SAVED BY A CAMEL
How a camel called Raj and a desert safari opened a fashion writer’s eyes to a whole new world
How a desert safari set this woman on her life’s path.
“YOU ARE NOT WHAT I was hoping for,” the terrifying face of my boss was saying. “I’m not sure you’re cut out for the fashion world.” This news was not surprising. Shortly after graduating from university with a science degree, I’d talked my way into a middle-management position at a venerable fashion magazine. Though I’d always fancied myself something of an expert when it came to clothing, once I’d arrived I felt more like the
country cousin in a Jane Austen tale who marches into society in all the wrong get- up. I was thin, but not emaciated. I’d never had a manicure nor spent extravagantly on an outfit. I wore little make-up and my hair was long and unruly and decidedly not sleek. I was a sartorial train wreck.
My boss, the editor-in-chief, was 1.8m tall and dreadful. Her smile was a sneer. She had two obscenely expensive designer suits that she wore every other day with a string of pearls – same suits, same pearls. Without fail she would down an entire bottle of wine at lunchtime alone in her office, and following that she would go on the warpath. By 1.30pm, doom crept through the halls like nerve gas.
“I’m willing to give you another chance,” she told me on this rainy afternoon. “I have an assignment that you must take. I’ve asked everyone else. No-one wants it.” The assignment was to fly to India – specifically the Thar Desert of western Rajasthan – and take a week-long camel safari. While there, I would shoot scouting photos to see if the location was suitable for voluntarily hungry models to waft around the desert wearing gauzy outfits worth more than the average Indian made in a year.
“And perhaps you could write a travel story while you are there,” she said with that sneer-smile.
This was the ’80s; India was still grindingly poor, overpopulated and struggling with running water, hygiene and electricity. I’d heard of the beggars, the lepers, the smells, the sewage and the inescapability of debilitating illness. I’d never been to the developing world, but it was either agree or be fired.
I boarded the long flight for India in a state of fatalistic fear, but as the plane descended into the blue haze above Delhi, I made a decision: I would surrender to whatever I found below. Hitherto, surrendering hadn’t been a large part of my life, and I was convinced I’d fail spectacularly.
The drive from the airport was surreal. It was early morning and mist, smoke, pollution and heat stewed to create a shroud through which everything emerged – first as a shadow, then a shape, then reality.
Horned cows wove between ancient cars. A man squatted and defecated into the gutter. Bodies lay everywhere, sleeping on sidewalks, median strips, on rooftops and stoops. At stop signs, maimed children appeared at the car window with beautiful, insistent eyes and outstretched palms. It possessed an honesty and beauty that seduced me. I was in love with India within the first hour.
To reach the camels I was required to catch an overnight train, which meant wrestling a path through Delhi train station, where it seemed all of humanity had congregated to take a nap with all of their belongings. I fought my way onto the train, and eventually it rattled past human humps sleeping trackside and onward into the outreaches of Rajasthan.
I disembarked in a town called Bikaner and was met by Vini, my guide. He was young and plump and spoke in antiquated English with elaborate enthusiasm. It was as if every comment he made was an astonishing edict. “Now, Ananda,” (he never got my name right), “you shall present yourself to your camel! You and he shall be stalwart friends for an entire week!”
My camel, Raj, which means princely, didn’t look very majestic, only ornery and mangy. Thankfully, I would not be going it alone. A skinny teenager, introduced as Ajay, would sit behind me prodding Raj with his feet and a stick to keep him under control. Ajay spoke no English. In fact, he appeared to speak not at all. It turned out that Ajay was an extremely tired teenager, and once we hit the trail, he would spend the days draped over Raj’s hindquarters sound asleep while I went it alone with my stalwart friend.
Rather than the dread I had expected to feel facing a week on the back of a camel, once we struck out into the hot, flat desert I felt a soaring sense of freedom. I realised that I was unaccountably happy.
This didn’t last long. “Before we reach tonight’s destination,” Vini announced 20 minutes into our trip, “I feel bound to show you a number one surprise!” I would shortly learn that springing “surprises” was Vini’s idea of hilarity. “Bikaner is the holy home of Karni Mata temple! Guess what animal is worshipped at the Karni Mata?” “The cobra?” I ventured, hoping not. “No!” said Vini, “There are 20,000 rats! They are fed every day by devoted worshippers!”
