It’s 6am in the small village of Bheriyo Bheel, and 11-year-old Jairam Bheel has just washed his hands and face before sitting down next to his mother for a breakfast of two wheat chapatis and a cup of tea. After having breakfast, he rummages through some old clothes to find a bottle of water and a small stick. He is not preparing to go to school; instead he is going to gather camels to take to the pastures in the nearby village. This has been his routine for the past three years.

Bheriyo Bheel is situated between the dunes of the desert region of district Umerkot, and the village has some 250 households. Jairam Bheel and his two companions, Jetmal and Moolchand, gather 17 camels from the village. Their ration of water bottles, which they have brought with them from home should last them till evening.

“I love animals especially baby goats and sheep,” says Jairam. “That is why I enjoy spending time with them and choose to herd animals in the desert.”

One of his friends, Jetmal, 12, who studies in class four at Bheriyo Bheel would rather stay home but goes to the pastures all the same, just to be with his friends. Jairam and Jetmal, along with their friend Molchand, 14, graze camels together at the pastures and collectively earn 12,000 rupees each month. They are paid by villagers who own the livestock, and the income is divided equally between them so that they can contribute to their household income.

“There isn’t anything to spend money on,” says Jetmal, when asked what he does with his earnings. “I take only 200 rupees for my pocket money and give the rest to my father who pays off our debt to the shop where we buy food items, groceries, seeds and other things.” A majority of the villagers take loans from such shops during the lean period till harvest time, which lasts from April to August.

The herders of Thar spend the whole day away from home in the pastures, with only tea and songs to break the monotony

There are only a few livelihood opportunities in the desert, which is why many people are forced to become herders. Over 80 people from Bheeriyo Bheel are herders, as the Thar desert is a huge habitat for cattle, which is the primary source of livelihood in the desert area.

According to the livestock departments in Umerkot and Tharparkar, there are an estimated seven to eight million livestock in district Tharparkar, and one million in district Umerkot. A shepherd — tending to smaller animals such as goats and sheep — may earn 2,000 to 5,000 rupees a month, while a cow or camel herder can make 4,000 to 6,000 rupees each month. Most of the herders look after cattle owned by other villagers; only a few of them have their own, but they don’t have more than three to five sheep at the most.

Rainfall agriculture and labour work are considered secondary sources of income in Thar. Because of fluctuating monsoon spells due to climate change, sometimes the harvest is in abundance and sometimes low. One year farmers may get a good harvest, but the next year they may see a famine, as the Thar desert region is prone to drought. This is why herders of the Kolhi and Bheel communities migrate annually towards the barrage areas of Sindh in search of water, fodder and livelihood sources.

Herders have a particular lifestyle that is different from the rest of the village. They generally marry later than the other men of the village. While young men of the area usually get married between the ages of 15 to 18 years, herders may marry between the ages of 20 to 25 years, because their lifestyle sees them spending a lot of time out at the pastures, taking care of livestock.

The recent heavy and long spells of rain have turned the desert of Thar green. While moving in the desert to the pastures where herders graze their livestock, I meet another herder from Bheriyo Bheel who has more than 200 goats and 15 cows to graze with his partners.

“I wake up early in the morning, light a fire — as the smoke kills mosquitoes — milk some of the goats to make tea and then spend the whole day grazing cattle in the desert,” says Mansukh, 28 from Bheriyo Bheel. “I give water to the animals at the well and return to the village in the evening.”

Walking to the other parts of the pastureland of village Bheriyo Bheel, I find hundreds of goats, cows, camels and sheep grazing in pastures locally known as “gawochar zameen.” I meet Pawan Bheel, a 23-year-old herder from the village, who takes care of about 100 plus goats with three colleagues. Pawan has just gathered dry wood from the pastureland, milked a goat, and has made a small fire on the ground to make tea. He has brought with him some sugar and tea leaves in a plastic bag.

Herders often come home to eat during the day and then go back to the dunes for another shift till the evening. They don’t usually take food with them but only take water bottles that they keep covered in cloth to keep cool. But they do always take some sugar and tea leaves with them, since tea is a necessity: it’s their only sustenance during their time away from home.

In Thar, if someone is offered tea made by a herder, it is believed to bring good fortune for the person who will have the tea. Everyone loves having tea here because of its delicious taste, the pure milk and the aroma of wood smoke. Most of the time, herders will have two cups of tea and, if they feel like it, they may indulge in a third cup as well.

I take up Pawan’s offer of tea. Taking sips of hot tea, we sit among the dunes covered in a luxurious greenish quilt of grass after the rains. Except for the occasional rustle of the wings of a bird or birdsong, or the sound of bells clanging from the neck of cows, there is no other sound. It is a feeling of utter tranquility.

“We have to be vigilant all the time,” Pawan tells me, “since the cattle can go towards cultivated land at any time. If that happens, they can harm standing crops and the landowner can fine us to compensate for the loss.

“If the cattle begins to move to cultivated land, we use different echoing sounds to bring them back on their route,” explains Pawan.

I ask him if he has ever been to school. “I wanted to be educated but, unfortunately, there is only one primary school in our village, and the high school is about 35 kilometres away, in Umerkot city. So travelling there or staying at Umerkot for education is not affordable for us.”

Other than herding animals and making tea, the herders seem to enjoy singing folk songs on their daily sojourns. When they gather under the shade of trees, they are always humming as they subconsciously crack small sticks, climb trees or play local games, known as wanjhwati and pipri. The long walks they take every day among the dunes are probably the reason for their lithe bodies and help them to a good sleep at night as well.

This year, after a good monsoon, there is plenty of fodder for the livestock in the desert, which will be available till the next monsoon rains, the herders hope. That is, if the crops and grasses are not attacked again by swarms of locusts.

The writer is a photojournalist and tweets at @genanimanoj

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 4th, 2020