Pushkar

Journeying to Pushkar

Sunday morning we have organised another car and driver to take us to Pushkar as our wait-listed tickets on Indian Rail have not become available and we do not have the energy to turn up at the station at 4.30am to see if we can get onto the train. It costs $190 for us to hire a car and driver for the 7 hour car trip and this seems like money well spent. Plenty of time for uncomfortable train travel later in the week!

The trip is long but interesting. We make several stops on the lookout for a toilet that is clean enough to use. A squat toilet is one thing, but one that has been used by a bus load of locals on a long-haul trip and has no running water, is another thing altogether. We decide to hold on.

We arrive at our fancy accommodation as the sun is setting. We made friends with the hotel manager in Agra, who was determined that we should stay in higher quality accommodation than the “cultural experience” bookings I had made in pokey little havelis and home-stays. He went about rebooking a number of our accommodations, swapping my 2-star for his 4-star choices.

I’m worried that we are too far from the centre of Pushkar and the place will be too sterile but on arrival, looking out over the sun parched hills and the enormous swimming pool with men and their big curly rajasthani moustaches waiting to bring us something on a tray, I decide that we will cope with 4-star.

We all have a wonderful sleep and as we are the only ones at the complementary breakfast that first morning, we order everything on the menu.

Driving out of the gates and into Pushkar town is another world completely. Whilst it is a small town of only 25,000 inhabitants, there is an utter chaos of camels, goats, cows and people everywhere.

Pushkar is a place of Hindu pilgrimage because of the holy lake in its centre. Legend has it that this lake was consecrated to Lord Brahma, the creator of the universe when a lotus dropped from his hand into the vale and a lake emerged in that place.

With the idea that this is a holy city we walk in to be greeted instantly by a man trying to push a flower into each of our hands.

Now, we’ve been warned already not to accept flowers near the lake but I’m expecting bogus swamis to be sifting around trying to extort coins from tourists. This seems like more of a legitimate entrance to a Ghat by the lake. We can see donation boxes and priests and Indian families making their flower offerings at the lake edge.

Roger and I are immediately separated. Stella comes with me and the boys go with Roger.

We are seated on the stairs and the “holy man” who looks as if he’s had a few too many days on the job, asks us to repeat after him.

Holy Man: “I”

Jude: Confused pause

Holy Man: “Say I”

Jude: “I”

Holy Man: “pray”

Jude: Pause

Holy Man :”Say pray”

Jude: “Pray”

Holy Man: “For good life”

Jude: “For good life”

note to self (this is getting awkward)

Holy Man: “For happy family”

To cut a long story short. The reader should keep in mind that this is all repeated word by word

I pray for good life, for happy family, happy children, how many children? 3 children, for happy grandchildren, your parents? for happy mother, how many brother sister? for happy sisters. I promise, with my mouth, with my words for donation, how much you give for each of your family. Maybe you give 5000 rupees?

In Jude’s head: (what the x&^%$, thats $100 bucks)

Holy Man “or 100 US or 1000 for all people of Pushkar looking after the sick and hungry. You give donation you don’t give money anywhere else, just here,

(He ties a yellow and red thread several times around our wrists)

This is for prayer for family, how much you give for your family?

Jude: “I think I’d like to give 500 rupee (I’m thinking this is pretty generous)

He looks angry

Holy Man: “You make promise with your mouth for your happy family. ”

Jude: “Yes and I’d like to give 500 rupees.”

Holy Man: “No, you make donation for all of your family.”

Jude: “Yes, I think 500 rupees is good.”

Holy Man: “Many people in your family!”

Jude: “Yes and my husband is also making a donation too.”

Holy Man: “Your husband different to you. You make donation.”

Jude: (getting righteous) “In my country, a donation is a gift and it is accepted happily no matter the amount.”

Holy Man: “You promise with your mouth for donation for happy family, happy children, happy grandchildren, happy job, happy donation.”

Jude: “This is not a happy donation if it is more than I want to give.”

We go on in this way for some time and he ushers us down to the lake edge to throw in our flowers. By this time I am feeling decidedly un-spiritual, despite the Tilak mark on my forehead and my coloured thread.

Roger is horrified that I’ve promised 500 rupee. They only got 100 out of him. I am torn between feeling beholden to donate what I said and wanting to say fuck off.

I give the cash, doing some kind of charade to the guy in the money collecting booth about my unhappy donation and my unhappy heart and we leave.

I have renamed my independent travel company.
I think it is fitting.

11th April: Pushkar

Later that day, we decide it’s high time we went on a camel safari. We wait until 6pm as it is too hot to be out in the desert any earlier. The “safari” is actually a ten minute camel ride down the road and into the camp where the camel guy lives with his family. After our 4 star luxury, it is nice too meet some locals although the reality of their existence is pretty overwhelming. As with most Indian experiences we have had so far, our hosts idea is to extract money from us in some way which is fine as they clearly need some.

The women make masala tea and the father plays and sings. Suddenly, they bring out a little fabric hammock tied to a little wooden stand and I look inside and there is a tiny little baby snuffling in the fabric. She is so small and beautiful but her life seems extremely fragile in her surroundings.

We think our little Louie is pretty small for his age but when we meet another 10 year old in the camp, it puts it into perspective.

It is obvious that we should give a significant sum of money which we do, but then all three mothers want some too. It is hard to know how the money will be distributed but it is obvious that they are a community and hopefully the money will be shared because at this rate of donation, we’ll be living in a camp ourselves.

The next day, Stella and I are feeling more intrepid than the rest of the family, so we head back to Pushkar town. Now we have our Pushkar passports (the red and gold thread weaved around our wrists) it is easy for the bogus holy men to see that we’ve already been extorted for cash and we are able to explore at our own pace, wandering in and out of back alleys.

I make a cafe friend who played for us while we had a coffee yesterday. Today we have a chai together and he shows me his family album (photos taken entirely by other tourists) and then we walk down to the little store so that I can buy him 5 kg of Chapati flour.