Captured by NASA from space, a whole city of 4,000 hectares sprawls at the meeting of three sacred rivers. For just under two months, the site would fill with over 663 million devotees. By chance, my Nanni, mother and I had planned to visit the city which hosts the world’s largest gathering just days before it was scheduled to start.
Held in the state of Utter Pradesh, the Kumbh Mela is located at the Triveni Sangam. This is the confluence of three sacred rivers: the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati. The Kumbh is a spiritual gathering where visitors and devotees pay homage to the sacred river. Attendees bathe in the holy river, join religious processionis, and engage in various other spiritual pracices and discussions. They usually happen every 12 years in accordance with celestial, planetary alignments, yet this Maha (meaning great) Kumbh was particularly reverant-- taking place every 144 years.
Our car crosses a concrete round made on top of countless makeshift barrels which bolster crossings, for both people, cars and cows. We enter one of the construction zones, where some men are drilling wooden beams into a structure, and others use drapes to adorn the new ceiling and walls. The festival starts in a few days, and so the whole area hangs in a constant state of becoming. Looking around the scene as three generations of women travelling to India, it’s wasn’t difficult to notice the huge lack of female presence. There were, however, two women from Russia, draped in saffron robes who we talked to through google’s handy translation. Over the drills, chopping of wood, and running motorcycles, we hear how they were here to volunteer their service for the set up of the Mehla, and mentioned that there were some female gurus and ashrams which they had been involved with, but their main role here was to do sewa, or to be of service.
Strings of clothes are drying between camping tents and toilets. As we drive through a steady stream of traffic, we move past a girl with arms outstretched practising tightrope walking. People walk underneath and through, glancing briefly at what we see to be a moment of magic. We have come to our country ‘of origin’ which has become foreign over time-- but even within this city, every corner pulses with something seemingly extraordainary. The morning blurs with loudly colourful parades, stalls of cane sugar drink, statues of deites are carried in rows and further into the depths of the Mehla, groups of robed men sitting around a havana (fire puja/ worship). We pass other, smaller tents with rumoured holy men who cover their faces with ashes and eat the flesh of the dead: aghoris. Often living around cremation grounds, the story of aghoris can be traced back to the 4th century BCE with the Tantric worshipping of Lord Shiva. Some sit cross legged, smoking marijuana, whilst others are unclothed and practice yoga by the side of the road. The car drives past rows and rows of tents like these, rolling through this makeshift city.
We eventually arrive into another larger tent, to meet a sadhu (a holy man). He invites us to chai, and sits on a cushioned seat perched above us. He asks each of us our name, and what it means. The pressing question of why there is such a stark imbalance of female spiritual leaders circles back around. And is cleverly avoided, because, after all, ‘the leaders of men are always women, because it is women who birth them.’ Finally, he leans over towards us, his eyes either wise or mischievous. The air seems to thicken into this moment, as if the sadhu was about to disperse a gem of enlightenment onto us. ‘Remember,’ and he extends his gaze round to my mother, my nanni, and myself, ‘we all have a timetable.’ And just like that, the holy weight inside the drapes of a wooden beamed structure trickles away. I am teetering again on thinking of this all to be a faux festival and a deep seated wish to believe that all of holds some sacred spell. Maybe it can be both.
*Presented at a talk for the Northern Atheist Society
