Celebrating Music and Motion ~ Manvar Desert Camp, Dechu, Rajasthan

Cool sands underfoot. Starry, wide-open skies overhead. Firelight and music and drums.

There is magic in the desert air.

“Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Shadows paintin’ our faces
Traces of romance in our heads…”

– Midnight at the Oasis by David Nichtern for Maria Muldaur

It was nighttime in the middle of the Thar Desert.

The Great Indian Thar Desert in northwestern India forms an expansive boundary with Pakistan. Also called the Marusthali, or “Land of the Dead” in Sanskrit, the region is none-the-less rich with its own unique life. My travel companions and I, with photographer Karl Grobl and local guide DV, had spent a fascinating day visiting with villagers in the heart of the arid, rolling dunes (see: Everyday Life in the Great Thar Desert), and were now reclined on chairs set deep into the sand.

Camels snorted in the shadows. The soft lamp-light from the tents in the background didn’t reach the low tables in front of us as we snacked on spicy nibbles we could barely see. Seated cross-legged on a concrete “performance space”, Rajasthani Kalbelia or Kabeliya men entertained us with the traditional music of the nomadic desert tribes: music played on the morchang, or jaw-harp; the sarangi, the most important stringed instrument in north-Indian folk music; the dufli or daf, a goat-skin tambourine; and various percussion instruments, including the dholak, or two-headed drum.

In the darkness behind the musicians, the evening’s “main attractions” – two Kalbelia gypsy dancers – were getting ready for their performance. With their younger brother and apprentice musician, they paused for photos in the dark, before their entrance onto the stage.

I’ve written about Kalbeliya gypsy women before: they are “skilled dancers once hired to entertain kings and maharajahs, [but] are now reduced to struggling to preserve their culture.” “Untouchables” under the cast system, these proud, tribal desert nomads have had a recent boost from UNESCO, who in 2010 declared Kalbelia folk songs and dances part of its “List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding”. Performances at places like the luxurious Manvar Desert Camp where we were being entertained, help support these artistic practices.

The songs and dances themselves are part of an oral tradition based on stories taken from folklore and mythology, and handed down through the generations. But neither the dances nor the songs are codified: the Kalbelia have a reputation for composing lyrics spontaneously and for creating improvisations between the dancers and the musicians.

“… You don’t have to answer
There’s no need to speak
I’ll be your belly dancer, prancer
And you can be my sheik.”

Music and magic in the night.

Guaranteed to make you smile.

Namaste!

Pictures: 09November2013