Trip organised by – Avijit Sarkhel, founder of Vana Safaris

Part 1 of 2

In a nutshell

A memorable immersive tour deep diving into the art forms (including weaving & textiles), crafts, nature, getting to know about the lives & livestock of pastoral communities of Kutch area of Gujarat.

The trip itinerary was exhaustive & back to back (like most of our trips. It was designed exclusively for us.

Sharing stories in this order

1. The people who made our trip memorable
2. Crafts
3. Nature (Rann & wild ass sanctuary), Our interaction with pastoralists (goat & sheep, banni buffaloes & Kharai camels that swim
4. History – medieaval city of bhuj, dholavira 5500 year old Indus Valley civilization site
5. Places we stayed

The people who made our trip memorable

Like always Avijit planned the trip in such a way that exceeded expectations. He kept no stones unturned.

We had an Innova car with us throughout the trip & its driver Yashwant Singh Rajput ji turned out to be a man who knew a lot about the area. He became our local-food partner in most places on invite.

The trip was made special & many notches above expectation by Ms. Khyati, a researcher & scholar, an expert on grasslands pastoralism in Banni area. It was the first time she professionally showed Kutch to visitors.  With her immense depth of knowledge, she gave us an understanding that really very few could have done so well. We told Avijit at the end of the trip that she turned out to be among the best we have ever travelled with anywhere ever.

For the initial part of the trip, we were assigned a professional guide (not taking name) by Avijit who was a nice person, good natured, always smiling, had patience, kept cool under stress & superficially knew about things.

We found him to be quite a green horn in terms of:

He took us to different spots of old city Ahmedabad but did not speak a word about anything we saw.

Having a conversation – lack of depth, not well read (books). Seemed to be an active student if WhatsApp university.

He was not capable of planning good food for our stops (i don’t think he understands food very well). He took us to a place for dinner that was serving paneer as Gujarati thali. Then we took over & found a place to dine.

Lack of understanding of a brief. We weee unable to trust what he was saying & hence were constantly on phone to cross check whatever he was saying.

Challenges happen. What differentiates an average/ good travel advisor from an outstanding company like Vana Safaris is that he just let the person discontinue the trip in 2 hours time after we explained the challenge in detail.

Dipak Sanjot ji guided us at Dholavira. In one word, he’s a rockstar. He Studied till class 12. His Parents worked in Dholavira excavation as physical labourers. A very Grounded person with an infectious sense of humour. He knows his facts very well. What an extraordinarily enthusiastic person.

2. Crafts

Morii

We started our trip with a visit to the extraordinarily creative founders of Morii designs at Gandhinagar. They have worked with artisans from Kutch over the years, understood their techniques & designed stunning modern pieces reimagined with modern sensibilities, using the traditional techniques & created by the traditional craftspeople in their traditional craft space.

Enjoyed every bit of the conversation with them

see their work here – Morii

Asavali sarees by Paresh bhai

Paresh bhai’s workshop near Gandhinagar – his workshop is the weaving center of the oldest regional brocade tradition of Gujarat (existed before most Banarasi brocades) – Asavali.  The word comes from Asha-palli, (later ashavalli), the old name of Ahmedabad.

We saw the full process of weaving & heard many nuances of the weaving techniques, the duality of upkeeping old traditions vs the need to update designs & techniques, to keep up with the times.

The motifs of Asavali had either one or a combination of Peacocks, Elephants, Parrots, vines, hunting scenes, processions etc. Geometrical patterns was also being extensively used in combination with the above, or separately.

Dahyalal Prajapati, Wood-Block Maker

We also went to meet Dahyalal Prajapati ji, a hand-carved Wood-Block Maker for block printing at his home in Pethapur. This has been a traditional business for him & his family.

He still draws designs on a piece of teak wood & carefully scrapes off wood from the blank spaces of the design. He has to maintain the level of the block lie doing this, to ensure the print is perfect. We saw the tools he used – same as it would have been when two millennia back. The finesse of his blocks was mind blowing.

