Wander and Wonder

For two weeks every fall, the backpacker paradise of Pushkar is flooded with animals of every shape and size (camels, buffaloes, horses, and any other marketable livestock) and the people who accompany the animals, often having travelled one week or more - on foot - from villages spread across North India. The desert is turned into a makeshift city: there are makers of chai, sellers of animal feed, even people to collect the (literal) shit left behind. Business happens alongside entertainment with circus performers, snake charmers, tight-rope walkers, and magicians keeping the crowds smiling. People show off their skills and people show off their animals and for two weeks Pushkar is transformed.   Click to see this and other pictures.

(CHECK OUT THE NEW SHOTS FROM 2015!) There is a time of the year, just before Eid, when the distance between Jama Masjid and Red Fort in Old Delhi turns from a crowded wasteland of homeless shelters to a rare display of humans' love for animals in all its contradictions. Herders from villages across North India bring their best livestock, including goats of all ages, shapes and sizes, to the ground to sell them for ritual slaughter. Buyers come with their entire families, and often with their personal butcher in tow, to investigate the animal’s health, and specifically their teeth, before paying from 10,000 rupees ($200 roughly) to 1 lakh ($2,000 roughly) for one. Pride is everywhere: the sellers proud of their beasts, the buyers proud of their faith, and the goats proud out of ignorance that their time is limited.   Click to see this and other pictures.

Under Howrah Bridge, in Kolkata, as the sun is casting its morning rays on the river, the Mallick Ghat Flower Market is opening it’s eyes. Flower blossoms compete for space with castaway flowers turned into mush. Male flower-sellers smoke defiantly their cigarettes with petals and garlands around their neck, bright colors crash over morning chai. The visitor often leaves confused - is it a place of color and life or is it a place of decomposition and aggression?   Click to see this and other pictures.

God Ram’s long and arduous victory over Ravan, the mythological king demon of Sri Lanka who kidnapped his wife, Sita, is at the core of the 10-day Hindu festival of Dussehra. Predictably, the religious undertones of the victory of good over evil are the perfect excuse to indulge in the mundane joy of ferris wheels and mobile cinemas, magic shows and carnival games. The climax falls on the festival's last day, when the giant papier-mâché effigies of a ten-headed Ravan and his accomplices, stuffed with straw and fire-crackers, are set on fire in front of crowds of thousands of onlookers.   Click to see this and other pictures.