Among the Believers on the Riverbank

AS MY TICKET SHOWS up on the screen, a young security guard at the entrance to Delhi airport’s T1 terminal asks with a South Indian accent “aap Prayagraj ja rahen hain? Kumbh ke liye? (you are going to Prayagraj. For Kumbh?”) His face lights up. I could see a sense of resent­ment in his expression that while he had to be there doing his job, so many people were heading for the Maha Kumbh. When I tell him I am a journalist, he asks if it was for cov­erage and follows it with the usual query that all media persons face these days—from which channel? A passenger in the queue starts getting restless. So there is no time for more conversation.

Why does the whole world want to go to Kumbh? The thought was crossing my mind while waiting for the announcement of my flight, delayed because of the Delhi fog, when a sadhu wearing a saf­fron fleece jacket over his saffron robes, Crocs-like saffron sandals and a tulsi mala wound around his neck, walks by carrying a sleep­ing bag. I ask in Hindi if he was headed to Kumbh. “I don’t speak Hindi,” he says. Just as I assume he is a South Indian and switch over to English, he says he is a South African from Johannesburg. Bhakti Narasimha Swami, the name he acquired after becoming a Hindu seer, grew up when South Africa was fighting apartheid. “We were seen as the product of the devil by the Christian-dominated regime. We did not believe that,” he says. When he started exploring various faiths, he came across Hinduism and the concept of karma, that a person’s actions dictate his next life. He came to the conclusion that what he was facing in South Africa was the result of his karma, which now at 65, he says, is also taking him to Kumbh. He plans to take a dip at the Sangam on Mauni Amavasya, a new moon day considered sacred in the Hindu calendar, which falls on January 29, and hopes to meet ascetics from the Himalayas.

As I pick up my phone to take his photograph, he straightens up, sitting with folded hands, saying he wants to sit like a monk, and not a cricket player. Having joined the Hare Rama, Hare Krishna mission, he teaches Hindu philosophy in South Africa and other countries. “India is so vast… Life just goes on here. Only the gods can manage it.”

It was with trepidation that I landed in Prayagraj, where the daily footfall at the Kumbh Mela was reported to be 10-15 lakh, besides the 50-60 lakh people at the site, spread over 4,000 acres. Where does one start? Walking through the maze, like the innu­merable others, trying to absorb every small detail in the vastness, I wonder if words could capture it.

During Shahi Snan days, several people walked around 10km to the banks of the Yamuna from where boats took them to the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. The belief is that bathing on special snan days—six during the 45-day Maha Kumbh—washes off all sins. On other days, the crowd is much less. As the sun is about to set, Bhuvan Nishad, who is looking for passengers to go for a dip at the confluence, says it is time for the last boat ride of the day. He shows his badge saying he has got an official licence for his boat, which can take 12 passengers. Since there is no time to wait for more customers, he lures with an exclusive boat ride, but at a higher cost. The rays of the setting sun dance on the gentle waves of the Yamuna, as hundreds of boats, with rows of people sitting barefoot, make their journey to and back from the Sangam. It is mandatory to wear life jackets, Nishad says, cautioning that the Yamuna is as deep as 30-40 feet. It gets shallower at the con­fluence with the Ganga. Everyone jumps into the waist deep water, at least for a few moments, while the boats wait to take them back. They sail only from the Yamuna side as the flow of the Ganga, much fiercer, is unpredictable. Still, waters do run deep. It manifests unmistakably at Prayagraj.

Nishad, who belongs to the Majhi community of boatmen, inheriting the profession from his father, points to his house on the other side of the river. Praising the arrangements, pointing to a water cleaning machine and a police outpost in the middle of the river, he says during the special snan days, there are so many boats on the shore that you cannot see the sand on either side. There are around 5,000 registered boats at the mela to take people to the Sangam at Prayagraj, which Prime Minister Na­rendra Modi had described as the “land of Nishad Raj” and the Maha Kumbh as the “mahayagya of unity”, pitching for unity across castes. On similar lines, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath described Kumbh as an example of “samajik samta (social equality).” He has said that 3.5 crore people took a dip at the confluence on Makar Sankranti, the first special bath­ing day which fell on January 14. On Mauni Amavasya, there is anticipation of around 10 crore people, over three times than in 2001, when it was around three crore.

HE TEMPERATURE DIPS as a cold breeze sets in. But life at the mela goes on. There is an irresistible whiff of freshly fried aubergine pakoras and puri sabji, ideal after a dip in the cold water. As they come out of the pan, they are served in plates of dried leaves. The cleaners make sure there is no litter left on the ground. A girl walks on a rope with a plate under it for alms. Her mother, sitting wrapped in a shawl by the roadside, says her daughter Arjun, 11, makes around ` 1,000-1,500 a day do­ing the ropewalk, which she calls circus, a family business. The family has come from a village in Chhattisgarh, where Arjun goes to school when she is not performing. It is mindboggling, manoeuvring your way through the mela, amidst the rows of tents, which according to official figures stand at 1.5 lakh, with an equal number of toilets, street vendors selling everything from lingerie to rudraksha, food stalls, security forces making way for VIP vehicles, in the backdrop of religious chants, bha­jans and announcements in various Indian languages. A youth Nageshwar Yadav, from Deoghar in Jharkhand, selling rudrak­sha and other stone chains, says business is brisk during snan days. Santosh, who has come from Lakhimpur to sell gajjak and chikki (sesame, peanuts and jaggery cakes) is also waiting for the next snan day. He says he might take a dip at the Sangam on the last day of the mela.

