A series of unexpected circumstances forced me offline: the guesthouse was promising to fix Wi-Fi for two days, then I started migrating (on trains and buses) to Nepal for the sake of the "90 more days in India" stamp in my passport... I'm already in Nepal, spending the night in a border town, and tomorrow I'm heading back to India, with the next destination being Kolkata. In the meantime, I'm sharing some photo impressions from the amazing town of Pushkar, where I spent a month in November and December 2025.

Cats

Cats live like outcasts in poor societies - they lurk in dark corners, they are scared of every rustle... Poor societies prefer dogs. I don't know what the secret is, but this is what I discovered in my life. As soon as people discover such things as comfort and stability, they also discover how valuable cats are. Pushkar is on this way - the town reached some level of prosperity, and - voila - here and there, you see cats on Pushkar streets.

Look at how gorgeous this Rajasthani tabby is:

It's not just a pet but a natural breed that has survived centuries of total dog dominance. Stealth 10 out of 10, speed 10 out of 10, cuteness 10 out of 10.

Speaking about stealth, find a cat in the image:

This peacock is panicking for a reason - a cat is lurking in the shrubs. This beauty:

Another tabby of arid Rajasthan:

A male with the charisma of Jake Gyllenhaal.

This Jake the Cat regularly visited the rooftop of Monalisa guesthouse in Pushkar where I stayed. Under the cover of night, he even visited the second floor, where I lived.

I wanted to become frens with Jake but didn't have enough time for that. A lone wolf, I understand that. Although we had a nice contact: one day, I was hanging out on the rooftop, taking pictures of langurs, and was thiking "Where is Jack?" I told myself "he probably chose another route today" but soon I noticed him, waiting:

I blocked his way from this roof to another... so he was hesitating, sitting at a lower level. Having realized that, I stepped away as much as possible to give space for him to pass me by and then gave Jack the sign - "go, the way is open now!" The cat didn't need to be told twice - Jack hurried along the available passage (3 meters away from me - I was awarded with this trust!), and disappeared at the neighbor's rooftop.

Speaking about photographing langurs from the rooftop:

These are other type of visitors of Monalisa guesthouse's rooftop. They sometimes made much noise jumping on a tin canopy there. But not that evening, here you see them enjoying the sunset.

I think langurs love watching the sunset, they love the golden hour as well not less than us, humans, with the only reason for that is just the pleasure of watching this bright, colorful phenomenon - without practical benefits.

I think monkeys have an aesthetic feeling... Macaques are too busy with scandals, normally,

but gray langurs have time to enjoy the beauty of life.

Another gang of Pushkar, bank mynas:

Giving spa service to zebus in the image:

They eat parasites, find some "peanuts" in the poo and

and even drink zebu's saliva:

But they are much more versatile: they also can "gang beg" for food in a street restaurant, jumping just 1 meter away from you and watching you attentively, speaking with their eyes - "give us food, food!"

Must also mention the most common 4-legged creature of Rajasthan:

There are no hordes of stray dogs in Pushkar for some reason. Probably, there was some sterilization program? Dogs are still numerous but each has care to look nice and behave nice.

Well-behaved dogs are another factor that makes Pushkar so pleasant.

This is such an idealistic town in the middle of Rajasthan, I am glad I discovered it, and there will be a couple more posts about it, but for now that's all, it's time to get ready for the road tomorrow early morning, I need to have time to plan something - transportation, accommodation.

The photos were taken with a Nikkor 50mm and a Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 in November/December 2025, in Pushkar, Rajasthan, India.