Arrival: BARMER BANTER

All of us arrived at Jodhpur by the afternoon of 3rd January. Some came from Mumbai, some from Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Pune while the rest took a two-day train all the way from Chennai. It was pretty chilly in the desert state, even in the afternoon. After a quick meal, we bundled into several autorickshaws parked outside the railway station and headed for the nearest bus depot.

No sooner did we reach the bus depot, Nishat Sir went ahead to book a bus for Barmer city. We were supposed to meet the local reporters there who had arranged for a bus to take us further into the interiors of the ravaged district.  Barmer itself was 225kms from Jodhpur and we braced ourselves for another long journey. Cameras were out as soon as we reached the bus depot at Jodhpur and out of sheer excitement, we were behaving like a bunch of tourists clicking away at everything that we saw (and exhausting ourselves as well as our camera batteries).

We reached Barmer city around 8 in the night after a good 5 hour bus ride. None of us knew how far away from Barmer our destination was and some of us had already began cribbing about the continuous travel ordeal that we were subjected to. We hoped Nishat Sir would check into a lodge at Barmer, but we knew better. "You are all Journalists. You should be hunting for stories. You shouldn't be  expecting comforts. You have a job to do", he kept insisting throughout. And we boarded the next bus around 9 after having dinner. It was a long wait and most of us fell asleep after the initial rounds of antakshari. I kept myself busy looking at the million stars in the sky and finally fell asleep counting them.

The bus finally came to a halt around 1 o clock in the night.  We took our backpacks and sleeping bags and were bracing ourselves for a sand dune that Nishat Sir might have discovered for us to sleep in. The chill of the desert was apparent in the air, the moment we got off the bus only to be shocked by what we saw.

We had landed up virtually in the middle of nowhere. There was darkness all around, except for this small compound which had three concrete structures and a huge well in the middle of it. There were many a men who greeted us when we reached and directed us to the place we were going to stay. Girls and boys, of course, had to live separately. As we made ourselves comfortable, we noticed one structure in the distance where women were looking inquisitively at the new visitors. The men got us tea and dinner (Baajre ki roti, Salad, Potato curry etc) which was a meal fit for a king. We continued to feel guilty for giving so much trouble to the local villagers, but they seemed keen and welcoming.

After the dinner, Nishat Sir asked us to wash our utensils and keep them aside. That was the least we could do. However, there was one hitch. We couldn't seem to locate a soap, or even tap for that matter, to wash  the utensils. Turned out they didn't use the Vims or the Prils that we have learnt to take for granted. They didn't even have taps. A drum filled with water was kept outside and a large jug beside it, indicating to us that it was our only source of water. But we still didn't have the soap. Nishat sir said we needed to run the plates with sand in order to clean them. Most of us thought he was joking, until we saw one of the villagers teaching us how to do it. It took some time to get the hang of it. The water was freezing and washing our hands was proving to be the biggest challenge.

This was where we were put up - a village called Dedariyar. After exchanging pleasantaries, we found out that we were staying at the village sarpanch's house. We retired for the night and Nishat Sir reminded us again that everyone has to wake up at 5 AM next morning, get ready and leave to visit the flood ravaged villages nearby. Since there was no public transport, he had arranged for tractor trailers and that we shouldn't be loosing time on personal grooming.

We went into our designated room, bundled 15 in a row and fell asleep in an overcrowded space. This was just a precursor to the challenges we'd witness in the coming few dayss.

NEXT: Baleba: Flood Fury at Malwa