Shyamji, Bhujodi

A visit to the house of Shyamji enlightened us about the process of making threads from real sheep wool, colouring the threads using different fruits/ leaves/ other elements found in nature & finally weaving those into priceless beauties. He also tried to teach us the spinning but we failed miserably in that (he said it takes practice to pick up & we should give more time).

We bought a few pieces of his incredible art – a table cloth made with sheep wool, real indigo dyed, hand spun & hand woven.

The other piece we bought had a maroon Laakh colour from berries. It’s the same lac as used for post office letter seals of yesteryears or the one used in Rajasthan to make bangles.

Paba bhai meghwal , leather artist

We had a wonderful chat with Paba bhai meghwal ji who is a leather artist by profession. His ancestors used to make leather water containers, leather footwear for the cattle herders etc. These days he & his family makes beautiful bags from leather.

He mentioned that Barter system still in place in the communities. Meghwal families who work on leather are get milk & other products from herders. At times they are gifted buffaloes during marriages by herders.

We met his teenage daughters who make beautiful kutchi embroidery work. He said my daughters make & sell these. They will do this till early 20s. All the money that they earn during this period is not used by the family. It is saved & will go as the girl’s dowry when they get married in their twenties.

We bought a beautiful goat leather bag with kutchi embroidery patch on it. The leather had been tanned using traditional process , sans industrial chemicals.

Earlier their family used to make tailor made shoes for the animal herding communities.

Dr. Ismail Mohmed Khatri, Ajrakh

A long conversation with Dr. Ismail Mohmed Khatri helped us understand the difference between real traditional Ajrakh & the popular ones.

He explained how he has been carrying forward the work of his ancestors. He got a honourary doctorate after a PhD research student stayed at his workshop & he explained & taught everything & worked together in reviving older lost techniques & processes.

As we started walking towards his store, he said he had a special ‘सन्दूक’ with the best of his personal recreation of traditional art. We peeped in & could not just look elsewhere. They were marvellous. A class apart.

Nature, animals, birds & pastoral communities

Wild ass sanctuary

When we heard from Avijit that the main attraction of the wildlife park is Wild Ass, we were a bit surprised (underwhelmed). Curiosity led to reading up & here is what I found – this kutch wild ass is a subspecies of the Asiatic wild ass, only found in India in the Little Rann of Kutch and adjacent areas of Gujarat. This species was earlier classified as Vulnerable (IUCN), but with conservation efforts its no more vulnerable.

As expected, this species is adapted to harsh, arid, saline landscapes (salt marshes, desert-grassland) rather than lush forested habitats.  The wild asses eat saline-tolerant vegetation, shrubs & grasses.

We spotted two wild asses on two occasions but they started running away the moment they saw our safari jeep. A while later we found a whole bunch of wild asses & they were quietly standing, as if posing for the camera. We of course got bad photos with 12x zoom on phone camera. DSLR was surely missed.

At one end of the sanctuary we saw the process of making salt in the traditional way, by nomadic people.

Nomadic animal herders – about their lifestyle

We met different groups of cattle nomadic herders during the trip. We had long conversations with us – they shared glimpses of their lives. We shared ours. It was not one way. That probably created a temporary bond, irrespective of the fact that we did not understand every word of the dialect they were speaking in & vice versa.

Many of these families still live a nomadic life. Some of the family members are now trying to settle in villages as that would mean stability for children’s education.

The cattle is prized. The families we met, owned an average of 200+ animals each. The animals are prized & the returns are good. So they have enough wealth to settle but they chose not to. They have carefully kept the learnings from the traditional wisdom & are also making baby step changes to adjust to the modern times.

A camel herder’s family (men, women, children) we met, were sitting in an open area below the sky & going about their business as if they were at home.

The place was a clearing between bushes in the Rann of Kutch. The bushes created a kind of wall on one side. The their walls were partially created by trunks & other belongings of the family.

They did not even use a tent. We got to know they sleep under the open sky at night.

We also heard a beautiful story of how the communities resolve conflict. Among the herding families in banni, people coming together for common good even if they have fought earlier (called aabhat).

