A tweet showcasing three pictures of Camel hair art have gone viral on social media where it was claimed that the art of camel barbering captured in the photographs are from Pakistan. The tweet has received over forty-seven thousand retweets and has been quoted six thousand times. It had almost three hundred and fifty thousand ‘likes’ as of the time of writing this report.
But there is some misinformation contained in the tweet. The first photograph clearly has Bikaner etched across the body of the camel, which is a city in Rajasthan, India. delving through social media, we discovered that the photo had been shared before on the platform. Lord hanuman can be spotted in the art carrying the mountain for the Sanjeevani herb, which makes it very unlikely that the photograph was captured in Pakistan.
I'm left to wonder how this guy sat patiently through this entire kaarigari, irrespective of being a haircut, did he really enjoy being a canvas for human fancy ? Is it any less arrogant of humans to tie them up n own them that we need to start making art on their bodies too? https://t.co/5v3W6keMV7
— Kavita Kaushik (@Iamkavitak) August 13, 2020
However, that did not tell us where the photograph was captured or where it is from. Delving further on the internet, we found the photograph mentioned in a thesis that was submitted at the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia. According to the thesis, the photograph was captured by Osakabe Yasuo at the Bikaner Camel festival in India. ‘Camel Festival Bikar’ can also be spotted written in Hindi at the lower end of the art.
The Camel Festival Bikaner is an annual festival that is held in January. It was held on the 11th and 12th of January in 2020 and is slated to take place on the 12th and 13th January in 2021. The festival is organized in honour of the ‘ship of the desert’ and is marked by events such as camel dances, camel races, neck shaking camel rides among others.
The other two photographs mentioned in the tweet, nevertheless, are from Pakistan. The other two photographs were captured by photographer Anas Hamdani and were published on Pakistani media outlet Dawn in 2015. They were captured at a camel market where buyers looks for animals to sacrifice for the occasion of Eid.
Thus, the circumstances in which the photographs were captured could not be more different. One was captured during a festival to honour the camel while the other was captured when the camel was being decorated before its impending sacrifice.