Heat and Dust : Summer in the Desert of Rajasthan

My post contentBeginning of summer this year made me visit the hot desert of Rajasthan yet again. This time it was not the National Highway 15, but I journeyed through recently reconstructed Hanuman Garh- Kishan Garh (near Ajmer) road in North Rajasthan. April is no time to visit Rajasthan, especially the desert part. But my organisation had to carry out some futile experiments, which rightfully should have got conducted in winter months any where in plains of North India. So we were there in Heat and Dust and that too for a long camping stay. And there were no palaces of Jodhpur, fort of Jaisalmer and high dunes of Barmer to talk about. Yes, there was Heat and Dust.As we hit Hanuman Garh, a small town on the Northern Tip of Rajasthan, we encountered the Highway towards Kishangarh, which has been recently re-laid and converted into a toll road. Passing through the town and thereafter, it looked like any Highway with high standard.

Some years back it was a narrow road full of potholes. I have been three or four times on this road in last sixteen years, but driving here was never more comfortable; a sign of shining India, and that too in this area.The drive out of Hanuman Garh was typical North Rajasthan scene with fields all around interwoven with canal distributaries of Indira Gandhi Canal, taking water from Sutluj River in Punjab. Most of the fields showing a good harvest of wheat, with last of the crop still standing. Good sign in these years of crop shortages and rising food prices. The more we travelled to south, signs of desert started emerging, with an odd small dune standing among the cultivated fields. However, sixty kilometre south, after crossing a branch of the main canal, we were in the desert, with sand all around. Here the desert is akin to the one that is found along NH 15 between Suratgarh and Bikaner, but dunal heights are much lower. And we got, what I feared. It was a sand storm blowing across the desert.

The visibility on the road was reduced to barely fifty meters, and one had to be careful driving as the highway here was not straight as NH 15, but has some sharp curves through the small dunal heights. The saving grace was that there was less traffic on the road, though vehicles here were running at a very high speed.We manoeuvred through the sand and storm for over an hour to reach our camping site, some 25 kilometres off the main highway along a narrow black top road. We were greeted by handful of our team members, who had come here in advance. The bad news was that such storms were a daily affair. Only good news was that, sand in the air was masking the sun light to some extent, and more often than not sand storms do get some rains after them. But still it was hot and next to bearable. Then, sand was there all over on the exposed body parts and cloths. Though by evening it calmed down a bit and we settled in the camp, next to a small village. After sun set the temperature cooled down and became pleasant. But fast wind, short of the storm started once again at night, cooling in further, and despite of day heat, at night one needed a good blanket or quilt to sleep in.

Next day, while we established, was same. Though morning was a bit calm, but high-speed winds were followed by another bout of sand storm. We struggled to pitch our remaining tents and shelters. The sand storm did not end quietly. It instead brought a soothing drizzle with it, lowering the temperature and settling the sand. It was raining of and on and was lasting for a period longer than what one usually gets in deserts. It did not end there; by evening it was almost heavy rains, dripping everything.

The cool winds were enough to tear apart anything. They also made the night cooler than the previous one. The rains, mostly mild and occasionally heavy with high velocity winds lasted almost two days. I had visited Indian desert a number of times, but I have never seen this much of rain falling in this short a time. Later, a villager told that this phenomenon is happening for last couple of years only, and has not been good for wheat crop in harvest time. But the pleasure lasted not long as it became bright and sunny thereafter, and in couple of days mercury swelled up to over forty-five degrees Celsius. Afternoons one had to sit in front of generator powered desert coolers. Going out in after noon even in a SUV cars was highly uncomfortable, but that was also endured a number of times.The local villagers were hardly affected by heat, storms or rains. They were all accustomed to these weather extremities. Their houses, made from very basic material too provided enough protection from the rough weather conditions all the year. It was a typical north Rajasthan village of a population of around thousand inhabitants next to us. The people do not appear to be very rich, but nevertheless we always found them content and happy, knowing well how to face difficulties in life and to live with in the means. Mostly people had little bit of agricultural land amid sand dunes.

Some was canal irrigated while other was dependent on rain god. The latter mostly grow millet, needing very less water. Some people had small herds of sheep and goat, with primary purpose of selling them after breeding. Very few people worked in neighbouring towns, mostly on paltry salary of four or five thousand rupees a month. There was a primary school and a basic medical dispensary in the village.Water was precious to the village, and so it was to us. There was a pipeline having a communal water outlet, being sourced from a water processing plant located on a canal branch few kilometres away. But we had to use our tankers to get it from the same plant. For drinking villagers used the same water, while we relied on mineral water dispensers, being supplied from a city located over a hundred kilometres away. But more often than not one ended drinking a glass or two of the local processed and re-filtered water especially when on the outdoor task, and as a result most of us had terrible stomachaches through out our stay there. Things became more difficult; when for few days the canal branch supplying water to the village and us went dry for maintenance. However, sufficient water was stored in canal by dropping all the siphon gates, wherever they were. The effect was visible in a couple of days, as the colour of water changed to lime white, due to heavy chlorination. It was undrinkable. But the village drink it, and so did we. Because our luck ran out, as in the same period twice the supply of our water dispensers got disrupted, and we had to drink the local water, no matter how much processed or re-filtered it was, it had an awful taste with high chlorine flavour, and of course it added to stomach aches. The relief was with the start of flow of water in the canal, and our packaged water too.

But the worst was yet to come. Almost after a month of stay there, and about twenty days since any rain of any type, the ambient temperature rose very high. One day it was absolutely still and hot. We expected a sand storm any time. Storm did come with lot of sand to begin with. Everything shook and then flew in the sky. It was a cyclone. Anything that was week and not held firmly to the ground flew away. Tents flew away, while other shelters were badly damaged. I hang with the wall of my tent along with one subordinate, putting our weight on it, so preventing it from flying. As we struggled, the intensity of the storm increased. Though it filled sand everywhere, soon it started raining heavily with hails falling all around. It became difficult to hold on to my tent. At one stage, absolutely tired of the struggle, I though to give up, and let the tent fly away or fly with it, but some how I held on. It lasted for terrible forty minutes. When it eased a bit, I came out to seek for help, but found none outside in the rain, as all others were doing the same what we were doing. But slowly people started emerging out, telling their stories. There was extensive damage to our shelters and stores, but luckily no major injury, with just one person getting a bone fractured as one machine fell on him. Some tents and chairs flew away and were recovered from six to seven kilometres away. It took some time to put things all right and start normal functioning as early as possible, like a good and efficient worker.

The devastation of storm did not stop our work by any means. The coolness provided by it for couple of days vanished soon, bringing the heat wave once again.

But luckily our experiments came to an end. We took a sigh of relief, and prepared to return back. The highway to Hanuman Garh was a welcome site, and we returned back after an eventful stay in deserts taking all the Heat and Dust it could give.

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