A Day at Kumbh Mela
The akhadas don�t want outsiders around; if they find any, they get pinched with iron chimtas
Ariot policeman on my left. A naked sadhu, penis dangling, on my right. Anywhere else, this would be unbelievable. But this was Haridwar, Uttarakhand, on the day of the Somawati Aamavasya-Shahi Snan at the Maha Kumbh Mela. Nudity is the norm, not the exception.
A friend and I journeyed 1,330 km to witness one of the holiest days in the Hindu calendar and, so far, it had been a smorgasbord of mendicants, pilgrims, sadhus and sanyasis, scouts, policemen in riot gear, and beggars. She, a blonde American, came here in a quest for spirituality; I, a big city boy who finds small towns exotic, was just there for the show; we both looked like tourists in our jeans and t-shirts, surrounded by lakhs of believers convinced that a dip in the Ganga would wash away their sins.
They came from all over the country; the men in kurtas and dhotis, the women in saris, veils covering their eyes. They have waited years, some their whole lives, for this occasion. An elderly Rajasthani man told me, “This is our last chance to atone. We don’t know if we will be alive the next time this happens.”
Coming in from Delhi, buses drop passengers six kilometres away from the city. Only VIP vehicles are allowed in. We have to walk to our hotel.
Come evening, we visit the camps. Hoardings and posters for gurus, akhadas and hair oil companies dot our path. I recognise only two faces: Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Everyone’s cashing in on the largest human gathering in India. A Japanese sanyasin promises to make all your spiritual problems disappear. A baba feeds malnourished African children in one half of a hoarding; the other half shows him talking to a tribe. Both hoardings carry sermon timings. Why is he feeding African children? Doesn’t India have enough poverty? With all the babas getting caught on TV, why would anyone want to listen to them?
The camps look weary; people stretched out in their tents, tourists walking about in search of pictures, some sadhus either holding court with eager audiences hanging on their every word, or busy cleaning or smoking their chillums. We roam around for a couple of hours, a sort of recce for the next day and then head back to our hotel. We see buses enter from the other entrance to the town; they come straight in to the official bus stand in the middle of the city. People are hanging on everywhere, roofs, windows, bumpers. How do they stay on for all those hours?
We plan to rise early, to take in the early morning bath. But the journey has tired us out (a six-hour bus ride took 14 hours because of detours and traffic jams), and by the time we join the hordes it’s past nine. We try and hurry our way through to get to the ghats but it is difficult. We are just in time to catch the famous Naga Sadhus. The common man has to stand by the side of the road, waiting for the sadhus to walk past to the ghats. Smeared in ash, they roar out prayers to Shiva as they march, an intimidating spectacle; even the cops keep their distance. Most of them have huge bellies. How do ascetics from the forests and mountains nourish pot-bellies?