We heard an incident of how two groups who were not even in talking terms with each other, got together for making a traditional well. One of the villages needed a well as the earlier one was drying out. They did not have enough people to do it. So

Since the people of the two villages were not on talking, terms due to a dispute, a teenage girl was sent to the other village to ask for help in digging a well. She was welcomed & everyone came & joined the digging. During the course of the day both sides mellowed down. By evening, they resolved & departed after having meat curry together .

The grasslands where these animals graze are classified as wastelands by the Government. So Windmills are being installed. We heard that the side effect of this that the animals face is radiation. There have been some protests on this topic as well.

About the animals

Kankrej cow

We got to know of kankrej cow that is known to have ‘डेढ़ चाल’ – they are taller & hence can walk 1.5 size steps of the other cows (specially the shorter Gir cow).

Patanwadi sheep

We went to the Rabari shepherd’s pen, where they had goats & sheep. The nomadic shepherd family had created a somewhat semi covered (wood poles fence) enclosure on a small hillock. Their grazing area spans from gujarat to chattisgarh!!

We spent a lot of time with the animals, observing their behaviour, patting them if they allowed. The animals were pretty friendly & chilled, I would say. The large goats were a bit suspicious of strangers & some of them were quite curious too.

These sheeps were laden with wool. We got to know that the wool of these sheep do not fetch a good price as some Indian consumers buy cheaper Chinese (excess stock) wool & the other segment buy expensive imported merino wool. Sounds like we lack a dedicated marketing voice for our amazing product. The result is that a lot of wool of india is thrown off.

Real Wool is water repellent & fire resistant. It can be worn in summer & also in winter. Wool degrades fast. So it adds to soil if left on the ground.

In the 1970s, Bharat merino project was introduced from Australia. Merino sheep were brought for breeding with Indian sheep for soft wool vs rough wool of Indian breeds. In Kutch & Deccan the project did not work. In Himalayas it worked. The Domestic sheep are resilient in Indian climatic conditions, unlike the merino sheep.

We got to know that Bikaner was largest wool Mandi in India in the 60s.

Penning – rain fed farming pastoralists come & feed their animals on the leftover plant parts after crop harvest. It is mutually beneficial. Maybe the Parali problem of North India could be solved like this.

We were amused to meet the two goat kids who were just 1 day old. Unlike human children who need a lot of time to start talking, walking etc, these kids were already walking (with a slight wobble) & bleating.

The animals at the pen are milked in the morning & they are taken out to graze in the Rann of Kutch for full day & return in the evening. The animals herders made different sounds for different instructions & the animals followed – example a sound denotes herder Mohan’s group will go right, a different sound by Parvez led to his goats taking a different route.

Rabaris speak kucchi Sindhi & not Gujarati. We spent a good time with a septuagenarian gentleman from the community. He explained to us the ways of living. The gentlemen also made some tea using fresh milk from the goats. I was amazed to see how he made the tea on two broken bricks, lit by a burning piece of wood, no spoon, no strainer. He kept on shaking the tea vessel to mix the tea, milk & water. He used decantation theory to decant tea without using a strainer.

We heard these interesting facts & (some) beliefs about the buffaloes from the herders. You may avoid this section in italics if you find them too detailed for a travelogue:

• Wild asses, foxes other animals come some to bully the sheep & goats at night.
• First piece of sheep wool cloth after every shearing is a full day festival. Shearing to final cloth after dyeing is accomplished in 1 day before sunset.
• Immediately after the shearing, the women spin yarn. The yarn is dyed using natural materials & dried. Weavers create a small piece of fabric & this is offered to Bher Mata devi (no idol, represented by a rock besmeared with vermillion).
• Many believe that goat milk helps in building immunity.
• Goat gives low milk yield than cows & buffaloes but more milk than sheep.
• Sources of income of sheep herders:

1. Milk
2. Normal wool fetches negligible price. Patanwadi sheep still fetches better price. Earlier the herder used to get ₹25 per sheep shearing get + the wool. Now they pay ₹20 per sheep shearing + transportation + food for 2 days for the people who are shearing experts.
3. Sheep droppings collection by farmers ₹3500 per mini truck (chota haathi).
4. The entire flock is brought to a farmer’s tilled land before sowing seeds. Overnight the animals defecate in the tilled farm, thus making it fertile. Farmers pay ₹3000 per night for this.
5. Sell meat of sheep male not before it is 6 months old. Price is ₹5000 per sheep. Nassal (pure breed) male who is still in form, is not sold. Person has to come to buy. We got to know that herders will try to assess if he is a good man & will sell only if they like the buyer!!!

