Vagabonding is a part of my profession, yet there are certain visits which touches ....more than the others. I was in Barmer, in western Rajasthan...around 75 Kms from the Thar Desert and about a 100 Km from the Pakistan Border. Going to Rajasthan is almost a fortnightly affair for me....but this time, in the bosom of nature, I was thrilled. It was stretches of sand spreading for miles and small shrubs of grasses which looked like porcupines getting ready for a frog race .......
Apart from this and a few stunted shrubs of babools there were no vegetation. sporadically you would see herds of sheep and camels craning out their necks to feed on the same. As far as the eye could go it was shades of yellow ochre and brown, stretches of sand and undulating sand dunes, rippled by the wind and with fading pugmarks of the camel.
Sporadically you would see igloo shaped huts, made of dried branches of a plant, which they locally call 'akhda' . I have seen similar plants, but it seemed that the desert species were a bit different.......you need to almost crawl on your knees to get inside those huts, though with my height, I just bowed down my head and walked in. The small entrance barred the hot wind to come in and so once you enter the hut it is cool ....you could hear the wind from within....blowing uninterrupted and then getting diverted by the hut......listening to the wind was really romantic....
As we sat to have lunch in the sultry afternoon in a roadside dhaba.....there were sparrows pecking to the Bajra rotis....huge round ones which are baked on mud platelets and mashed with some dry veggies and curd, which might be a bit fermented too . The locally prepared garlic and chilly paste rejuvenates the taste buds !! .....as you enjoyed the rural desert cuisine, there would be some aged people...adding on to the laziness of the afternoon by consuming small little tablets of opium
By afternoon it got dark...with nimbus clouds, it seemed that it could pour down any moment ...the first splash of colours were seen....peacocks were seen walking graciously or perched on the branches of babools...their shrill cacophony broke the tranquility of the deserts......it seemed the welcome songs for the rains have begun, though, localites augured that it would not rain
....and then it grew even darker....things at a distance became hazy and it was like a gush of blinding smoke....a sandstorm, which approached like a whirlwind. Nothing was to be seen, as we sheltered ourselves in one of the huts....till the storm receded. they said that it was of a smaller magnitude. Once over, I saw the re-modeled sanddunes ...seemed nature has recrafted on its sand art.
From dusk to twilight it stretched over till 8 in the evening, when we went to the hamlet of the nomadic tribes- Kalbelia ki Basti. Ttill a couple of years back, these were hunting gatherimg groups, but now gradually settling down....with livelihood options being reduced for such a floating population. Traditionally they have been snake charmnrs, now metamorphosed , mostly to the occupation(?) of begging. Women clad in heavy traditional jewellery of beads and feathers, conspicuous, to their black ghargras. The hamlet was also spotted with lean and thin hunter dogs, who are the territorial guards of the place
...and in that dusk....when it was entertainment time, the kalebelias played on their flute, slightly rounded in the middle, decorated with lovely beadwork, (generally used to charm the snakes) and women danced....and huge flared ghagras circled as they took rounds in the sand....and we sat on carpets made of camel hair and admired.
the starry sky was the last treat for the day, for it was millions and trillions of twinkling, across the horizon of the earth...as we had some warm goat's milk....I watched....trying to identify the constellations….trying to identify friends and foes sitting ‘up above the world so high’….. with thrilling senses. ..wondered… admist this huge stretches of land, each hamlet (dhani)is atleast half a km from the other....so do people have the same concept of neighbourhood as we have.....distance could be so distant....lonliness so lonely........
Written in 2004-05
