Swimming with Camels and Other Nonsense!
Updated: 4 days ago
It’s pretty funny to think that such an incredible day began with such a shitty morning.
I awoke feeling tired, crabby and generally unmotivated. Worse, we were late because of my tardiness. That pissed me off most of all because I’m usually ready a minute or two before call time — a kind of fauji affectation I employ to demonstrate my efficiency as a Director, regardless of how late the revelries may have gone the night before.
We were in Bhuj, on the last schedule of a long, hard and very hot shoot in the Rann of Kutch for the Discovery Channel. It had already been more than two weeks of shooting in the late April heat, and the previous night we’d finally been rewarded with a fancy resort, swimming pool and swanky restaurant — a dramatic upgrade from the crummy places we’d roughed it in earlier.
As we always did, my DOP and close friend, Sanjay Agrawal, and I had squabbled over some silly inanity at dinner the night before, probably boring the rest of the crew. They barely listened anyway. The joke was that we were like an old married couple: we fought all the time but couldn’t do without each other.
So when I finally arrived late that morning, Sanjay greeted me with a slightly sarcastic remark. It pissed me off even more.
We set off towards the coast from Bhuj to the extreme western end of India in the Naliya region of Kachch in Gujarat to chase one final story: the Kharai camel — the only known sea-swimming camel in the world. In summer, when food becomes scarce on the mainland, these “camels of the salt” swim about a kilometre across the sea to islands where they feed on mangrove leaves.
Back then, hardly anyone had heard of the Kharai. As we bounced along a bumpy state highway, I could feel my excitement growing. I knew we were about to film something very few people had ever seen.
The landscape changed as we neared the coast. We turned onto a narrow dirt track winding between sand dunes and scrub. Suddenly, three female and one male Chinkara burst from the bush, spooked by the cars. They bounded away in enormous, graceful leaps. Their beige bodies disappearing against the sand, then reappearing dramatically against the brilliant blue sky.
Now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t.
Then, at the very next bend, we found a dead female nilgai sprawled across the track.
The animal looked as if it had been killed not long ago, and the area around the rectum had been torn open where either carnivores or scavengers had been feeding.
My adrenaline shot from zero to a hundred. Were there leopards here? Wasn’t this too far for lions? Had it been shot by poachers?
I was ready to jump out and investigate, but Sanjay, as always, was the calm voice of reason.
“We’re already late.”
As we maneuvered around the dead Nilgai, I took a deep breath, having completely forgotten the lousy start to the day, now stoked to be having another thrilling morning at work!
And then we saw them.
More than a hundred camels gathered beside the backwaters of the Arabian Sea.
Our hosts (workers with a local NGO) rushed in towards us, giving me yet another reminder that we were late and that the herders couldn’t hold the camels any more. They didn’t need to convince us — the herd was obviously restless, milling around the water’s edge and vocalising impatiently.
As Sanjay and his assistant set up the camera kit, I hurried to the camel herders to chalk out a filming plan. The Fakirani Jats are a Muslim pastoral, semi-nomadic community, believed by some to have originated centuries ago in Sindh and Balochistan.
At 5 foot 6, I’m a small man. The leader of the camel herders, however, was enormous. They all were. Even in the middle of our frantic preparations, I found myself wondering whether their huge physiques and sparkling white teeth had something to do with all the camel milk they drank.
Pushing such random thoughts aside, I explained my plan through our interpreter: Sanjay and the assistant would film from a small paddle boat. I would swim with the camels, wearing a waterproof GoPro strapped to my wrist.
The interpreter looked incredulous.
The camel herder leader burst out laughing.
I didn’t need to understand his language to know that he thought I was an idiot.
He grabbed my arm with his enormous hand and led me to the water and pointed. In the crystal clear turquoise water were hundreds of white blobs floating about.
Jellyfish!
He pointed at them and then started pinching my arm.
The message was clear: I was going to get stung.
Fuck it, I thought. It was too late to change the plan. Besides, I desperately wanted a shot of those enormous camel legs paddling underwater.
Once they realised I wasn’t going to be talked out of it, they tied a grubby six-inch cube of thermocol to my back with a nylon rope. A flotation device.
Things then began moving super fast. First, the boat set off with Sanjay, the camel herd leader and our camera assistant. Then with a series of loud, strange calls, one of the dominant camels entered the water and the rest of the herd followed.
Wading in with them were three giant Fakirani Jats and one little film-maker.
I was in my mid forties and fairly fit, but keeping up with the camels was impossible. The herders obviously had a better system: they grabbed the hair on their camels’ hind legs and let themselves be towed along.
They motioned for me to do the same.
But the camels were having none of it.
They were perfectly happy towing their own people, but I was a stranger. Whenever I came close, they snarled, turned their heads aggressively and made it very clear that I was not welcome.
So I swam as fast as I could, occasionally diving underwater to film.
About four hundred metres out, I was convinced I was going to have a heart attack.
Sanjay and the boat came to the rescue. After some terrifying moments during which the boat rocked alarmingly, they hauled me aboard. As I flopped into the boat like a landed fish, the camera nearly fell into the sea, inviting sharp rebuke from not just Sanjay but the assistant as well.
By the time we got to the island I was the object of intense amusement and curiosity for everyone.
While the camels wandered off for their leafy lunch, the Fakirani boys helped me into the shade of a mangrove tree. I sat there huffing and puffing like a boxer who’d just completed fifteen rounds.
And we still had hours of filming ahead.
The Camel herd leader figured I needed help.
After great laughter and discussion with his crew he marched off to a female camel enjoying her lunch. From his sling bag he produced a battered steel bowl and with quick, deft movements began milking the camel.
As soon as the frothy, thick, off white milk was out of the udder, he presented the bowl to me with the panache of a Michelin starred chef.
The Fakirani team stared expectantly. Sanjay giggled. The cam assistant looked as though he was about to throw up his breakfast.
Nowhere to hide.
I put the bowl to my lips and drank it down.
I can honestly say that aside from being blood-warm, it was delicious.
Drinking it didn’t just give me sustenance, it gave me the support of these men who I spent the next many hours filming with.
That night, around a camp fire in their desert village, under a glittering starry sky we filmed the Fakirani and their families.
One man began playing a double flute, another raised his voice in a haunting song. Aside from Khudah, I didn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear.
Through
the viewfinder, I watched a Fakirani woman dressed in deep red and black with a baby nestled in her lap. She wore a thick choker and arm bangles that reflected the firelight.
Her beautiful little daughter yawned sleepily.
I motioned to Sanjay.
Cut.
It was time for a three hour drive back to Bhuj.
On the way we checked the GoPro.
The underwater housing had cracked.
Seawater had destroyed the camera and memory card.
What a day.
Leader of the herd with his thermocol flotation device. The camels swim close to a kilometre to reach the mangrove tree on the other side of the estuary. My old friend, Sanjay Agrawal, DOP sitting the the paddle boat The Fakirani women with their beautiful jewellery and equally beautiful child The Fakirani lady (whose grand-daughter was sleeping in her lap) Fakirani man playing the double flute Fakirani man against the setting sun The Fakirani who gave me the camel milk to drink Self, with a silly hat and smiling (after having nearly drowned)
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