09 February 2013

Kumbh Mela 2013: First Impressions

Their flight was late.  Great!  I had rushed to get to the airport in good time leaving well before rush hour and avoiding having an early dinner in a respectable but cheap restaurant.  At the aiport I succumbed to boredem/hunger and ate my fill and a few days budget at the airport restaurant.  Two hours late, their flight eventually landed and I stood with a few other people included a garland welding bapa at the arrivals gate.  People started to flow out, tourists mainly, followed by bapu in his typical orange robes and turban who floated out in a statement of serenity and confidence.  It appears that the other people waiting alongside me were all part of the same party and all rushed to greet him.  The traditional way to greet a man of reverence is to bow down and touch his feet and for his particular sect with the greeting 'hari om'.  I was in a dilemma, everyone else was bending down to the floor to his feet or even dropping to their knees but on our previous interactions with bapu he rejected this show of respect from me and indeed he clasped my hands and greeted me before I had a chance to decide.  His entourage with him was twenty four strong and with the extras, including me, meeting them at varanasi airport we were a thirty strong crowd.  We left after much cramming into the three cars we had at our service a little after 10pm for the three hour journey to Allahabad and the Kumbh Mela.

4am.  We finally made into the Kumbh Mela.  The traffic management was atrocious and much of our journey was ground to a halt from incompetent traffic officers.  As we, finally, drove through the entrance and over the bridge overlooking the camps the makeshift city brandished for the month and a half of the Kumbh was a sight to behold.  The night was alive with the beaming of thousands of street lamps that lighted up the grid shaped city from here to the horizon.  We descended into this temporary city along with a constant crush of cars each looking for their camps.  Each camp is made for/by a particular saddhu to cater for his disciples and himself during the Kumbh Mela and each entrance is decorated with an elaborate facade in a power play with their 'rivals'.  The 'big' saddhus with thousands of followers and disciples have large camps and their entrance would have a constantly moving LED display as well as several large pictures of the saddhu in various poses dependant on the views of the graphic designer.

We eventually found our 'street' and followingly our camp.  No elaborate facade ordained our camp but as we entered our tents I was astonished.  This is not the rough style of camp I imagined but rather a show of civility, maharaja style.  Upon entering the mess tent dinner was served immediately for all of us weary travellers in the early morning.  The army of cooks had stayed up all night waiting for us and making sure dinner was prepared.  The sleeping tents consisted of two large canvas tents to house the 30 of us.  Mattresses lined the floor, dormitory style, in these well lit rooms with blankets and sleeping bags provided for the cold weather.  Bapu had his own private quarters but having expected three tents instead of two declared that a number of us shall share his tent too.  Concrete constructed toilets lined the back  of the tents with shower cubicles and hot water on demand.  Power points provided in each tent provided the means to charge the prefora of devices ordained by pilgrims.

After this long and eventful night we finally prepared ourselves to sleep.  I was looking forward to a long sleep waking only to the heat of the midday sun.  It was not to be, at 5am the morning prayers started on the megaphones of a particular camp which was immediately taken up by neighbouring camps creating an eruption of song and prayer that not even my ear plugs could withstand.  It is now 8.30am.






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