Timeless Pushkar

The book – Brahma’s Pushkar: Ancient Indian Pilgrimage – by art historian and restorer Aman Nath and photographer Rajan Kapoor packs in a wealth of detail on the ancient pilgrim town of Pushkar. Set around a holy lake in central Rajasthan, Pushkar is the site of India’s best-known Brahma temple and an atmospheric cattle fair held around Kartik Purnima that is now a tourist trap. Every conceivable aspect of Pushkar — past and present, timeless and ephemeral — is delved into in this book that goes well beyond the coffee table brief: from the engrossing mythology of Brahma, to Pushkar the oasis, the pilgrimage, the cattle fair, the hippie hangout, the Pushkar of rose farms and ritual perambulations around the lake, even chilling anecdotes about its man-eating crocodiles (removed to the Chambal river valley in 1955). There is handy information for the pilgrim/tourist as well. Rajan Kapoor’s photographs — ranging from that of a beetle skittering across the sands to aerial shots of newly furrowed fields, and everything in between — capture Pushkar in all its colour.