Camel. The very sight of this dromedary, single/double-humped looming creature, evokes visions of sun-kissed dry, sandy deserts. The animal whose sturdy mouth can chew thorny desert plants and long eyelashes and ear hairs, sealable nostrils form effective barrier against sand.

Their gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into sand and whip up speeds of 40 mph in short bursts, and sustain speeds of up to 25 mph.

These doughty creatures of cruel conditions, which would leave man shrivelled from scroching, searing sun, transport us, specially city-dwellers, to those hot and humid plains of sand dunes and vast blazing brown tracts with no living soul in sight.

The Ship of Desert which guard its masters from whiplashing sand storms and wily wayfarers who ferry their lost riders to life-sustaining oasis in dire hours of need are indeed marvels of nature.

Well, with shifting sands of time and survival, these long living domesticated resourceful caravans of hyperarid habitations, and their nomadic owners, seem to be seeking much more safer milieu to move in.

It no longer matters to these denizens of deserts that they trek long distances from more familiar moornings to fight for space and survival amidst grime and grind of uncaring city. Frail, faint and failing as if life is ebbing out of them, they are a picture of pathetic plight.

Pitching tents at available pasture of lands adjacent to highways with wild green around them  to graze and lazily gaze at the fast-paced life furiously passing by as a panoply of vehicles ferrying men and material fly by is their new port of call.

Jauntily jostling as they labour their way through never-ending stream of traffic, these humped mammals snorting and sniffling, as if to escape from poisonous fumes from mobile machines, stoically take in all myriad sights the city offers like an itinerant backpacker tourist. 

Weekends provide welcome relief. For, like their mammoth pachyderm cousins, who evoke wondorous delight among young ones, these camels come calling at city localities, to provide joy rides for the adventurous kids, sending them into delirium of delight and cackles of cheerful laughter.

Yes, drawn far away from harsh humdrum of habituated deserts to diurnal hardships of city dwelling, life has come full circle to these creatures whose body metabolism sees them survive long periods without water but who must earn for the sake of their caretakers.