RABARI - Indian Desert People

RABARI - Indian Desert People

For countless generations they have moved with the seasons, around the desert and through the plains, searching for green pastures, up-keeping an age old tradition, their way of life as wandering cattle herders. After years of enduring the merciless summer sun, sandstorms and chilly winter winds, their chiseled faces become a testament to their lifestyle. The leathery, wrinkled skin of the elders, the wind burnt cheeks of women and children, the intense, heavy gazing eyes which have seen more than their share of adversity, these are the imprints so unmistakably theirs. It is a surreal sight when the savvy wanderers emerge on the barren horizon, their large turbans, striking costumes, mystical tattoos and glimmering jewelry evoke imagery from a fairytale of far away lands and exotic people. The cattle herding wanderers are 'Rabari', an ancient tribe whose origins are shrouded in myth and mystery. Fearless and fiercely proud of their culture, resistant to the ways of the modern world, they have herded their cattle; journeying around what today is West India (Gujarat and Rajastan) for almost a thousand years.But the Rabari are a disappearing kind. Despite their resistance to change, modernization and necessity speak louder than pride. The old generations will live out their lives just as their ancestors did, but the young are being driven away from their millennia old profession and traditions. It is likely that in a few decades, the current rate of development and the direction of social trends will render the Rabari unrecognizable to themselves.