![\"Sambhar](\"http:\/\/travel.paintedstork.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/sambhar-lake-1.jpg\")
\n<\/a>The dry lake-bed of Sambhar Lake. Seen far behind at the base of the hill is Shakambari Devi\u00a0Temple.<\/em><\/p>\n
It took less than a minute for him to realize that we were on a ground as firm\u00a0and clear as a runway. He gently pressed on the pedal, not slowing down until the speedo hit three figures. In the back seat, it was such a smooth ride that we did not realize the speed\u00a0until we were mentioned about it. We slowed down, stopped in the middle of the flats where we could start seeing a few trees and buildings on the other end. We were now in the center of Sambhar Lake, a large salt\u00a0water lake that was mostly dry in the winter season.<\/p>\n
We had driven to Sambhar from Jaipur in the middle of a pleasant winter, searching for the salt-pans of Sambhar. Driving past Sambhar Town located at the eastern edge of the lake, we had circled the lake to the\u00a0western corner at Shakambari Devi\u00a0Temple. Much of the lake was now dry, except for a few\u00a0stretches here and there and a section\u00a0that hosted the salt pans. A flamingo here and a flamingo there waded the waters. The area around the temple had probably not seen much water in a long time, allowing local villagers to use the lake as a thoroughfare. It was on one such path that we had managed to touch three-figure speeds.<\/p>\n
Returning from the temple premises, we entered the salt pans where work was in full swing. But our first sight was not the hard-working men and women, but a curious looking train that chugged through the pans.<\/p>\n
This train is meant to transport salt from the pans to a refinery nearby. The modus operandi is simple: workers fill the trolleys left behind in the pans with dried up salt. When there are enough trolleys filled with raw salt, the train comes in and takes the trolleys away and delivers it to the factory barely a kilometer away.<\/p>\n The entire workflow appears like\u00a0a scene that belongs to a\u00a0past.\u00a0A small number of earth-movers could have easily replaced the entire set of workers. A handful of tipper-trucks could do a better job than\u00a0the toy-train. But the system is working, it can employ\u00a0many, and it will continue to stay as there is no compulsion to modernize. A salt pan with hundred of years of history is not going shake up and change in a day!<\/p>\n While the local workers said that the lake was yielding salt for a thousand years, some account attribute the first extractions to the time of Mughal King Babur (15th-16th century). In the later\u00a0years, Sambhar Lake came into the hands of British, who brought in mechanization and introduced the interesting-looking toy-train. Today, the refinery is owned by Hindustan Salts Limited. The\u00a0workers are farmers from nearby villages\u00a0who come here to\u00a0make additional income\u00a0in the seasons when they don’t have much work in their farms. One of them told us\u00a0that their landholdings are small, thanks to continuous division of farmland within the families over generations, and they have to find additional sources of income to make ends meet.<\/p>\n The lake, which used to have ten-feet high waters a few decades ago has now run completely dry. It hasn’t seen any water for several years now despite good monsoons in the region. Most of the inlets to the lake have been dammed and diverted, and the flow of water to the lake has ceased almost completely. The salt industry now relies on water extracted from bore-wells. This may not continue forever, and the industry may have to shut shop when the bore-wells eventually run dry.<\/p>\n This lack of water also has other implications. Sambhar is a Ramsar Wetland<\/a>, and was\u00a0known for its huge flocks of flamingos and many other winter visitors. But\u00a0their numbers have declined steadily over the years, and the last year has seen less than hundred flamingoes. While I was there, I saw exactly two of them and there wasn’t anything to call a flock. I could rarely see any other bird species either. If there is no water, naturally the wading birds would have no business there.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>The train, which is used for carrying raw-salt from the fields to the refinery, moves through the salt pans.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>
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\n<\/a>Working at the salt pans…<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/a>Time to head home…<\/em><\/p>\nBut…\u00a0Sambhar Lake’s days are probably numbered!<\/h3>\n