds of apparently free-roaming beasts, and marveling at the sheer scale of the event.

Heading into the fairground, which had a very English-style funfair as its centerpiece

Horse transportation which, like everything else in India, is decorated to the extreme

In a large enough group, camels seem to resemble a large, fatty-humped centipede owing to their odd walking style

An actual cobra charmer! Repetition seems to have dulled the intrinsic excitement of the occupation for his colleague

Desert splendor is reclining on a cushion under an awning towed by a chilled-out dromedary. Modern tires and shock absorbers only accentuate the experience

Our lunch was interrupted by a photo shoot for what appeared to be a pretty well-known model. She (in green above Jess’s shoulder) was forced to pose for photos while repeatedly biting into freshly fried samosas amidst sweltering weather

A bit of horse wrangling to show off its spirit to potential buyers

The often saddle- and stirrup-less horse racing demo had Ethan (and most foreign males) wincing

All tuckered out after a hard day as the center of attention

Day two signaled the start of the formal events and we spent most of the day in the stadium, engrossed in a series of increasingly colorful, noisy spectacles. The camels were looking a lot more festive by this point, since many of them had been laboriously decorated ahead of what was essentially a camel version of Project Runway.

Stockpiles of camel-wear ready to be deployed

A true diva in the flesh

If either of us had been asked in advance about how to decorate a camel, we probably wouldn’t have suggested day-glow flowers and mesh, tassels, and eldritch symbols, but that would be why we aren’t professional camel fair goers

The main event: a series of perhaps two dozen camels was led up to the central platform to dance to music and display their decorations in front of the crowd while their brave handlers would perform increasingly bold tricks like lying under the camels while they danced on stools

One of the other highlights was the soccer match, held between the local guys and a team of random foreign tourists. After the visitors took a worrying early lead, a couple of late goals brought the final result to a much more acceptable draw

The announcers, artfully mixing Bollywood style with provincial Indian official chic

The mass public dance in the middle of the stadium showing off one of the many colorful traditions of Rajasthan. The only concession to modernity was the small drone hovering overhead to take videos

One of the most popular events of the camel fair is the mustache competition. A lifetime of dedicated effort seems to have positioned this fellow for a successful showing

In the evening there was a traditional Rajasthani variety show incorporating such entertainments as this gentleman dancing while his colleagues built an increasingly tall tower of silver pots upon his head

Soon afterwards, we were treated to a vigorous Rajasthani dance full of rapid twirling

No fair anywhere is complete without hot air balloons, although in Pushkar the safety restrictions on crowd distance are observed a bit less scrupulously than elsewhere

Puppet theater is one of the traditional arts of Rajasthan, although we struggled to appreciate its subtleties amidst the immense creepiness of the dolls

The fairground at night – we were not brave enough to try any of the rides

Demonetization

While we were in Pushkar, we experienced the sharp end of India’s surprise demonetization campaign. In an effort to fight corruption and the use of “black money” in politics, Narendra Modi, India’s PM, announced one evening that henceforth the use of all 500 (~$7.50) and 1,000 rupee (~$15) notes would be banned, starting immediately. These notes accounted for 86% of the cash in the economy at the time of the announcement. All banks and ATMs were to remain closed for a minimum of two days to allow the distribution of new replacement banknotes. Thereafter, those in possession of any old notes would need to make a series of carefully documented exchanges in order to convert their cash holdings to legal tender.

By declaring the old notes to be worthless overnight the government hoped to eliminate fake notes circulating in the system and force holders of legal but undeclared, untaxed earnings to reveal themselves. The surprise announcement was seen as being necessary in order to avoid alerting those being targeted ahead of time, but since the vast majority of the Indian economy runs on cash the immediacy of the change created huge difficulties all across the economy.

All banks and ATMs were closed by law for the next two days, and many remained closed for weeks afterwards due to cash shortages. Those that were open inevitably generated huge queues, and quickly ran out of funds

We first learned of the demonetization right as we were getting ready to go to sleep and idly reading the news on our phones. Since it was also the night of the US presidential election (but many hours ahead of the US timezone), the India story was pretty far down so we were lucky to have spotted it. Particularly lucky since, like many places in India, Pushkar entirely lacks credit card machines which made cash critical. With the advantage of an early warning, we were able to rush out first thing and exchange around $20 for a wad of 100 rupee notes, which was to be our bankroll for the next few days. Other tourists were not so quick off the mark, and we saw plenty of frantic faces later in the day as they tried and failed to procure cash from empty-handed touts.

With a bit of privation we survived, but we found ourselves budgeting rather more carefully throughout the rest of the trip, since cash shortages continued long after the announcement – and still affect many areas today. More importantly, demonetization has been immensely challenging for the Indian people, especially poor people living in rural areas. Certain industries like agriculture and trucking are entirely cash based, and many workers in these sectors were either fired immediately or walked off the job after not getting paid for weeks. The announcement also coincided with wedding season, during which many families were relying on being able to make large cash payments to their various caterers, venues, and suppliers.

As we write this a few months after the announcement was made, it appears that nearly all of the unaccounted cash has made its way back into the banks via various channels, so only a tiny amount of “black money” has actually been removed from the economy. In addition, very basic errors by the government like making the new notes a different size than the old notes (which apparently was done without thought for the time-consuming modifications that would have to be done to each ATM), have further marred the campaign.

However, despite the significant hardship nearly everyone we talked with was focused on the long-term positives, and many lauded the boldness the policy. Even after waiting many hours in ATM and bank lines, the people we spoke with had few, if any complaints, which we took as an impressive show of national unity. Clearly there is widespread support for decisive, direct solutions to India’s key challenges.