• Dhabaria Rabaris are krishna followers. Women will wear black all the time.
• Ahirs (farmers) celebrate the colour of krishna. So very colourful.

 

Banni buffaloes 🐃

 

Banni is a 2400 sq km flat land, classified officially as wasteland but is used extensively for grazing. It is almost a 500 years tradition to graze animals in these salty plains.

Maldhari – mal dharan karne wala. Mal means asset. Here buffaloes are called mal. So the community of herders is called Maldhari.

Due to higher rains nowadays, it is not a compulsion to be pastoral. Communities do that by choice usually.

Banni buffaloes have s unique concentric coil like horns.

Banni buffaloes 🐃 stay at the herder’s temporary shelter Wathan (open area below trees) for the whole day & rest. In the evenings they go out unmanned & graze in the Rann throughout night & by morning they return back to the same place on their own (without human intervention), ready for milking. On last day when I woke up at 4 am, it was dark. In the backdrop, somewhere far I could hear the bells chiming softly as the buffaloes were returning home.

The group is led into the Rann by the smartest female buffalo (based on herder’s judgement). The other buffaloes follow the sound of the lead buffalo’s bell.

The herders have 3 types of bells for the buffalo (made by expert local artisans using traditional knowledge)  – of different sizes & distinct sounds.

Type 1 named हक्कड़ ,for the team leader Buffalo.

Type 2 named सराई, for the herder’s loved buffaloes / pregnant ones who need more care. Type 3 named उठोड़, is for naughty buffaloes who have the tendency to run away from the herd. The type 2 & 3 bells help in finding the buffaloes in case they are lost (didn’t return in time with the rest of the group).

The buffaloes eat from a variety of about 50-70 kinds of grass in the banni grasslands.  No human has planted this grass. They grow on their own naturally.

While they all seem to be ‘grass’ for us, the buffaloes have a way to differentiate the medicinal ones, the juicier ones, the creamier ones, the bitter ones, the sweeter ones etc. e.g. Oin grass is like what is ghee to us. Buffalo gains weight after eating this. They like eating this. It is good for their joints.

Nature has taught them a way to self-treat (eating medicinal grass) in case unwell.

Like I mentioned, the Buffaloes go out to graze on their own & come back in morning on their own. So technically the herder family does not know which side the buffaloes went last night. However, in morning, after miking, the ladies taste the milk & can say which area the buffaloes went to!!!

We saw 1 alpha male in a herd of 200 she buffaloes. We found this an odd gender ratio. On further enquiry & reading alter, we found that most humans follow exogamy (not marrying with someone from same family due to relatively higher chances of genetic disorder) but in life of buffaloes the same does not hold good. So the male buffalo seeds all females including his daughters & granddaughters.

Milk of the buffaloes is collected by city business-people in trucks from obscure places. Herders walk / cycle to the highway & leave milk in 100 liter cans on side of highway. Milk Truck collects these from the side of highway & goes to next point. They leave behind vessel from previous day which the herders collect later. The herders also keep horses for transporting milk from wetlands to main roads

The herders got us fresh buffalo milk. Loved it.

