Pushkar Fair

Over the past 10 years the annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert has attracted much attention as its hip, wired congregation of freaks, artists, seekers, post-modernists and folks with a lot of time on their hands have gathered to turn a monochromatic salt flat into a gaudy, color-drenched party. The media have often reported the festival as an “only-in-America” thing, noting its incredible variety of people and themes.

Obviously the media haven’t been paying attention to an event that takes place every autumn in another red desert in India’s Rajasthan state. It’s called the Pushkar Fair, and for pure spectacle, scope, raucousness, color and happy hell-raising, no other fair on earth can quite compare to it.

Like India, the fair seems to be a dozen different things. Originally begun as a festival to honor Lord Brahma, the creator of the universe, it also became the biggest camel fair on earth. The 200,000 pilgrims, farmers and camel drivers who attend it each year are joined by 50,000 camels and cattle, all descending on the small town of Pushkar at the edge of the Marusthali Desert. They, in turn, are joined by Hindu holy men, vendors, musicians, actors, tattoo artists, marriage brokers, outsiders and tourists in a combination county fair, hoedown, shivaree and Chautauqua that lasts seven days.

By the end of it, wagers from dozens of camel, horse and donkey races will have passed through many hands, devout Hindus will have performed ritual ablutions at the edge of Pushkar Lake (India’s most sacred) and the usually empty and drear Marusthali will have bloomed with thousands of human flowers.

This year's fair will be held Nov. 12-19. Little Pushkar, population 13,000, will take the onslaught of humanity and livestock in stride, providing everything from places to tether camels to western-style lodgings and amenities.

The town's location besides Lake Pushkar, about 80 miles southwest of Jaipur, gives it quite a cachet. Hindu Legends say that Lord Brahma, seeking a place to hold a religious ritual, dropped a lotus from his hand. Where the lotus struck the ground created three lakes: Jyeshtha Pushkar (main Pushkar), Madhyam Pushkar (medium Pushkar) and Kanishtha Pushkar (little Pushkar), from which the town took its name.

The waters are the only shrine in India dedicated exclusively to Lord Brahma and are one of the five holiest places of pilgrimage on the subcontinent. (With Brahma's creative work done, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer became the more prominent gods in Hindu affairs.)

Besides dips in the sacred waters of Jyeshtha Pushkar, visitors also take in a camel trading lot that is the largest of its kind on earth, something akin to a giant used car lot -- only these "autos" chew, stink and spit. At night, the sounds of folk music, storytellers, dances and partying carries well out into the desert. The fair, because it honors Brahma, is an alcohol-free affair.

November is the beginning of India's cool season (the other two are "wet" and "hot"), so the desert at Pushkar is not as blazing as it is most of the rest of the year. Under clear skies and in relatively comfortable temperatures, visitors to the Pushkar Fair see how enjoyable a traditional rural celebration can be.

For more information on the fair, go to www.pushkarfestivals.com  Also, any search on Google under "Pushkar Fair" or "Rajasthan" will bring up dozens of good links.

— Patrick Totty