“O dekho,
nadi aa gayi”.
“Arre, nadi
nahi ayi re, humlog aye nadi ke paas”
The swift
retort by the middle-aged lady in a bright yellow sari evoked peals of laughter
among the women in her group, all of them carrying puja items and a change of
clothes in bags or jholas, like everyone else in the crowd that is surging
towards the confluence at Prayag just before dawn on the day of Maghi Purnima,
one of the bathing dates during the Ardh Kumbh Mela this year.
Even the
lady who uttered the first sentence was smiling. I turned towards the yellow
sari and said, “sahi kaha aapne”.
“Aur kya,
hum hi chalkar aye sangam,” she said.
As I turned
back and slightly increased my pace to catch my group, who had gone ahead in
the meantime, I could also see the river – though I did not know whether it was
the Ganga or the Yamuna. The previous morning, though, we had travelled on a
boat and took a dip on the exact place where the two rivers meet, called the Triveni
Sangam because it is believed that the river Saraswati also flows there. I could see the difference in colour too, and
it was a really fascinating sight.
But now it
is 4.45 pm, the sky is half-dark and a few raindrops are adding moisture on my pair
of glasses. There are people all around -- “multitudes
upon multitudes” – as a famous author had once said about the Kumbh congregation.
However, I walked on, and despite my weak eyesight and the glare of too many lights,
I could see a sliver of grey, which became wide and vast and all-pervading as
we went nearer and nearer. And I thought, “hum bhi chalkar aa gaye nadi ke paas”.
This journey, I felt, is the most interesting aspect of Kumbh Mela. Old, sick, disabled or limping heavily or
fit and fine and eager to reach at the earliest, people of all types coming from
all sections of society, dressed in all kinds of attire ranging from traditional
village headgear and dhoti-kurta, and saris with ghunghat to urban youngsters
wearing T-shirts and hoodies and jeans – all walking with single-point determination
towards one direction, having one focus, to reach the one ultimate destination.
A sea of humanity meets a river of faith.
Faith is a difficult word for me. I am a skeptic
and when it comes to religion, I always had too many things swirling inside my
head, leaving no chance of attaining that blissful state of unquestionable
faith which gives inner peace to many in our god-fearing land. A friend, whom I
told about my plan to visit Prayag, said, “you hypocrite, you say you are not religious,
but you are going to Kumbh on Maghi Purnima?” I want to experience it, I said
to her,
But as I took some water on my palm on
that Maghi Purnima morning a fortnight ago, under a wide open sky where a
brilliant sunrise will greet us a little while later, and looked at thousands
and thousands of people around me, I experienced a moment of serenity. As if
all these people will attain a state of other-worldliness, will not return and
restart their everyday lives of dullness and drudgery, fights and arguments,
greed and envy. As if this journey will change them forever. And me as well.
My lazy philosophizing, at that moment,
was disrupted by a sharp nudge from an elderly lady who elbowed her way towards
the edge of the water, bent nearly 180 degrees, and started praying with an oil
lamp. I was scared that someone will unwittingly push her and she will fall
face down into the river. I tried to warn her, but she was oblivious to her
surroundings. Equally oblivious was a group of youngsters who was more into
selfie-seeking than self-seeking, making too much noise and earning a rebuke
from one of my fellow travellers. I was transported back to reality.
Everyone may have their own and very different
experience to narrate about visiting Kumbh. In college, I had read a beautiful
book – “Amrito Kumbher Sandhane” (Quest for the Pitcher of Nectar) by Bengali
author Smaresh Basu, who wrote it in his pen-name “Kalkut”. He was influenced
by Marxist political thought, but that book discussed the issues of faith and
humanity, religion and spirituality with wonderful insight. I had thought then
that I will also visit the Kumbh Mela someday. And here I was, fortunate enough.
I can write a lot more about our trip.
The previous evening’s quick visit to Juna Akhada and having the darshan of the Naga
sadhus (there were only a few of them as the “shahi snan” dates were already
over), the boat ride to sangam and the birds that danced on the waves, my
frenzied zeal to click everything from the paper boats with flower offerings to the
random flute seller, the mesmerizing sight of the tent city with thousands of
yellow LED lights, the smoke and sound of chanting wafting towards the bridge
from where we were watching the scene and finally, our long trek back from the sangam
to the city when I had a nano-second urge to get lost in the crowd (overruled promptly
by my aching legs).
But this journey is becoming too
stretched, with no destination. It’s time to stop. It’s time to
treasure that sunrise at Prayag.
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