We heard these interesting facts & (some) beliefs about the buffaloes from the herders. You may avoid this section in italics if you find them too detailed for a travelogue:

• The banni buffaloes are very resilient
• They have a very wide temperature acceptance from cold to warm
• They end up walking 10 km minimum per day
• So if u keep them in a tabela (cattle shed), they give less milk than if they are roaming freely.
• If the animal does not know the person, then she will not allow to milk.
• number of lines on the horn of a she-buffalo shows the number of times she got pregnant.
• Almost all buffaloes have dark brown skin colour. The light skinned ones are called Bhuri.
• White tail hair means more milk giving.
• A she buffalo with a wide bone structure near the rear area is likely to give birth to more calfs.
• Banni Buffalo used to fetch a price of maximum Rs. 1 lac, till a decade back. Those days banni buffaloes were not separately registered as a species. They used to call it Sindhi. Now the price goes up to Rs. 15 lacs per buffalo after the registration.
• Normally buffaloes have a 5-6 months pregnancy period. Post delivery, the buffalo can become pregnant again soon. She will keep giving milk during new pregnancy to feed earlier children.
• Occasionally a buffalo gives a pre-matured birth.
• A she buffalo can first time become pregnant roughly at the age of two.
• Milk yield per buffalo is approx.14 liters per day average, including two times milking a day. Each liter fetches about Rs. 50.
• Farmers of nearby villages pay ₹3500 rate per mini truck (chhota hathi) for buffalo dung for using as natural agriculture manure.
• Dead bodies of naturally dead Buffaloes, goats & sheep are at times buried. Sometimes the carcass is kept in the open for carnivorous animals of the desert to eat. In the old practice, carcass used to be discarded after taking out the animal skin (for making leather).

Miss Banni Buffalo competition

The buffaloes have an annual beauty pageant. They are judged on:

• Facial features (read beauty)
• Chaal (the way she walks)
• Seeng (beauty of the horns)
• Height from ground.
• Longer the tail the better.
• Amount of Milk produced on day-2, Day-1 & Day of competition (higher the better)
• Udder size

Local experts in buffaloes are called Baagiya. They Judge the buffalo beauty contest.

A beautiful real incident:

A Buffalo youngster was once lost. The herders searched for her everywhere but could not find. They also recorded the incident with the panchayat. Few years later the owner went up a faraway village to meet someone. He saw a buffalo & remembered the lost buffalo. He asked. He did not get a straight answer from his hosts. Rather, he was asked many questions. Then the lady of the house went to the local Dargah & got a bag full of money & said ‘This so all money we earned from your buffalo. We asked so many questions to understand if it is your Buffalo. Now that we are sure we are handing over the money. Your Buffalo was a kid & came back home with our buffaloes & we did not know who she belonged to. The Buffalo you saw this morning is her grand daughter.’

We were so happy meeting Imran bhai, born in a buffalo herder community, he received formal education & is now working with researchers towards better understanding of the terrain, the animals & the maldhari community who take care of the animals. He also represents india at global pastoral community meets. His raw insights touched us to the core.

Imran Bhai also treated us with chicken Khawao cooked at his home, served at their community dining hall, Otau, meaning mehmankhana. Khawao has a jeera rice variety from Gujarat, 8 different spices & desi chicken. It is eaten every Friday for dinner at many homes across banni. At home it is eaten by everyone from a common thaal – large plate. Flavourful rice, soft pieces of chicken, perfectly spiced. Felt like comfort food…. Wow what a meal !!!!

Fakirani tribe camel herders & their Kharai camels

We drove off-road to meet herders & see Kharai camels that can swim in mangroves. We did not see the swimming action though, as this was not the season.

The expedition started by us driving off road into the Rann. Sitting in the car was almost like a camel-back ride. We met meeting different herders & kept asking about the Fakirani camel herders. They would just point us to a direction & we would keep driving on that direction.

This was a magnificent experience as we met the whole family of herders, sat & chatted with them, tasted fresh camel milk (excellent flavour & a distinct salty taste). It has similar viscosity as cow milk. It takes more time to digest. It has health benefits as per traditional medical belief.

However the best part of this experience was playing with a week old baby camel & a fortnight old goat kid.

flamingo

The Rann of Kutch is one of the largest seasonal flamingo habitats in India. Every year, tens of thousands of flamingos migrate here. In local language they are called कुंज. We saw hundreds of flamingoes sitting, flying, floating ……

History of Bhuj

Bhuj (Medieval City – 20 words):

In the medieval period, Bhuj developed as Kutch’s fortified capital,with prosperity coming   through desert trade routes, unique crafts. Beautiful temples, and palaces.

