Gadra Road

Rajasthan Shephard

The Thar Desert extending over to Sind in Pakistan and Rajasthan in India. The village Gadra Road with the population of 10,000, on the Indo-Pak border is about 75 km from Barmer town. It’s a well-settled village of Pakistani Hindu migrant and like in most other villages, bonded in the organised handicrafts trade for which Gadra is very famous now. The border villages of the Thar Desert are inhabited by Hindu and Muslim cattle breeders and sheep farmers who during draught migrate to distant places in search of water and fodder.

The village, is famous for its ‘Gadra ke laddoo’, borrows its name from Gadra town in Sind province of Pakistan, around 5 km from the border.  Prior to Indo-Pak war in 1965, goods trains used to ply between Jodhpur and Karachi. There were strong business relations between Sind and Marwar. After the war, the rail tracks were uprooted between Munabao and Khokhrapar on both sides and rail route were closed. After signing of the agreement by both the countries, once a week, the Thar Express has started plying on this route again.

Before the border fence was erected, these small towns used to come to life after sunset. Late evening even Gadra Laddoos were loaded on well trained camels at Gadra Road with Sojat’s henna, paan, Assam betel-nuts, stainless steel utensils of Jodhpur, limestone of Jaisalmer, bhujia, papad, rasgullas of Bikaner, handicrafts of Barmer etc and textiles, dry fruits, slippers, threads, leather items, opium etc and were smuggled in from Gadra City through well-knit smugglers network deployed on both the sides who got their due share in the smuggling.