Finding the Sacred in Pushkar: Between Pilgrims and Backpackers
The sun hadn't cleared the Aravalli hills when I reached the lake. A thin mist hung over the water, blurring the white ghats into the grey sky. An old woman in a white sari descended the steps at Varaha Ghat, placed a flower garland on the water, and watched it drift. A temple bell rang somewhere. Then rang again.
Behind me, from a cafe with fairy lights and bean bags, Tame Impala played softly through a Bluetooth speaker.
This is Pushkar. Sacred and absurd. Devout and backpacker. Somehow both at once.
The Temple Nobody Else Has
I keep coming back to this fact: Brahma — creator of the universe in Hindu cosmology — has exactly one temple on earth. One. Out of millions of Hindu temples. And it's here, in a town of 20,000 people in the Thar Desert.
The story involves a curse from Brahma's wife Savitri and a sacred lotus petal and a lake that appeared from nothing. The mythology is complex and contradictory, as mythology tends to be. What matters is this: Pushkar's Brahma Temple is a genuine anomaly. Religious scholars travel here specifically to study it. Pilgrims come from across India to visit the one place where Brahma can be worshipped.
I visited during the evening aarti. The temple is small — red-painted walls, white marble floor, a sanctum with a four-faced Brahma image. The priest's chanting bounced off the marble and created an acoustic effect that made the space feel twice its size. About thirty devotees sat cross-legged on the floor. I stood in the back and tried to be unobtrusive.
The aarti lasted thirty minutes. No photography. No phones. Just chanting and incense and the clanging of a brass bell. I'm not religious, but I understand why people need places like this. The quiet is deliberate. The repetition is the point.
The Ghats at Dawn
Pushkar Lake has 52 ghats — stone stairways descending into the water. Each has a name and a legend. Varaha Ghat (where Vishnu appeared as a boar). Gau Ghat (the cow ghat). Brahma Ghat (where the lotus landed).
I went at 5:30AM before the priests started their approach routines. (I'll be honest: the ghat priests are aggressive. They'll tie a thread on your wrist and demand payment. Say no firmly and move on. It's the one genuinely frustrating thing about Pushkar.)
But before the touts wake up, the ghats belong to the pilgrims. I watched a family of four perform their morning puja — the father chanting, the mother arranging flowers, two children trying not to fall asleep. An old man sat alone on the steps, perfectly still, watching the light change on the water.
Pushkar Lake isn't pristine. The water is green in places. The ghats need maintenance. But at dawn, with the temples reflected in the still water and the sound of bells carrying across the surface, it's one of the most atmospheric places in India.
The Camel Man
On my third day, I hired a camel for a sunset ride into the dunes south of town. The camel's name was Sultan. The handler's name was Anwar. He was about sixty, deeply tanned, with a white moustache that could have been borrowed from a Rajput portrait.
Anwar spoke Hindi, Rajasthani, English, and — inexplicably — decent Hebrew. "Many Israeli tourists," he explained. "Thirty years of Israeli tourists. I learn."
We rode for an hour along the dune ridgeline. Anwar pointed out Savitri Temple on its hilltop, the rose gardens in the valley, a herd of nilgai antelope crossing a dry riverbed. "My father rode camels here. His father before him. Now I ride for tourists. Different purpose, same animal."
He wasn't sentimental about it. He charged INR 800 for the ride and asked if I wanted to come back the next morning for sunrise. I said yes.
The sunrise ride was better. The desert was cold — maybe 8C — and Sultan's breath made clouds in the air. The dunes turned from grey to gold to orange as the sun crested the hills. Anwar made chai on a small fire in a dune hollow. We drank it sitting on the sand, watching the first light hit the temples of Pushkar in the distance.
"This is why I still do this," he said. "Every sunrise is different. Same dunes. Different light."
The Rose Garden
Pushkar grows roses — acres of them, surrounding the town in pink and red patches. The roses are harvested for rose water, rose oil, and dried petals. In February, the fields are in full bloom and the air smells sweet from half a kilometre away.
I visited a family farm where three generations process roses the same way: hand-picked at dawn, distilled in copper stills, and bottled on site. A small bottle of pure rose water costs INR 50. The same product, repackaged with a fancy label, costs ten times that in Mumbai boutiques.
The grandmother — she must have been eighty — handed me a rose and said something in Rajasthani that I didn't understand. Her grandson translated: "She says a good rose needs good soil, good water, and patience. Like a good person."
I kept the rose pressed in my notebook.
Between Worlds
Pushkar's dual identity — sacred town and backpacker hub — shouldn't work. A holy lake surrounded by cafes selling banana pancakes and playing reggae. Brahma's only temple a five-minute walk from an Israeli-run hummus joint. Hindu priests and yoga instructors occupying the same streets.
But it does work, because Pushkar has always been a crossroads. Pilgrims, traders, and travelers have been coming here for thousands of years. The Mughals came. The British came. The hippies came. The Instagram influencers came. Pushkar absorbed them all and stayed Pushkar.
On my last evening, I sat on the Brahma Ghat steps at sunset. The lake was still. The temples were reflected in the water. Behind me, a cafe played Pink Floyd. In front of me, a priest rang a bell.
Both things were real. Both things belonged.
That's Pushkar. It doesn't resolve its contradictions. It just holds them, gently, like a flower garland floating on sacred water.
