Desert Places

The Rebari are a nomadic tribe in India's Thar Desert. Like nomads everywhere, the Rebari are being forced into accepting a more sedentary life. Their traditional trading and pilgrimage routes have been transected by borders and canals or blocked by atomic bomb testing sites and irrigated farm lands. But once a year, they arrive in Pushkar, partly as a pilgrimmage to bathe in the most sacred lake in India, partly to buy and sell their animals, partly to enjoy the biggest annual fair in Asia. Robyn Davidson crossed the pathless Thar Desert with the Rebari. Interwoven with the journey of the Rebari is the story of Minu, a highly spirited upperclass Indian woman, forced into an arranged marriage with the ex-king of Ghanerao, locked up in the women's quarters of the palace and subject both to the strict laws of Purdah and to psychological warfare with her in-laws.