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.

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