Desert wording

I have had a long standing debate with a considerably more erudite friend over the origins of the term desert. He argues from his extensive knowledge of linguistics and Latin that the term is derived from the verb to desert, which is predictably descended from the term de-serere, to unjoin. This is, of course, a logical and most likely correct explanation.

I, however, tenaciously hold onto an interesting anecdote related during a 9AM Egyptian Archaeology course. In ancient Egyptian (which, like its modern day cousins Hebrew and Arabic, and descendant Coptic, uses combinations of consonants to express core ideas), the term d-s-r-t described the uninhabitable 'red land' that stood in contrast to the k-m-t 'black land' of the Nile Valley.

I can find no credible explanation of how the Egyptian may have made its way into English, but it is a fun coincidence.

The Fierce Urgency of Now

My friends and family got to enjoy an exciting October full of electioneering and all sorts of good old American fun. I missed out, catching only snippets of Palin sound bytes through an intermittent YouTube. But nature ensured that I was not to miss out entirely on the sense of destiny everyone seemed to hum about in the first weeks after the election. After two months of playing the local water probability game, I finally and definitively came down with a nasty gastrointestinal something.

I have been no stranger to the stranger afflictions of the digestive system, but the past month has been a veritable Gotterdammerung. I simply refuse to give in to a recalcitrant duodenum, and so I have come to understand Obama's call to duty far better than I had ever hoped. For, squatting over a whole in the floor of an overcrowded train or hanging off the side of a Goan fishing boat or holding a pucker as I near the end of a 90 minute airport security line, there really is no better expression than the Fierce Urgency of NOW.

Saddle of camel: on hump designs

Riding was never a priority for the first camel owners. When necessary, people and belongings were haphazardly and inefficiently perched around the animal's swaying hump. But early saddling techniques prevented the camel from competing as beast of burden. Besides, there was no need for it in littoral camel-herding communities.

But money makes the world go round, and the high profits to be had from trade with the emerging civilizations of the Mediterranean drove the development of a new saddle. The prevailing winds of the Red Sea make northward journeys inefficient (even the Pharoahs tried to get around this problem), and most pack animals can't handle the distances and temperatures of the Arabian desert.

By arranging blankets and ropes around the hump of the camel, it was possible to stabilize the load enough for profitable quantities of goods to be carried the 2000 miles from Aden to the Levant. It is in just these caravans that camels first appeared in Western literature, with the arrival of the Queen of Sheba bearing gifts for Solomon (I Kings 10:2) and as Rebekah's mount (Genesis 24:61). Soon, camel caravans had taken over trade routes throughout southwest Asia, ferrying goods from the Gulf, Turkey, Persia, and beyond.

Back on the streets

After five weeks away, I'm back in Bikaner. I'll do my best to fill in the past days, but the gist is that, thanks to the Mumbai terrorism, I was 'stuck' in Goa for an extra week. And then how could I say no to a Delhi weekend?

The world's first camelid cDNA library

When some scholar desperate for a PhD topic turns his gaze to the history of research on camels, October 25, 2008 will undoubtedly mark a new chapter in his exceedingly tedious and irrelevant dissertation. After a year of research, the Camel Health Unit successfully synthesized the first camel-related cDNA.

DNA, being the stuff of heredity, is safely ensconced inside the cell nucleus. While this isolation ensures its integrity, it also makes DNA kind of useless. In order to get something done, the cell must transcribe instructions (genes) from DNA into RNA, which then passes out of the nucleus to be translated into proteins. These proteins are what actually do things in the cell. So if you want to study how genes get expressed rather than just how they get passed on, RNA is of far more interest, because it reflects exactly which instructions are being carried out when. But DNA is easier to study, so we collect the active RNA, copy it back into DNA, and call it cDNA.

Once you have cDNA, you can do all sorts of cool and godlike things. We're looking at the parasite Haemonchus contortus, a worm living in the camel digestive tract that feeds by digesting hemoglobin. We isolated the H. contortus RNA that codes for the protein responsible for digestion and copied it back into cDNA. Next, we'll insert that cDNA gene into the genome of a small bacteria (called a vector) and see if the genetically modified bacteria can digest hemoglobin. We'll then use that bacteria to design a simple diagnostic that would detect the presence of the hemoglobin-digesting protein in camel blood.

An interesting sidenote: even this advanced work has at its root the same large-level changes I've seen throughout Rajasthan. Desertification and overpopulation have led to a reduction in the quality topfeed (trees, tall shrubs) that camels prefer, forcing them to compete with sheep, goats, and cows for low-level grazing. This means that H. contortus, usually only found in sheep here, has moved to camels as the animals are exposed to feces-covered groundfeed.

Reasons to shave, vol. III

There's a lot of pot in India, and a lot of tourists who make its consumption a priority. It's an odd situation, for while some groups (like wandering sadhus and some farmers) are allowed to freely light up a chillum, marijuana use is otherwise very strictly proscribed, both highly illegal and socially discouraged. So an awkward balance is struck, with the freely growing weed and rich tourists on one side and a strict penal code and unsympathetic embassies on the other.

Pushkar is a holy city for Hindus, but it's also a major stop on the hippy circuit. Banana-nutella pancakes, Enfields, and homespun are as common as Siva lingams and sannyasins. And there isn't a tourist restaurant in town (most of which sport a 'No Indians Allowed' sign in Hindi-- a nice contrast to the radical egalitarianism of the idealists sipping chai inside) that doesn't offer 'special' cookies or lassis.

