It is said that there may still be 80 million nomads in India, among 1.2 billion inhabitants. In a country of some 4,000 castes, they are the feet of the body of the gods: naked ascetics, court entertainers, blacksmiths, shepherds, duck herders. From the Ganges to Rajasthan and the waters of Kerala, the road is their living. But the state is pushing them to settle, the land always belongs to someone, and many dream of a life for their children other than walking.
The Kumbh Mela is the largest religious gathering in the world: people have travelled thousands of kilometres to come together on the banks of the Ganges.
With the sheep, Christophe observes, “it’s another space-time”: you forget India’s billion inhabitants.Every twelve years, the Kumbh Mela draws pilgrims from all over the country to Haridwar, on the banks of the Ganges: twenty million are to bathe there in the morning. It is said that a drop of the nectar of immortality, fought over for twelve days by the gods and the demons, fell here. In the crowd, the naga babas have no roof and spend their lives on the road. They go naked, “sky-clad”, as they say in India, their bodies smeared with the sacred ashes that Shiva gave to wandering renunciants. The pain inflicted on the penis, wound around a stick, completes their detachment from the world. In his tent, a naga baba explains that he stays about three months in one place before moving on, because each place holds different powers, different miracles. He smokes some twenty chillums an hour to raise his consciousness. On the great day, millions of offerings float off downstream; further down, they are collected to be resold. On the bank, Khantal washes his lungs and his mind. King Bhagiratha, he says, promised the goddess Ganga that the renunciants would bathe in her waters, so that she would remain pure for ever.
During the battle between the gods and the demons, four drops of the nectar of immortality fell in the four corners of India, one of them at Haridwar.
The naga babas are “literally the warriors of Shiva”, one of the most aggressive gods of Hinduism.
The goddess Ganga would not come down to earth as long as humans risked soiling her with their sins: the renunciants keep her pure.
In India, there is “quite an astonishing relationship with the stick”: pilgrims always have one in hand, and so do the police, just in case.On the train to Jojawar, men are carrying swords: they are Naths, court entertainers, “the kings’ fools”, who are descended, they say, from the sun or the moon. Gunmi is their chief. They are truly itinerant only three months a year, in the dry season, and stay three to five days with each Rajput, a landowner who feeds them in exchange for their shows, before moving on to another family, then to another village. Without tents, they find their landmarks again every year, over some 800 kilometres. The father remembers a fall from the top of a pole: a vine caught him. Nomadic life has to be learned, and every evening the older ones teach the little ones the art of somersaults. But his two sons do not see the road in the same way. One likes seeing the country; in the village, he would be breaking stones. The other would like to settle and work. “Culture belongs to the past. Me, I want to fight to forget it.” His grandfather rode an elephant, his father a horse, and they go on foot. “In the past, we were men.” In the morning, an hour is enough to strike camp: the hens and the goats first, then the women and the children.
“You take an interest in us. You give us affection. You love our children. Now I’m going to show you something.”
The Naths’ show, a sequence of acrobatics, can last two hours; it is what they offer the Rajputs in exchange for their meal.
The Naths have been coming back to the same places for years: “they have their own little landmarks”, and know how to move fifty strong.
“These are our hens. These are our goats. And these are our women”: the welcome at the Naths’ camp comes in that order.By a road in Rajasthan, an old Lohar woman, a nomadic blacksmith, no longer moves. The government gave her family a house that is too small and full of filth: what is there to do, between four walls? She stays by this roadside and keeps her cart. “It’s my soul. Not even for millions of rupees would I sell it to you.” Further south, towards Mandsaur, about ten Rabari families drive some 5,000 sheep and around thirty camels from tree to tree. The men beat the branches to bring down the acorns; they stay as long as there is food for the animals. Everything here belongs to someone, and each departure means choosing the least hostile owner. The head of the community prefers the camels, which are worth more and carry the beds and the utensils. He has been walking some thirty kilometres a day for sixteen or seventeen years, can neither read nor write, signs with his thumbprint, and wants his child to get an education. “My caste is this one. I have no choice. Even if I’m sad, it doesn’t matter. I keep on walking.” A woman wears all her bracelets as long as her husband is alive; married at six or seven by her parents, she says she is very happy.
Since Nehru, the traditional nomads of Rajasthan have been forced to settle; for the Lohars, nomadic blacksmiths, “those days are over”.
Every year the Rabaris gather near Mandsaur for a great transhumance, because over there the grass is greener.
“Walk to forget. The duty of the Rabaris. Do not forget to walk.”
Christophe did not expect to “come across a camel caravan in the very heart of India”: 5,000 sheep, 30 camels, some forty people.
When the Rabaris strike camp, they do not know where they are going.
With the Rabaris, everything is done on the spot, eating, sleeping, washing; water has to be fetched from three kilometres away.In Kerala, the dampness of the monsoon replaces the mirages. Six months a year, Haridas is a theyyam, a demigod who goes from village to village giving blessings; the rest of the time, he digs wells. In costume, he is regarded as a representation of God, with fear and respect; at work, he gets little recognition. In the past, theyyams were full-time artists, but things have changed. This time, duck herders have sent for him: 25,000 ducks have died of an unknown disease, and he must drive away the effects of the devil. He has to climb to the top of a palm tree to cut the branch for the costume, then come six hours of painting. Around him, the herders drive their flocks standing in their boats, from paddy field to paddy field, five to ten kilometres each move: the ducks eat what is left of the harvests and their droppings fertilise the next ones. “It’s hard. We have a hard life. But still, life is worth nothing without difficulty,” says one of them. They would like to stay at home; to feed the ducks, they have to move. The families pray that evil will no longer take hold of the birds, and the theyyam’s dance begins.
Standing in their boats, the Kerala herders round up their ducks more easily and keep an eye on them at all times.
After the death of 25,000 ducks, the herding families hope the theyyam “will soon calm the sky”.“You will have to try to see me as a work of art. Only then will you know who I really am.”Haridas