A sinner at the Kumbhmela

It was in 2010 that I attended the Mahakumbhmela in Haridwar. I’m not religious. I went there out of curiosity. What does the Kumbhmela feel like? What is it that draws millions of people to it? I got the answers; and escaped by a hair’s breadth from being crushed by a horse’s hooves. But that’s a small price to pay for the magnificence of Kumbhmela’s beyond-belief human experience.

The answer to my first question was simple: It was like no other feeling I ever had or will have. I was sucked into a matrix of a million minds and bodies. Swept along by unstoppable crowds and you have no control. Oceans of people flow into each other, converge and branch out again, carrying you with them. You simply cease to be the ego you were. The Mela is a meta-experience of people like perhaps nowhere else in the world.

The answer to the second question was equally simple: Except for a small number of sightseers/tourists, and curious visitors like myself, the millions that gather at the Kumbhmela are driven by tradition and faith. The Mela is an agrarian tradition going back to harvest festivals and river worship which acquired a religious character. A comparable peoples’ phenomenon is perhaps the Hajj, but it is not a freewheeling peoples’ festival like the Kumbh.

The Kumbh is a stunning experience of the breadth and depth of the Hindu mind, the sheer innocence of its adherence to tradition and its profoundly inclusive and democratic religiosity. Religiosity in general is vehement. There is no vehemence in the Kumbhmela. It is perhaps world’s largest free confluence of people, created by them, driven by them. The official machinery just assists/manages people and keeps them safe.

But these are post-facto thoughts. When you are in the middle of the Mela there’s no time to think about anything except keeping your feet on the ground and eyes on the road-directions. There’s no stopping. It’s like being on a horizontal rollercoaster. On each day we set out into the Mela, we had only a notion of where we were going. For the rest we were carried along and we were carrying others along. You either reached the destination or you didn’t.

The only thing that held our party of five together was the mobile phone. Every time the force of human waves smashed everything in its way and our group was scattered in inexplicable directions, the mobile came to our rescue till we regrouped, often after a long interval. By then we would’ve been washed miles away from our supposed destination. Often the mobile failed too. But the feeling is exhilarating. You are not the boss of your life you thought you were. You are a drop in the ocean.

It is the so-called VIPs who do not experience any of the joys of the Kumbhmela. Their ego-filled, protected, stupidly pompous entries and exits cut them off from the happiness of the Mela. But the sants are another cup of tea. They effortlessly merge with the people. Even the Maha Mandaleswars (spiritual chiefs) who sit in raths (ceremonial chariots) do not act as if set apart from the milling crowds. They just enjoy the ride.

Our party of five friends: Sashikumar, founder of Asianet TV and chairman of the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Prema Sreedevi, well-known journalist and presently founder and editor-in-chief of the news portal The Probe; Swamini V*; Swami Samvidanand, our young sanyasi friend, film-maker, social worker and our host, and myself. It was Samvidanand’s presence in Haridwar that gave us the confidence to attempt the Mela. He and I had been co-travellers into the Himalayas to places such as the Gomukh glacier, the Tapovan Valley, Badrinath, and fascinating interior villages. He knows the Himalayas, so to say, like the palm of his hand. And, Haridwar especially, because that is where his mentor’s ashram is.

Sashikumar, Prema, Swamini V and myself had driven to Haridwar from Delhi in Prema’s car. Prema is a high-speed driver, but totally focused, zigzagging at top speeds through the confusion-filled and pot-holed roads of eastern Uttar Pradesh. (Probably there’s a highway there today.) Samvidanand had told us to take certain interior roads in order to avoid check-posts and drive to Swami Kashikanandji’s ashram in Kankhal, a suburb of Haridwar, where it could be parked for the next three days. Otherwise, the car would’ve been stopped many kilometers away, requiring a long trudge back, from Haridwar. Kashikanandji is Samvidanand’s senior sant and a renowned vedic scholar. Kankhal was only seven kilometers from Hari ki Pauri, the holy ghat – a comparatively comfortable walking distance.

Despite the precaution we took, we did run into a police-barricade in one of the interior roads. It was then that we discovered the magic of saffron! Swamini V, in her saffron robes, got out of the car and just smiled at the police. Namaste! the police greeted her with joined palms, and the barricades rolled back in seconds. Thus, by dark, we were sitting in the ashram and sipping tea. Prema had parked the car under a grand old tree in the ashram yard.

