Pushkar: lives around the fair

For a few days each year, roads leading into Pushkar carry an unusual assortment of travellers. Some are pilgrims making their way toward the town's sacred lake. Others are traders and animal owners bringing camels, horses and livestock for sale. Performers, craftspeople and visitors join them. Their purposes are different, but together they give the fair its remarkable public life.

Pushkar stands at the meeting point of these worlds. Its annual mela belongs to a long history of animal trading in Rajasthan, where a camel or a horse has represented transport, work, wealth and pride. It is also linked to the Hindu month of Kartik, when religious observance draws people to the lake and temples. The fair is a marketplace, a pilgrimage and a gathering of communities whose lives do not fit neatly into any single category.

The fair unfolds at several scales. A camel’s decoration rewards a close look; a ring of spectators draws attention outward toward an animal and its handler. Stalls display the tack, textiles and ornaments that help give the gathering its colour.

These photographs were made on November 16–17, 2018, during a visit with Matthew, the photographer’s son, based at a tent camp near the fairgrounds. They move between the enclosures, stalls and lanes, following animals and people through the gathering.

The photographs follow those changes of scale: from the trading ground to individual people, from the animals that give the fair its popular name to the labour and relationships behind it. A great fair can be remembered for its size. Pushkar also asks us to look closely at the lives gathered within it.

A short distance from the fairground, Pushkar moves to another rhythm. Stone steps descend toward the lake, where people come to pray, make offerings and observe rituals that bind a place to generations of belief. In a town known internationally for camels, the lake carries an older and more enduring significance.

According to Hindu tradition, Pushkar is closely associated with Brahma. Its religious importance is expressed through temples, lakeside ghats and pilgrims who arrive during Kartik. For many visitors the lake, rather than the fairground, is the reason for coming.

Old Rangji Temple belongs to this wider sacred landscape. Its sculpted tower appears through a shadowed gateway; elsewhere, six men gather beside its carved stonework. The National Culture Fund dates the temple to 1844 and describes its combination of Dravidian and Rajasthani architecture.

Pushkar’s association with Brahma gives the town another strand of religious significance. Around the lake, that larger history meets a landscape of steps, doorways, places to sit and routes used throughout the day.

A passage between buildings leads down to the water. On the steps, people sit with the opposite shore in view. Along the edge of the lake, individual figures and faces bring the town into closer focus. Together, the photographs offer a slower passage through Pushkar’s public spaces.

At Pushkar Lake, an invitation to tea opened time for a conversation. A man in a blue shawl prepared and poured the tea beside the water. The encounter continued with another meeting the following evening, when the lake reflected the town’s lights.

The established photographic story follows that invitation through portraits, the preparation of tea and the evening gathering beside a fire. Follow the link below to read the complete encounter.

Across the fairground, attention gathers around many kinds of skill. A long pole steadies a tightrope performer. A small raised board becomes a stage for an acrobatic act. Nearby, a henna artist draws a design with movements measured at the tip of a cone.

The tightrope sequence begins with the space around the performance, then moves closer to the young performer’s step. Vessels are balanced on her head; her hands extend along the pole. People watch from the stepped enclosure, while equipment and balloons occupy its edges.

Henna brings the pace of looking down to the scale of a hand. The artist leans into the work while others sit close by. From a detailed view of the cone and design, a second photograph opens the encounter back toward the people sharing the space.

Maya raises both hands for a portrait, a child close in front of her. Another girl lifts an arm into the sunlight. In a lane, a purple-painted performer carries a small drum and a metal container. These gestures give the gathering a succession of individual presences.

The photographs move between performance and conversation, between an audience’s circle and the intimacy of a portrait. What holds the eye may be the scale of an event, or a face encountered for a moment along the way.