Camels from Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh travelling to Puri in Odisha through the state highway have become a source of entertainment and means to earn money for its handlers.

“People show their hands and ask us to stop by the side of the highway where we make men and boys sit atop the camel and they in turn give us twenty rupees,” said Rinku of Mirza Tahseel under Allahabad district, one of the handlers of the camels.

“We are on our way to Puri in Orissa. It has taken nearly two weeks to reach Daltonganj from where we are moving with our camels towards Gumla in Jharkhand for Puri in Orissa,” he said.

A sitting on the hunch of the camel is worth Rs 20. The camel obliges it too without making any grudge if a new sitter comes on top of it every five to ten minutes.

He said the daily earning is Rs 400. Rinku has two more assistants with him to take care of the camels.

“More than half of the income of it goes to our Malik in Mirzapur and the rest we spend on our camels and on our food,” said Rinku.

He showed this correspondent his 'dicky' on the camel which one finds in a car.

His dicky is the side of the camel from where hang bags which carry rice pulse and clothes and some medicines.

Rinku said camels manage their food themselves. If they find palatable leaves in the trees across the state highway they stop and then they have their mouthful of it.

Rinku and his assistants cook food only twice in 24 hours. He said sometimes women of the villages lying across the state highway give them food in lieu of their children having a free camel ride.

Asked as to where he and his camels spend the night to which he said, “We spend our night in any government building and one of us remains wide awake for our camels at night.”

“It is for dogs not to disturb the camels at night,” he said.

A well known wildlife campaigner D.S. Srivastava said the camels are put to torture by making them walk hundreds of kilometre on the black top which their hooves find difficult and hard to negotiate.