From the archive record
A herdsman walks with a herd of cow in Kutch in Gujarat. the cows have big horns and some cows have bells on their neck. Kutch, India’s wild west, is a geographic phenomenon. The flat, tortoise-shaped land, edged by the Gulf of Kachchh and Great and Little Ranns, is a seasonal island. During the dry season, the Ranns are vast expanses of dried mud and blinding-white salt. Come the monsoon, they’re flooded first by seawater, then by fresh river water. The salt in the soil makes the low-lying marsh area almost completely barren. Only on scattered ‘islands’ above the salt level is there coarse grass, which provides fodder for the region’s wildlife. The villages dotted across Kutch’s arid landscape are home to a jigsaw of tribal groups and sub castes who produce some of India’s finest handicra