I've never been one to condemn having a good time, but I'm happy to avoid this side of tourism in India. This country's class-based and image-obsessed culture is extremely sensitive to details of behavior, hygiene, and dress that the 'smile and a handshake' West prefers to write off to individuality. By keeping my hair short, my face clean, my pants pressed, and my shirt collared, I can make a real difference in the way I am perceived and treated. In a place like Pushkar, where the locals are all too used to the interests (and weaknesses) of westerners, that goes a long way towards an enjoyable and hassle-free visit that includes genuine interactions with Indians.

Whistlin down the road

This evening I depart for Delhi for a flight to Kerala, where my Sanskrit teacher Jayanth is getting married. I studied with J for nine weeks in the summer of 2006, and he's stepping outside of his very conservative Brahmin caste to marry a secretary from the school where we met who has subsequently begun working as a lawyer for the High Court of Kerala. I can't pass up this opportunity, but I'm also using the trip as a chance to drop in on friends working in Madurai (Tamil Nadu) and Bangalore (Karnataka). Then a few short days on the beach. It's funny- since I'm already in India, my per diem on this trip will actually be lower than my current living expenses, despite how big a deal it would be if I were planning such an adventure from home.

History of camel: domestication

Every person who has argued over the relative merits of dogs versus cats as house pets has engaged the fundamental question of domestication: how do you get an animal to acknowledge your superiority? For some species, like sheep and goats, a herd mentality makes domestication the simple process of acclimatization. For others, like dogs, a hierarchical social structure means that establishing control is more of a play for dominance. And for some, like cats, the process is never fully complete, instead constituting a regular exchange of services.

Camels, despite their tendency to herd, are quite socially shrewd, so domestication involves the establishment of dominance and control. The first domesticators were probably fishermen on the coast of Yemen and Oman, who turned to the camel for milk around 2000BCE. They had no need to ride the animals, their semi-sedentary communities simply serving as a base for fishing expeditions, nor did they require the meat. Corralling a few females would have been easy-- getting one to let you touch its udder would have been the tough part.

As described earlier, the practice of keeping camels for milk is today only prevalent in Somalia and East Africa. The Arabian fishermen slowly turned their seafaring chops to trade, spreading the camel across the Red Sea. There, in one of the most inhospitable environments on earth, the camel could provide milk from land that was previously useless. The custom stuck, and even today Somalia is the home to the most camels of any country.

Me and those dreaming eyes of mine

For the two weeks leading up to Pushkar I practiced my Hindi and developed a survey on camel ownership. I hoped to gather quantitative data to support the idea that macroeconomic, environmental, and land ownership changes in Rajasthan were affecting just who was showing up at the Mela and what prices they were asking. By reanalyzing data from similar studies conducted in Pakistan and Sudan, I was able to find about twenty variables on herd condition and owner economics that would confirm the trend away from nomadism that I could describe qualitatively. I carefully designed a survey methodology, practicing with the raikas at the NRCC enough times to feel comfortable with the camel lingo and veterinary inspection. Fulfilling a childhood dream I even had a custom lab coat made so I would stand out from the thousands of western tourists.

And although cries of 'Doctor Sahib' bidding me to attend to this or that camel ailment were certainly a welcome alternative to sales pitches and begging, my introduction as a 'research doctor' invariably rebuilt the cultural wall between me and the camel owners that had been briefly pierced by our mutual concern for the animals. In their eyes, my clipboard and tape measure could mean nothing but rules, taxes, and bribes, no matter my pleading or the number of shared biris. It only took me a few hours to realize my research goals were utterly unattainable.

Which is not to say the scientific end of the visit was a total loss. I got to sit around and drink chai with a lot of camel owners who loved the lab coat so long as I wasn't writing down everything they said. Hanging around the veterinary hospital I saw every sort of camel injury, including a compound fracture from a racing accident (say farewell to Rs.30,000 of prime camel). And, most repulsively, I got to try my hand--literally-- at a pregnancy diagnosis on a purebred Mewari mare (horse).

Here, feeling like a badass having just correctly estimated age by dental erosion:

Pushkar Unt Mela

After an overnight train back from Delhi I hopped on my Bajaj for the 300km drive to Pushkar, a small town nestled in the Aravalli hills whose natural lakes and bathing ghats make it an important Hindu pilgrimage destination. To westerners, though, it is most famous as the site of the yearly Camel Fair/Unt Mela, where thousands of animals are bought, sold, and displayed and herders get a rare chance to kick back a bit. The popularity of the Mela and the town's relaxed atmosphere have also made it a prime stop on the 'alternative' tourist circuit.

The Mela is a result of the particular ecology, anthropology, and economics of camel herding in Rajasthan. Camel herding castes (such as the aforementioned raikas) live in family groups that own 40-100 camels, all but two or three of which are females and young. Spending the summer in the hills to avoid the desert heat, the herders return to the Thar for the lush vegetation and cool temperatures of the winter breeding season. Before heading off, though, they all meet up and swap top studs to prevent inbreeding. Inferior males are castrated and sold to farmers for work.

This year's mela was one of the most profitable ever, a result most likely caused by high oil prices and the resulting ineconomy of tractor use. The number of camel herders, however, was at an all-time low (I only met one full-size herd). This year's selling was mostly done by middlemen, dealers who rounded up marginal animals from their district and came to make a profit. For the NRCC, hoping to find some really top animals (and willing to pay their hefty price), the fair was a disappointment.

November

I have been out of Bikaner since October 30, when I went to Delhi for Halloween and the Election. On November 6 I headed to the Pushkar Camel Fair, and then teamed up with a Brit for a quick roadtrip to Udaipur and Mount Abu. Now I'm back in Bikaner for a few days before heading to Kerala for the wedding of my Sanskrit teacher. The next few posts will fill in the missing time.

Hipness, it is what it is

Here are some pics of the election event in Delhi:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/webethere/sets/72157608757535958/

I've been at the Pushkar Camel Fair the last few days and will be back in Bikaner tomorrow evening.