These boots are made for walking

Cameras click frantically, as cows stare oblivious to obscure announcements of missing children. Marigold littered streets, welcome thousands who visit the Pushkar Camel festival. Troupes of children painted in colors of their favourite gods walk in packs cornering the passer-bys to play devotee. It was the perfect October getaway.‘Special’ buttermilk, chocolate coated buns with throes of silent grinning patrons ensured me that I was on the right track. Every other table, was dotted with Pushkar’s own pious travel guides; priests by day and guides by evening they served eloquent aperitifs laced with myth and legends. I sat down to savor one of the festival's popular delights. A Pushkar twist indeed. From spiced down Indian food to spiced up Indian mythology,‘Pushkarwallahs’ served salvation relentlessly. Walking on, the smells and the sounds of the street grew faint as an eerie buzzing sound cut in. Ascribing it to the nutella being more special than I knew, I walked on, grinning at kids blowing into a hollow pipe. I was curious as I continued past them till finally I saw a board- ‘Didgeridoo –HEALER & FRIEND’. I couldn’t help it. I had to check out which form of salvation he sold. Besides, no one else sold me friendship on a board before. Entering his room I was taken aback by how he had nothing but a didgerie. He asked what brought me to the festival. I dodged his question with a few of my own hoping he would tell me what he healed. Broken hearts, or tattered souls? He smiled as he picked up the didgerie. I listened to him, his music pulsing with life, every note a story. He smiled at me, his new friend.He stopped suddenly, to ask me which side of the world I would want to be if the world were to stop rotating. The Lit or the Dark. I looked at him as he mischievously went back to his beloved instrument.In the twilight aura of his little shanty, I knew he had picked his side, where friends stop by and lost souls found questions to answer.