Getting tempted in Pushkar

Photograph by Preeti Verma Lal

Amidst all this was that dusky girl in turquoise blue ghaghra and a choli that was so conical that I wondered if she was wearing spears inside. No, she was not hawking her wares; she was perched on a machan outside the gate of Mayfair Circus and coaxing men to buy tickets. On the small machan there were large sound boxes and a cassette player that looked as huge as a car battery. She would bend a little, crank the volume of the speaker and then would pirouette on stage, her ghaghra twirling in air, her breasts heaving, her almost bare back twitching bawdily…. The night show of the circus was sold out in a jiffy - a few twirls of that turquoise ghaghra, really.

Narendra Sikligar's turban is a little soiled and a little tilted. He is slumped on a chair, the sweat on his ebony skin glistening in the arid desert sun. There are countless swords hanging around him and on a pink satin cloth bows and arrows are laid lazily. In a cot not too far away, a woman with beads all over smokes a hookah and a scrawny child is howling. I am standing in front of Sikligar's makeshift 'handycarft' shop in Pushkar. He sniffs a deal and immediately hands me his business card and rattles off his mobile number. A business card! Market savvy, I smiled. It reads: "Vijay Handycarfts. Speciality in Fanci Sord, Arrow & Borrow…." The glossy card has an image of a sword that looks limp and a shield that probably has worms wriggling on it.

If Sikligar's business card seems Greek, let me decode it for you - Vijay Handicrafts. Specialty in Fancy Sword, Arrows and Bows….. His language might have gone off the cue, but Sikligar has to deal with too many gora sahibs who enquire about his beautiful swords and the business card begins to roll off the conversation. Sikligar is quick-witted; he comes to Pushkar from Chittorgarh because he knows he can bait the gora sahibs and sell his wares for a profit that beats all imagination. The business card is just a handy prop!

Not everyone can afford a business card - the less fortunate ones flaunt their implausible English and peddle their wares with "Hullo Hullo, good thing, cheap….", "Hello, come my shop… best thing…very good… little money…" There are too many 'hellos' floating in the Pushkar air, there are too many fervent sellers and perhaps everything under the sun finds a shop or a sheet to be hawked. And I am not even beginning to talk of the camels and cows that are the most sought after in the Pushkar fair. I will come to the green-horned cows and caparisoned camels later, let me list the humanly temptations first - the oxidized earrings that are so large that they look like boulders mouled in silver, the embroidered yokes, the runners, the angrakhas, the skirts, the shawls, the antique rosewood collapsible chairs, the silver bracelets and the lac bangles, black clay pots and iron woks, shimmering swords and beefy batons, colourful ropes and pink candy floss, bead necklaces and silk skirts, the yoyos and the coconut-shell stringed musical instrument, the tidily arranged roasted gram looking flamboyant amidst green chillies and red tomatoes and the deep fried malpuas that get soaked in a sinful sugar syrup….. If you start counting the products, you would go breathless in a moment; if you start giving in to temptation you might end up broke and in hell for having been ensnared too often in a day's time.

There are thousand different ways you can get enticed in Pushkar - you could walk into a shop like Collector's Paradise run by Tak Ashok Shivani and find everything under the colourful ceiling, even a real gold thread embroidered velvet cap for more than Rs 10,000 or you keep walking around the Mela grounds and stop at every shop. If you are an early bird, have your morning cuppa and reach the Mela grounds, there would be fewer people and less pestering hawkers, you can also then sit on the creaky benches and slurp on jalebis and malpuas. If you are nocturnal, around midnight you would still find a yoyo and the paan seller, a groggy baton seller who spreads a quilt and sleeps in the shop itself or a lone chaiwallah who would brew a heady concoction for you and weave some interesting tales about how shopping in Pushkar has changed ever since the gora sahibs started swarming to the holy hand in droves.

If you are an avid shopper, perhaps you know the basic rule of the game: HAGGLE. The first quoted price is ludicrous, slash it by half and if the shopkeeper shakes his head in disbelief or pretends to be shocked at your audacity, take it in your stride. Stick to your game plan, don't waiver, don't give in to pleadings. If it doesn't work, say a thank you and walk a few steps away from the shop…. Before you breathe and say 'Good Heavens!' you would hear the shopkeeper beckon you, "Hello, hello madam…. Say final price…" Stick to your guns, shopper….Your word would prevail. Thou shalt win the price race! Let me warn you, the haggling bout can leave you jaded and perhaps miffed, but if you want to save a lot of bucks, go for the battle. After two-three encounters you would master the art of haggling!

But between mastering the art of haggling and nursing a sore feet, I got a little sacrilegious. Forgive my sins, I know I was supposed to seek salvation in Pushkar but I got jealous too - no, not of the dusky Rajasthani women, looking stunning in their flowing skirts and innumerable beads leaning against their bosom, or the men with their turbans, gold earrings and an indescribable seductive fire in their eyes. I spurned all these and actually got jealous of the camels - not of the large eyelashes of the dromedary camel, or their long hair that is turned into cordage or long-napped cloth or even the honey tinge of their skin. I got covetous of their jewellery and embroidered stoles (what else do I call it?) - the brass bells around the knee that tinkle as the camel trudges through the sand dunes; the solid silver choker-like pajeb that adorns its ankles, the colourful beads around its long neck, the embroidered cloth on its hump, the bonbons, the mirrored sheet on the saddle, the shells stitched on red velvet and turned into chokers… God! If there is rebirth make me a camel for a day and let me spend a day in Pushkar. I want to look chic and go jingle-jangle on the sand dunes!

There were too many products and temptations, but you ain't heard anything yet. Amidst all this was that dusky girl in turquoise blue ghaghra and a choli that was so conical that I wondered if she was wearing spears inside. No, she was not hawking her wares; she was perched on a machan outside the gate of Mayfair Circus and coaxing men to buy tickets. And what a marketing gimmick that was - on the small machan there were large sound boxes and a cassette player that looked as huge as a car battery. She would bend a little, crank the volume of the speaker and then would pirouette on stage, her ghaghra twirling in air, her breasts heaving, her almost bare back twitching bawdily…. The night show of the circus was sold out in a jiffy - a few twirls of that turquoise ghaghra, really. She might have looked raunchy to her last drop of sweat, but boy! she really was a lesson in hard-selling. That midnight hour in Pushkar, I forgot being arrogant about the art of haggling and shopping, I came back with eternal lessons in marketing. Risqué, but she was worth it!

Published in Discover India magazine, March 2006.

Contact: Preetivermalal@gmail.com