My one great and primal fear is rats. Spiders, snakes, sharks, public speaking, nudity – none of these faze me as much as rats. Perhaps I had died of plague in a past life.
“You must remove your shoes,” Vini whispered as he ushered me into a marble room, the floor of which heaved with a sea of rats. It was tempting to yell, “Hell no!” and run, but I didn’t. I surrendered.
Rodent faeces crunched under my bare soles. Rats swarmed over bags
of grain; they climbed walls, they covered a fountain and eventually they dug their terrible claws into my pant legs and climbed upward. And I stood there and allowed them to.
I left the temple feeling chuffed with myself. I had not fled, I’d allowed the creatures I feared most to use me as a jungle gym, and, most satisfyingly, I’d taken earnest temple-rodent photos that I would present as a suggestion for a fashion shoot location. I was so pleased with myself that I didn’t even use an antiseptic towelette to wipe my feet before I shoved them back in my shoes. Oh yes, I was in love with India.
“Our dromedaries await!” Vini announced. “Release all thoughts of creature comfort! The camel is now your intimate acquaintance and your tent will be your moving palace!”
Accompanying us was a camel-drawn cart fixed with old aeroplane tyres, enabling it to cross the sands of the desert. On top of the luggage sat a cook and his assistant. The cook had brought a harmonium, a handpumped organ, and he played lilting Qawwali music all day as the cart swayed over the empty, sun-scorched plains. The soaring freedom and the unaccountable happiness returned, and I sat atop Raj sucking in the purity and peace of the wide-open spaces.
At night we would set up our tents while the cooks prepared dinner. The only way to wash was with a bucket and small amount of water. There was no mirror, it was hot and dusty and my hair and clothing were stiff with sand. I had never been more dishevelled – and never more content.
Almost daily Vini would bring the camels to their knees and scream, “Surprise!” One time the surprise was to climb enormous sand dunes under the cruel hammer of the midday sun. At the top of one, he started giggling, yelled “Surprise!” again and shoved me off the edge. I tumbled ass over teakettle with my work camera in hand. It was ruined. There went the venerable magazine shoot.
Another time we dismounted in a
tiny village. Often we would do this to rest under the shade of the rare tree, so I was typically unalarmed. Then several women grabbed me by the arms. “Surprise!” Vini screamed in my ear. “These women feel that you dress like a man! They are going to attempt to make you attractive in a sari!”
“Oh,” was all I could think to say, and I dutifully followed them into the dark hut. I’m not sure if it was conscious spite or an innocent mix-up, but they pulled out an item of clothing that I doubt would have fit me when I was ten and that had not been washed in a while. Maybe never. It stank.
The women surrounded me, and frantically started stuffing and swathing me into this thing. The choli undershirt was tight. “I. Can. Not. Breathe,” I told them in English and they stood around laughing and nodding and clapping their hands delightedly. I staggered outside and Vini clapped his hands delightedly. Then I said, breathlessly, “I, Change. Into. Men’s. Clothes. Now.”
The most surprising “surprise” was when Vini decided we needed to race our camels at full gallop. Unusually, Ajay was awake and he flogged poor Raj into a gangly, awkward gallop. Bouncing around gracelessly, I determined that posting to the trot was the only method of survival, and so there I sat, posting on a camel like some mad Englishwoman, my laughter trailing behind us, equally mad.
On our last evening, we rode towards camp as the sun was sinking with its usual crescendo of colours. I’d been nursing an idea since day three, and by this time it had come to full fruition. India had pried open some life lust in me. A dormant part of me had woken hungry and needed satiation. I had, as travellers so often claim, had an epiphany: I wanted to do this forever. Not roam about on camelback with Vini forever, but I wanted to explore the further reaches of the world, to stumble about in the unfamiliar, to place myself in trying situations in the remotest of places, to walk among all human conditions, to try to understand the importance of life, to be tested, to be dirty and not care, to get lost and to be in places where mirrors didn’t exist or didn’t matter.
I decided to return to the fashion magazine with the broken camera and photos of a rat temple and quit my job. And this is what I did (in the morning, mind you; I was too chicken to face the fearsome one post-vino.)
And that is how I became a travel writer.