Pushkar Puja

Friday 18th April

- the road to Pushkar
- Pushkar Puja

we rose early after a fairly decent sleep, our 'air cooled' room using some form of fan with water beneath attached to the outside. it was certainly cooler than the AC in our other room, which we had struggled a little with previously. we breakfasted on honey toast, mango shakes and a grilled cheese and onion sandwich - cracking stuff, if not exactly Indian. the Pearl Palace is clearly aimed squarely at Westerners, with notes about its safely cleaned food, the dangers of befriending strangers and so on in its literature. Sikh owned, it has a degree of the same sense of brisk efficiency that we came across at Colonel Lamba's, although the main guy at reception seems to have wandered in from a more slippery, less salubrious establishment.

we checked out - still with no cast-iron guarantee of a room on Monday - and walked the short distance to where our bus would be departing. when we finally boarded, only the Westerners were demanded to pay a 'luggage fee,' another example of squeezing money out of tourists at every opportunity. one Indian-familied Israeli did not have to pay such a fee because he looked Indian and spoke Hindi. to dwell on such matters would be to entirely spoil any trip here, but the near constant scams and 'foreigner surcharges' can begin to wear you down if you let them get to you. a hugely tall young Swiss guy named Adrian was one of our neighbours. on his fourth month in India and South East Asia, he pointed out that, to a degree, such charges are fair as we have more money than the locals. perhaps it is the way in which it is done that can rankle - the scrawny, rangy guy 'loading' our bags into the boot-style luggage area was an abrupt character who we nicknamed 'Burglar Bill' for his appearance. it was all too easy to conclude that we were paying to ensure that our bags arrived at our destination with us.

turbaned farmers with the usual overloaded trailer.

the three hour or so journey took in a lot of wide, motorway-style highway, filled as ever with gaudily-fronted Tata brand trucks and passing hostelries named reassuring things such as 'Hotel Decent.' at one comfort break stop the driving staff had breakfast cooked on open griddles, but the sheer weight of flies would have probably put us off even if we had been hungry. another Western couple on our bus (who spoke to no-one else during the journey) were being very touchy feely with each other, which is pretty much out of bounds public behaviour in India, especially outside of the major cities. all of the cafe stop customers stared rigidly and balefully at them, but they were either totally ignorant or just didn't care about the cultural sensibilities that they were trampling on.

one family who got on at the middle of a road had no seats due to what must have been overbooking, and what a sight they were, resplendent in forms of traditional Rajasthani dress. the man had a huge gold tasselled stretched ear-ring in each ear and was wearing surely impractical velvet, curly-toe embroidered slipper shoes, with socks! his wife was extraordinary; although relatively finger ring-less, she was covered in jewellery. toe rings, frilled silver ankle bracelets, a silver girdle-style belt fringed with lots of silver tassel, a gold etched necklace plate, bracelets at either end of solid forearm and upper arm metal sections that were just like armour, with fine edging and detailing, as well as earrings, a huge nose ring linked to her left ear with chain, all topped off with additional pieces that rested against her forehead and hidden beneath a green veil or shawl-style translucent cloth covered in silver sequins. although their children were wearing the universal clothes of the poor, they would have made a great family photograph had permission be sought and approved, but their mahogany faces were hard and emotionless. the wife had to stand for most of the journey while the husband sat and chatted with the drivers.

we picked up more than our fair share of flies at the comfort stop and they stayed with us all the way to Pushkar. we passed through Ajmer near the end of the journey, a hugely important Islamic shrine town and worldwide centre of pilgrimage marooned in a mostly non-Islamic area. arriving in Pushkar via a steep up and down ridge road, we were to our surprise and suspicion all dropped off at the 'wrong' end of town, necessitating a kilometre walk along its main bazaar with our packs on. the accommodation touts in this auto-rickshaw less town were ready and waiting for us and so thick it would have been useful to have a stick with which to beat them off, and also appropriate, since some were needlessly aggressive.

we came upon the main bazaar (street) in the middle of a wedding procession, the apparent groom somewhat sombre looking and upon a white horse decorated with special saddle, bridle and wearing a beaded lattice around its neck.

the bazaar seemed to have a lot of Westerners browsing among its many stalls, one from every part of India along its whole length, apparently quite a change from years past. we found our Shyam Krishna Guest House just along from the Hindu-only Vishnu Temple. after the noise and madness of the main bazaar, this quiet courtyard of blue-washed former palace buildings was a real haven, the rooms basic, simple and clean - perfect. no mod cons, but R250 a night in total - that's about 2.75 pounds. the owner speaks little English and the check-in requires so much information that we would not have been surprised to see it also include inside leg measurement and first pet's name, but it is family run (they live in the central building), family friendly and a bit of an oasis.

