Gurus, gods & camels: Notes from inside the images

Photo by Radhika Raj, from the photobook, Gurus Gods & Camels: A Photo Journey to Rajasthan.

I STRUGGLE WITH INDIA. While there, I’m disgusted by the poverty, sickened by reality, angry at the absurdity of it all. Inside my head are dueling desires: leaving vs. staying. It helps to laugh, to let yourself go a bit, to not think and instead try to accept it for what it is: India.

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India is often described as extreme. Extreme poverty and disease side by side with extreme wealth and opulence. And most extreme, perhaps, are the feelings inside a traveler’s head while trying to come to terms with it all.

This is what makes India like a drug. For some personalities, it’s addicting. You swear off it when you’re there, but once off it you desire more.

We made our first visit in 2004. One of my closest friends, Jonathan Kingston, was teaching at a photography institute and continually trying to get a group of friends to come visit. Together with Jonathan and Paul Liebhardt, a professor from our own photography school, we decided to cover India’s Thaipusam Festival.

During previous travels, Paul had stumbled onto this festival in a remote southern village. It was not in any guidebook. In other words, it would potentially be our own to experience. We made the journey, spent a month photographing Indian life, and in the end had experienced something sublime.

But when it was all over, I was pretty sure I would never return. India had worn me out.

A few years later, with the same people, we began to hatch a new plan. This time it was the opposite idea. Every savvy traveler has heard of the Pushkar Camel Fair. It’s crowded with travel groups and photo workshops, hardly the experience we’d had on our first trip. But based on photos we’d seen, along with tales of all kinds of mayhem, we were sure India would put on a show like only India can.

Joining our little gang was a group of Jonathan’s former photo students, all Indian, all now working professionals. With such a motivated posse of talent, we thought: “let’s do a book.”

Photo by Jonathan Kingston, www.kingstonimages.com.

Pushkar is a remote village in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan. Each November, it becomes the venue for a massive gathering of camel traders, nomads, gypsies, Hindu holy men and tourists. And being India, it’s a spectacle.

Not only do western tourists arrive en masse, so too holidaying Indians. There’s entertainment for all: a carnival, contests (best mustache!), balloon rides, food sampling, and so on. For a photographer, the stage is set.

En route to the dry, hot, dusty village of Pushkar, we saw endless caravans of camels, nomadic groups and barefoot holy men. Upon arrival, the usually sleepy town was buzzing with anticipation for its two weeks of glory, two weeks where all the year’s rupees need to be made.

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