Society

Camel-Skin Titanic

A celebration of the ship of the desert amid its dwindling numbers

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Camel-Skin Titanic
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No Beast Of Burden

The camel has other uses. Camel milk is a rich source of nutrients and can be consumed even by the lactose-intolerant. NRCC offers:

  • Fresh milk: Rs 10 per litre
  • Flavored milk: Rs 5 per 200 ml
  • Kulfi: Rs 30
  • Coffee: Rs 10
  • It’s also working on camel yoghurt, cheese and skin cream
  • Lokhit Pashu Palan Sansthan, near Udaipur, has teamed up with Haathi Chaap brand to make paper from camel dung
  • LPPS, along with Kullu weaver’s cooperative Bhuttico, is working on making caps and stoles from a mix of silk and camel hair wool

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***

Sebastian Lindstrom slept under the stars on the vast expanse of sand in Ladera on a bitingly cold January night. Giving him company were thousands of herdsmen from across Rajasthan gathered in this small, dusty town near Bikaner, their camel carts doubling up as beds. It was not an adventure camp, but a significant event on an otherwise sparse rural social calendar—the annual Camel Festival. For two days camel-owners camp in the desert with their tall pets, cook kair-sangri, gatta, moth ki sabzi and bajre ki roti in makeshift chulhas, take part during the day in several competitions—wrestling, kabaddi, motorbike racing, kho kho, musical chairs and tug of war—and then sing and dance the night away (these days to Sheila Ki Jawani) beside many little bonfires. Their camels too have a part to play—in synchronised dancing, acrobatics, safari, fur-cutting and decoration contests. It’s a vibrant, colourful, rustic fair with locals—cool dudes wearing I Love ‘A’NY T-shirts and bashful dames in long veils—thronging in droves on buses, bikes and foot. It’s this unique energy, celebration and community spirit built around the “ship of the desert” that Lindstrom, docu/short film producer and co-founder of the Hong Kong-based What Took You So Long Foundation (involved in filming little-known, grassroots issues across the globe), wanted to experience first hand and capture on camera.

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However, the presence of this curious foreigner also underscored the irony of the situation, which herdsman-farmer Ram Lal Akasar was quick to point out: “Agar jaanwar hi nahin to mela kya rahega (How will the fair remain if the animal doesn’t)?” he asked sardonically.

It’s the very issue Rajasthan, a state not just strongly associated with the camel in popular imagery, but home to 80 per cent of India’s camels, is trying to grapple with—the declining camel population. It’s also the focus of filmmakers Lindstrom, Philippa and Alicia Sully, from Sweden, UK and the US respectively, who are collaborating on an ambitious, worldwide camel project. They have been on the road for seven months through countries like Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Egypt, Abu Dhabi, Oman, Mauritania and Kenya, and now India. “We have been eating, breathing, sleeping camels,” says Phillipa, the writer in the team.

Predictably, the camel was one of the first creatures they encountered on crossing the border into Rajasthan and saw more and more of them as they went on. But the picture was not as good it looked. A 1997 survey put the population of camels in Rajasthan at nearly seven lakh. However, it declined by as much as 23 per cent from 1997 to 2003, and by another 18 per cent by 2007, the year the last camel census was undertaken.

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A villager tying his turban and getting ready for the festival events. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)

So why are so many camels missing? Increased mechanisation and automisation and insufficient fodder are apparently their two mortal enemies. Their grazing grounds are being notified or being appropriated by the urban spread, leaving them with less and less to feed on. Besides, trucks and tractors are replacing them in carting and ploughing; by contrast, it’s costlier to rear them. Herdsman Bashir Khan, who owns 10 camels, is one of many trying hard to find ways to put them to good use. “I send them off for shaadi-byaah. They have even gone all the way to Bombay for a big wedding,” he says.

That may be a quickfix, not a long-term solution. But hearteningly, some options that can help stabilise things are also being worked upon. The Camel Festival is now being pitched hard at foreigners in much the way the Pushkar Fair is, in the hope of giving the animal its rightful place in the sun. Foreign visitors are drawn in by the fun and pageantry, which includes cutting intricate decorative patterns on the fur of the camels, and a Mr Bikaner event, with contestants sporting elongated, elaborate moustaches. “It’s a great display of culture, and it hasn’t got commercialised yet,” says Philipa appreciatively. What gets a thumbs down, however, are the meagre amounts handed out as prize money in various contests. “In Abu Dhabi a camel that wins a race or a pageant can bag as much as 6 million dirhams. Here it is only Rs 3,000-4,000,” says Sully. She maintains that such incentives are the reason people are proud to own camels in Abu Dhabi. “Young people there have city jobs and over the weekend look after their camels,” she explains.

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Milky way: A villager drinking fresh camel milk which is healthy and easier to digest. (Photograph by Tribhuvan Tiwari)

Some in Rajasthan think the key thing is to promote camel milk. “From being a draft animal the camel must also be used as a milch animal,” says Dr N.V. Patil, director of the National Research Centre on Camel (NRCC), engaged in producing various milk products (see box). A common saying in these parts is that even if you feed newspapers to a camel it will give you a good quantity of milk. However, in India, one of the  largest producers of milk in the world, camel milk is only sparingly produced and used. It hasn’t quite reached malls and supermarkets as it has in Dubai, for instance. That, these experts point out, is a pity, because camel milk is more nutritious and easily digestible than cow’s milk and can be drunk even by the lactose-intolerant. It’s rich in vitamin C, copper, zinc, iron and immunoglobins and contains less unsaturated fatty acids. “It’s the closest to human breast milk,” says Lindstrom. “It could be sold as a health product.” The claimed health benefits include controlling diabetes, TB and Crohn’s Disease. Sonlal Detarwal, who regularly buys milk from NRCC, claims his blood sugar levels came down from 240 to 140 in three months of consuming it. Sixty litres of the 120 litres of milk produced daily at NRCC gets transported to Faridkot in Punjab for distribution amongst mentally-challenged children. It is also trying to develop more appetising products like camel cheese and yoghurt and sweets like barfi, rasgulla and gulab jamun, but this is still at a pilot stage.

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Meanwhile, Lokhit Pashu Palak Sansthan, an NGO based in Sadri, near Udaipur, has found another innovative way of putting the camel to use. In association with Haathi Chaap, they have launched notepads, diaries and greeting cards made with handmade paper produced from camel dung. LPPS, with Bhuttico, a Kullu weaver’s cooperative, also produces caps and stoles made from a mixture of fine camel wool and silk. All of this could be the start of a new journey for the ship of the desert—if consumers are willing to do their bit too.

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