Postcard from Pushkar

(A Journal extract)

There’s a bruise on the inside of my right leg which is slowly turning purple.

Each day it grows more colourful and increasingly tender. Let nobody say that I don’t suffer for my art. The bruise is the result of numerous unsuccessful attempts to kick-start this beautiful but tortuously heavy 30 year-old Royal Enfield “Bullet” motorcycle. My knee bangs against the fuel tank with a thump each time the kick-start resists my urging. My sworn oaths aren’t really helping.

I’m a romantic at heart and the prospect of speeding along the dusty roads of Pushkar on a Royal Enfield motorbike was an idyllic one, too tempting to refuse. The lone traveller, the independent soul, the free spirit. I am the Indian Sub-continent’s equivalent of Lawrence of Arabia. The wind in my hair, my RayBan sunglasses glinting in the early morning light, the reassuring hum of the engine as the miles fall away…

Except, these days, I don’t have much hair, my sunglasses were bent out of shape when a large Indian lady sat on them on the train from Delhi and the bloody bike still won’t start. Such is the supposedly romantic life of the travel photographer…

Starting the Royal Enfield requires a delicate balance of throttle and choke. Two gentle compressions of the kick-start with the choke wide open and a third full-weighted jump with the choke pulled back result either in a wry smile as the engine stutters into life or a large grimace as my tender right knee receives another crack against the side of the fuel-tank. But I’m learning. Perseverance pays. I pause, take a deep breath, wrap myself in a serene, Zen-like aura, offer a silent prayer to the Hindu God of vintage motorbikes (I’m sure there must be one) and urge the Enfield to a coughing, spluttering start.

Once running, the Enfield chugs along with a reassuring putt putt putt, like a muffled Sherman tank engine. A subtle twist on the throttle transforms it into a growling panther and I’m soon turning out of my camp site and onto the main Pushkar road, the early-morning sun glinting on my lop-sided RayBans.

The Pushkar Camel Fair is an annual event during which nomadic camel herders gather to buy and sell livestock. The simultaneous Pushkar Mela, a Hindu festival held at the Pushkar Lake, brings camel traders, pilgrims and camera-toting tourists together in an almost overwhelming crush of humanity. I’ve been here several times before but this year I am on assignment to shoot a short promotional video, my first official movie commission.

Shooting video requires a completely different skill set from shooting stills and the learning curve is steep enough to demand ropes and crampons. Prime lenses are the order of the day and, for once, I’m relying on a tripod 100% of the time. I’m forced to re-think my approach, a loss of spontaneity is replaced by a desire to plan carefully and each shot is achieved with painstaking effort – much like starting the bike. Everything is manual: manual exposure, manual focus and my love of the narrowest depth-of-field allows no room for error. Yet the challenge is invigorating and I’m in love with the ability to capture a range of expressions in the people I meet and to show movement in a whole new way.

Having parked the temperamental Enfield in Pushkar town, I’m off in search of interviewees. It doesn’t take long before I’ve encountered willing collaborators. Before lunch I have interviews in the can (as us movie-making types like to say) with the local barber, who insists upon being called a Hair Surgeon (but spells it “Hair Surgen” on his advertising board); a budding Bollywood actor (working as a waiter), a charmingly agreeable cycle rickshaw driver and a fourth-generation flower seller on the street in front of the main temple entrance. It’s an immensely satisfying process.

After lunch I get my RayBans straightened for the bargain price of 10 rupees, buy a chilled Limca (a lemon-flavoured soda) and return to the bike for round two of our daily kick-start tussle. This time I have the knack perfected: two compressions of the kick-start with the choke engaged before the third compression has the Enfield purring respectfully. Two minutes later and I’m leaving Pushkar town on the long and winding road that circles the festival ground and heading into wide expanse of the Rajasthani desert.

I’m thinking of potential compositions for my video, picturing leading lines and negative space, hoping to find a lone camel trader leading his camels across a sand dune for a slow, leisurely, late-afternoon, wide-angle shot. The Royal Enfield is attracting admiring glances as we speed pass small roadside settlements, the Pushkar hair surgen (sic) has sold me a bottle of his miracle hair-growth potion so I’ll soon be enjoying the feel of the wind in my hair again and my re-aligned RayBans really are catching the light from the Rajasthani sun

The day has already yielded a number of memorable encounters, I’m beginning to understand the process of shooting for movies, the clear skies promise adorable, golden light for the rest of the day and the ache of the throbbing bruise has faded from my consciousness. With a further twist of the throttle, the Enfield surges forward accompanied by a dramatic rise in decibels and I realise that there’s nowhere on earth that I’d rather be at this moment.

Perhaps it’s the challenges that make the rewards so much more gratifying and, despite the bruises, being a travel photographer with a temperamental Royal Enfield motorbike isn’t so bad after all.

PS: I’ve stayed in several places inPushkar over the years, from the cheapest, most basic of hostels to the more elegant establishments but this year I was fortunate to stay in what must be, without doubt, the most comfortable, convenient and cosy accommodation in town. Camp Bliss is appropriately named and I’m actually reluctant to mention it because I’d prefer it to be my secret. However, the staff there were the friendliest in India and they deserve to have their much-loved establishment promoted. Oh, and the food was wonderful too. I still weep a little when I remember what I’m missing. Camp Bliss is operated by Indian Moments and I recommend them highly.

Posted on Monday, November 21st, 2011 at 8:11 pm. Filed under: Blog, Travel Tags: india, pushkar RSS 2.0 feed.