It has lovely old city markets that still manage to maintain the old world charm.

Hamirsar lake – the day it would overflow, king would throw a coin to celebrate. A whole lot of people would dive into the lake to find the coin. The sweet shops would give sweets for free.

Bhuj ladies re-constructed Bhuj airport overnight during Kargil war after part of airport was damaged.

 

Dholavira (Indus Valley):

We also went to Dholavira, a 5,500-year-old Harappan city, renowned for advanced water management, reservoirs, detailed urban planning, and architecture (water reservoirs, water pipes, 90 degree perfect lanes & road grids, rain water harvesting, dock & a lot more.

We regressed in technology after Indus Valley & it took us many centuries to go back to  similar levels of urban sophistication at few places.

Our guide also took us to a fossil rock garden where we saw giant tree fossils.

Where we stayed

The house of MG, Ahmedabad –

Read my earlier detailed post here – house of MG

It was a memorable stay in a beautifully restored 100 year old building that was built by two businessmen brothers a century back. Perfect blend of Modern amenities & history.

The building was built as a house to stay, by two brothers who were successful businessmen of Ahmedabad in early 1900s. They stayed in the building for a few decades & closer to partition of 1947, the family shifted to a newer part of Ahmedabad.

The building remained unused for many decades till the descendants of the family renovated it in the 1990s & got it back to its full form.

Rann Riders cottages, Dasada –

A 25 year old eco resort with a real village stay feel, with modern amenities, excellent food cooked with locally grown / foraged ingredients (also including meats), genuinely warm people & a large open area to .

They had beautifully hand-crafted bamboo furniture that have been made by the Kotwalia tribal community (considers most vulnerable tribal groups of Gujarat) of Dangs, south Gujarat.

Our safari to the Wild Ass sanctuary was conducted by the resort.

There was no grass lawns in the campus to allow wild grasses and bushes to grow on their own. We were told that this natural floral diversity supports a rich variety of insects, butterflies, dragonflies, moths, etc which in turn attract more birds.

There was also minimal ambient light at night & the reason explained was that heaven light disturbs nocturnal insects – especially fireflies , interferes with their breeding displays.

Bhuj House, Bhuj –

A 125 year-old ancestral courtyard house built by a family who were distillers and liquor importers for the princely and independent state of Cutch, in a time when Kutch was at the frontier of a bustling maritime trade. A few Zoroastrian families prospered under steady Rao rulership and were favoured by the agents of the British administration.

Post independence when Gujarat was declared a dry state, the family moved their business & residence to Bombay. For the next few decades, the ancestral home became the summer destination for the next generation. Finally, in 2015 the entire house was restored & renovated as a heritage homestay.

The house was built in a way that there were reps on all sides of a central courtyard.  A part of the courtyard is now the beautiful semi open dining area & the semi open kitchen.

The thick, sandstone walls were held together with mud mortar, tiled rooves and pillared verandas partitioned with a wooden jalli or jafri (lattice screen).

This house and the agiary, along with the blue house opposite – the residence of the current owner’s late aunt, Roda Boatwala, are now reminders of an interesting chapter of Bhuj’s Parsi history.

It was here that we had some of the best Parsi dishes in our memory.

The kitchen was open to us guests. We would just  walk up there in the morning, eat biscuits, make tea/ coffee & have it. The refrigerator would always have snacks & we could just have some of that any time.

Water is solar-heated and it deliberately flows lightly to conserve water in a drought-prone region.

Laundry is handled by the local dhobi. Items are charged as per the dhobi’s rates.

Shaam e sarhad eco resort

Shaam e sarhad eco resort was made by the maldhari buffalo herder community few years back with help from institutions in terms of design & concept. It is now run by educated boys of the maldhari community. Very good food,  excellent warmth, beautiful property built using local materials & concepts.

Organisation worked with Kutch university to create a diploma course where for 2  years banni youth both girls & boys can study modern ecology along with the traditional knowledge. The course is not general knowledge of ecology but specific to banni, loaded with practical. Exams are mostly on the field than on the classroom.

We Were blown away by a stunning local maldhari sing musical program for us. 🙏