Pushkar Camel Fair is the world's largest camel fair held in the holy town of Pushkar in Rajasthan. A spotlight of one's holiday in India, the festival hosts around 50,000 camels which are sold, decorated, shaved and raced. From a mere 14,000 to a massive 200,000! This is how the population of Pushkar swells during the Pushkar Camel Fair.

Pushkar Camel Fair is an occasion for villagers from far and near to gather together and enjoys a welcome break from their harsh life of the arid desert. The village women dress in their best colourful clothes and finery for the five-day mela. Pushkar Camel Fair is an occasion for Hindu pilgrims to converge for a holy dip in the sacred Pushkar Lake to "wash away the sins of a lifetime" and pay obeisance at the only Brahma temple in the world.

The horses that march to this site find the sand-trot a touch exercise. Numerous cows and sheep also come to the animal fair. Completing the scene thousands of men, women and children, come with their beasts, suddenly inhabiting the barren plain with the camel providing the backdrop. On the roadside, stalls of all kinds are set up to sell a cornucopia of items. Almost every household is engaged in setting them up as the locals try to capitalize on the massive influx of people.

Womenfolk are more attracted to the glittering wares in the stalls under canopies. The large variety of intricate silver ornaments - hairpins and chains, nose rings and neckbands, waistbands, anklets, toe rings and the ivory bangles worn from wrist to shoulder - would send any woman on a buying spree. The garments stalls, in no way less colourful, sell high fashion upper garments of patchwork and tie 'n' die. Tattoo stalls give many women beauty marks that last a lifetime. Whoever said that the unsophisticated are not fashionable!

For the visitor, Pushkar Camel Fair is an unparalleled and unforgettable experience to capture the vibrancy of the entire state of Rajasthan in one place.