For most of the year Pushkar is a quiet lakeside town. For one week around the Kartik Purnima full moon, its population multiplies several times over as traders, pilgrims and travellers arrive for one of the largest camel and livestock fairs in the world.
Sound is really the subject of this frame, even though a camera can’t record it. Drumbeats from three different directions overlap with camel bells, auctioneers’ calls and devotional chanting drifting up from the ghats, until the noise stops feeling like separate sounds and starts feeling like weather — something you simply stand inside of.
By the fair’s final evening, thousands of butter lamps are set adrift on the lake at once, and for a few minutes the entire town, animals included, goes still to watch them go.