“These vendors, from within UP and other states, come see­ing business opportunities, which have grown several fold.… This time, the crowd management has been done extremely well,” says Dhananjai Chopra, course coordinator, at Allahabad University’s Centre of Media Studies and former journalist, who has covered seven kumbhs in Prayagraj since 1989. In his book “Bharat Mein Kumbh”, he mentions that in 1882, the then British government spent around ` 22,000 and made ` 49,000 from the mela. Among the myriad posters of Modi and Yogi Adityanath eulogising Kumbh is one that underlines a blend of spirituality and economy, another of religion and technology. “Prayagraj mein bichdo toh AI milayega. Kumbh mein dharm aur vigyan ka sangam (if you get separated at Prayagraj, AI will bring you together. A confluence of religion and technology at Kumbh),” says one at the site, which has computerised lost-and-found centres.

A young woman gets off an SUV and asks for government cottages. It turns out that she, Kritika, a teacher from Raipur, has driven down for 12 hours with her family. “We are a very spiritual family and could not have missed this. It comes after 12 years,” she says. A few metres away, a young man Saurab Darshan plays the guitar singing a song dedicated to Shiva, as a crowd gathers around him. At another crossing, the police make way for a senior seer’s bright saffron Innova. On the banks of the Ganga, where one of the akharas (monastic order) of Naga Sadhus is hold­ing initiation rituals, amidst the onlookers is New York-based Debra Rathwell, executive vice president, AEG Presents. Describ­ing her experience as “fabulous”, Rathwell says she had decided a year ago to attend the Kumbh Mela. “I spent a lot of time learning about it. But being here is very different from reading about it. This is so large. It turns the festival model upside down.”

The akharas of the Naga sadhus, celibate ascetics defined by their nakedness, who are star attractions at Kumbh, are on the other side of the Ganga, across the pontoon bridges. That will have to be left for another day. As it gets dark, on one of the banks of the Ganga, preparations are being made for the Ganga aarti. With Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria expected to attend it, security is spruced up. Sitting in the front row, Bedoshruti, who works in the environment sector in Delhi, says her mother Sharmishtha, who belongs to Kolkata, wanted to experience Kumbh once. “She brought me here. I am not a religious person. But I must admit it took me by surprise how well something of this scale is being managed.”

For Paul, a French youngster who recently quit his IT sector job in Paris, it is a “spiritual” trip to understand what he wants to do. “I first felt a little lost and overwhelmed by the crowd. But now it is five days and I feel better. I will stay another week,” he says, and then breaks into chanting “Om Namah Shivaye” with the rest of the crowd. As the bhajans start, the chanting gets louder, reaching a crescendo. Young men, in dhotis and kurtas, and women wear­ing sarees, get on to the small daises to perform the aarti facing the Ganga, as a drone hovers over them. A child comes with a bowl of sandalwood paste to apply on the foreheads of everyone in the audience.

Anyone can feel lost at Kumbh. Yet, anyone can feel part of it. Away from the bustle, on a quiet side of the Ganga, are the high-end tents on the river banks. The dome-shaped polycarbonate rooms, looking much like the glass igloos in Norway, set up by Lucknow-based Evolife Spaces, cost over ` 60,000 a night, escalating to around ` 90,000 a night on snan days. The package includes taking the guest to the Sangam. The government-run India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) has also, for the first time, put up luxury tents, managed by Zenith Hospitality, ranging from ` 16,000 to ` 36,000, depending on the room. “We have 80 per cent occupancy. Being government-run, these are the cheapest luxury tents,” says Manoj Mishra of Zenith Hospitality. There are eight such camps in the area, with around 1,500 luxury tents.

Back at the mela, where roads are sprinkled with water to settle the dust and sand, I find a food court, selling snacks ranging from special kachoris of Prayagraj to Domino’s Pizza. I settle for chholey bhaturey. A middle-aged man also orders the same dish and settles on my table. I ask him if he is a local. “I have come from Kanyaku­mari, flying down to Varanasi and taking the Vande Bharat train from there,” he says. Arul, an advocate, who practices Kriya Yoga, meditation and Virasana, was drawn by his passion to explore various spiritual traditions.

The next morning during breakfast at the hotel, a man tells the kitchen staff that the idli-sambhar is not the way it is prepared in the south. A Bengaluru-based garments and textiles businessman, KR Saravanamoorthy, who originally belongs to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu, was reading the Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yo­gananda, where he found the mention of Kumbh Mela. “I read the Kumbh Mela chapter in December. I then saw ISKCON advertise­ments about providing free meals at the mela and realised the Maha Kumbh was starting in January. I immediately booked my tickets.”

It is unlike any other Kumbh. It is a township by itself. Driving through the roads temporarily created with metal sheets over the sand for the Kumbh Mela, the driver Ishaq says that most of the mela area disappears under water after the monsoon rains. “It’s all water then. Later, it dries up.” Everyone has come with a different purpose— faith, spirituality, curiosity, business, research, fate or a leap of faith. Each visitor is a story. Leaving Prayagraj, the images of women covered in thick shawls walking miles carrying their luggage on their heads, the sight of hundreds of newly initiated Naga Sadhus marching back to their akharas wearing just white langotis (loincloth), and the aroma of Indian rituals linger on my mind. I come to one conclusion—even if I stayed all 45 days at Kumbh, I would only be able to capture only a fraction of it.

As I look for a mobile phone charging point at the airport, a foreigner offers me his power bank.

A New York-based content creator, Todd Coleman, was visiting India for the eighth time since 2004. Having regretted not attend­ing the Ardh Kumbh in 2018, he made it a point not to miss the Maha Kumbh. He, along with a friend, stayed at the tents of the Naga akharas. “We stayed up all of last night watching their initiation. I got hit a lot [by the angry sadhus].” He sums up his experience of 10 days at the mela as intense and much bigger than he imagined. Will he come back for another Kumbh? He shrugs. “Too early to say. There’s so much more of India to see.”

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