"I opted for the unkempt camels over the alluring horses." (Preeti Verma Lal)

We were on our way to Mukundgarh, our first stop, some 200 miles away. On way images and colors flitted past – women with their heads covered, curious men waving hurriedly, children carrying sunshine in their eyes, the brown of the hillocks and the silver of the thorns. After six hours and several villages we reached the 200-year Mukundgarh Fort that has lime doors and turquoise chandeliers. The burly, sunburned walls of the Fort are laden with frescoes and in the courtyard an old cannon sits like an old maid lamenting the lost grandeur. In the evening, the riders checked their mounts in the stable that abuts the Fort’s high walls.

The ride began next morning, the horses saddled, the riders in jodhpurs and boots, all slathered with sunscreen. Laurent Millet, the French photographer, and I opted for the unkempt camels over the alluring horses. The camel carts were stacked with relief supplies for the underprivileged and there was just enough space to squeeze in. But who would have thought that hopping into a camel cart would be such an arduous proposition. I put my right foot on the wooden protuberance, slipped and nearly fell. Next time, the camel wriggled and I was back on the ground. Another try: I put my foot on the wood and Millet pulled me into the cart. I sure made a funny sight.

Tent Camping in the Open Desert (Preeti Verma Lal)

The camel crawled and if I had started to walk, I would have reached the destination much earlier. But when you are on a camel cart trudging on mud roads slim as a twig, destination can be elusive. The riders on horseback, the cooks in an open jeep and we in the camel cart were supposed to meet in a tiny orchard some 20km away for lunch. But lunch was not to be. The mud road took us way off the destination. Millet and I were lost in the middle of a village where there were no phone booths and the cell phones lay dead. Standing on a crossroad I flagged down a vehicle and requested three menacing looking strangers wearing ear studs to take me to the nearest phone booth. The phone was not working and I sat there on the wooden bench looking greedily at the sweetmeats.

After much effort and several prayers to the phone, the rescue vehicle arrived and we just about made for lunch in the tiny orchard. A hearty lunch and I was back on the camel cart to another village where we were supposed to camp in tents in an open desert. The moon shone, the owls howled, we could hear our own heartbeats. The walkie-talkie got cranky and we got lost again. The camel cart rider ran to the nearest hut for directions, the walkie-talkie finally beeped and we reached the camping ground where a bonfire lit the dark night.

Colorful Head Covering (Preeti Verma Lal)

The campsite looked stunning and it had all one could ask for: water being heated in gigantic copper pots, food being cooked in a nearby tent, bottled water, bonfire for warmth, soup for revival of spirits and a caravan with flush toilets. The cell phones weren’t working, there was no electricity but nobody whined. Alexis Ruffat, the French army commando spun tales, Alice read read Amy Tan, Karen Cedar scribbled in her journal, Millet fiddled with his Hasselblad and Souri caressed his favorite horse and smiled at the unfolding of his dreams.

Each day we travelled for around five to six hours from one village to another, the temperature making the sartorial decisions: white in the mornings and light jackets at night. In Khirod and Danta villages, hundreds of people turned up for free medical checkups and medicine, a largesse that the dusty village had not seen before. At a school in Kochor village, children who received sports and educational goods played with their new toys. On the map they looked for Massachusetts, the home of the man who had flown thousands of miles to bring smiles and sunshine into their lives. For the riders, it was an experience they had never lived before, though most of them had seen poverty in Third World countries. For Souri, it was his own way of keeping hope alive in a time of war and geopolitical instability.

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