we settled in briefly and then set out to find the location of our Monday departure bus - mercifully, it appears to be at our end of town.

apart from two wheeled forms of transport, the small town is peaceful compared to the cities in which we have so far stayed.

a typical Indian scene; man with horse, temple and ancient Ambassador car, which is one of the most common you will see on the roads.

main bazaar, Pushkar

lots of stalls and clearly Western-focused places, plus a lot of ceremonial daggers for sale. one isolated man seemed to be selling large buds of marijuana in plain view in the street, an odd and suspicious sight since it's illegal here just as much as anywhere else in India, unless you are a Sadhu. in fact, there were lots of orange and white-clad holy men here, too, seeking alms - and probably much else besides.

towers of dye for sale, Pushkar bazaar

the main reason everyone comes to Pushkar is its lake, surrounded by whitewashed temples and connected to the water by ghats, where offerings and prayers are made and ashes scattered (as were Ghandi's). Lord Brahma, the creator, is said to have made the desert magically fill with the lake and the entire pantheon of Hindu deities was once summoned here, all 900,000 of them. it's also one of the only Indian places with a temple to Brahma, strangely.

Pushkar - the lake and ghats, with the Savitri Temple on the hill in the background

all visitors foreign and Indian alike are encouraged to make Pushkar Puja, to worship with local Brahmin priests at one of the ghats, repeat prayers while scattering rose petals and make a donation that goes towards temple funds or for the dependent priest. as we were already being given rose petals by all and sundry, we thought we'd get it over with. we took the shortest route to the lake, which had been hidden from us by the buildings of the main bazaar. small and beautiful, it's mainly the North shore that is chock-full of white buildings and their attendant ghats, with people giving thanks, making offerings and ritually bathing all around. although we would not have picked him for a priest, more of a businessman, the richly throated Nandoo led us through the detailed and intricate ceremony, involving a lot of rose petals, chanting, rice and sugar offerings to Brahma (he has a sweet tooth like all Indians, it would seem) and prayers said for us and for our families.

the ghats at Pushkar

the blessing ceremony was quite spiritually moving and carried an emotional weight, regardless of one's personal predilections. it's the one and only time you are expected to go through the process on your visit, so sometimes you get - shall we say - interesting stories of previous donation amounts, as we did. but the amount you give was and should be of your choosing. at the conclusion of the ceremony on painfully hot stones (because no shoes are allowed on the ghats), a coloured (usually red) thread is tied around your wrist, indicating that you have made your one blessing and donation. since it was the same colour as the one we had got at Galta, we could potentially have not gone through the process at all! however, that would have meant missing out on the experience itself.

Edd and 'priest' Nandoo. they make priest at an early age in Puskhar, clearly.

we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our new home and escaping the attentions of many of the town's excitable children. we also - well, Philippa mostly - did our best to save Edd's sunglasses, which disassembled themselves for no apparent reason earlier in the day. in the evening, we ate nearby as the earlier wedding hit full steam. this involved an enormous amount of noise, drumming, organ music and large fireworks being detonated very close to the ground.

we spoke to an outgoing Western man at dinner on his fourth but final Indian trip. he spoke about how the country had changed and how it was more money-grabbing and Disnified in terms of its culture, about how everything was now set up to try and be like the West. we agreed with a lot of what he was saying but found him relentlessly negative about India. Hinduism and the people in this huge country. he even went as far to say that the guidebooks were deliberately out to make it sound better than it was and the friends of ours who had been many times and had differing views from his must be at least mistaken, if not lying. we have found aspects of our trip so far trying and irritating, certainly, but it was difficult to agree with his downbeat sentiments. perhaps if we had been to India previously, and not recently, we might have found more with which to agree.

we went home and to bed, with Phil feeling tired and not altogether well. the sound of the drums and fireworks hardly lulled us to sleep, but it did provide a heady aural backdrop on which to reflect on the day's diverging viewpoints and experiences. it is very easy to be cynical and see everyone in India as being out for your money. it is also easy to see the good nature of so many of the people we had met. clearly both Indias exist side by side. there was much to think about, for sure, but our abiding memory of the day was watching rose petals drifting on the surface of the water.

love

edd & philippa