From the ashram, we set out for our place of stay in two autorickshaws. Suddenly the Mela was upon us. Surging crowds swallowed us. It was an astonishing experience. The auto was like a little beetle struggling to find its way through a jungle where everything was in a churn, up and down, left and right. We thought we were going to be crushed into a heap of metal and canvass any moment. But our driver was unmoved. He was relentless. He had seen it all. His one finger stayed pressed on the horn, non-stop. I doubt if anybody heard the horn but the auto, as if by an act of its own will, kept crawling inch by inch through the avalanches of people until we reached our lodge. That was just a beginner’s taste of Kumbhmela.

Next morning we walked out to find ourselves in a town that had turned unreal, some sort of a fantasy. Every street had become an overflowing river of people filling even the nooks and crannies of all available space. It was a crazy situation because the crowds flowed in every direction, to and fro and criss-cross. Forward movement was determined by your group’s size and muscle strength. The group that had most numbers and muscle power would control the road for a while till one with greater power crashed in, demolishing everything on its way.

As for vehicles, only two kinds had right of way: those of the police and the sants. The crowds parted for both. Mela police is, to put it most mildly, a very determined lot and you disobey them at your peril. It’s also very evident that if they weren’t ruthless, the Mela would be one massive disaster. As for the raths of the Maha Mandaleswars and the high-end SUV’s of sundry spiritual personalities, people are only delighted to let them pass; they also shout a greeting, ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ Faith is as innocent as a baby.

It's beyond the scope of this small note to describe all the sights and sounds of the Mela. The city is filled with flex boards small, big and huge, advertising sants and ashrams. What was interesting was that not a politician or political party had put up flexes for themselves, given such a grand opportunity for publicity. They seemed to know that they didn’t own the show, but the sants. For me it was an interesting discovery that many senior sants were foreigners, including a Russian, and a Japanese lady by name Yogmata Keiko Aikawa. There was even a foreign Maha Mandaleswar whose name I’ve lost.

An especially eye-catching figure was that of Maha Mandaleswar Datthi Maharaj. He didn’t sit in a rath but an expensive open sportscar, wearing a black T-shirt, dark glasses and a stylish goatee. Female black cats, wearing body-hugging black uniforms and hoods marched in military order at front, back and both sides of the car. I do not remember if they were armed. Maharaj reclined on the seat, inscrutable behind the dark glasses, occasionally speaking on a golden-looking phone.

There were also the naga sants who own nothing, wear nothing and have even ceased to have a gender. There was also Swamy Amarbharathi who has held one arm up for 30 years. The arm looks like a dried-up stick. It cannot be moved, let alone brought down. That’s his life, full stop. There are sants who are masters of untold wealth and the world is their rath. That’s Hinduism. It’s a conglomeration of extraordinary possibilities – spiritual and material.

The central spectacle of the Kumbhmela is the procession of sants and sannyasins to take the holy bath on the appointed days. People take their place on both sides of the processional route hours in advance. They occupy every space that can accommodate their two feet, from rooftops to balconies to treetops to tops of parked vehicles and of course the barricaded pavement.

But the prized catch is not succeeding to find a foothold as an onlooker. It is to become a part of the grand procession itself and take the dip in Ganga at the holy moment along with the sants. But it is also the toughest undertaking of the Mela. The only way, Samvidanand told us, was to attach oneself to a sant’s rath, merging into the group of his/her attendants. To do that you need access to the sants or at least to their disciples. The police control at key entries to the holy ghat was so tight, even brutal, that there was little chance you would get through. The police had seen it all. They had to be hard because otherwise the holy bath could turn into a fatal stampede. But we decided that we were going to attempt the impossible. Since we were at the Mela, why miss out on the top show? Heaven was beyond our grasp anyway. We would at least be adventurous.

Sashi Kumar and I had donned saffron clothes and headgear from day one. Swamini V was already saffron-attired. Prema said she’ll continue to wear her regular clothes. She didn’t approve of our opportunism. On the day of the holy bath, we assembled at the starting point of the procession. Samvidanand had even procured ID cards for us. As we waited, watching the raths depart one by one, suddenly he signaled to us to join the rath of Maha Mandaleswari Santhoshi Ma. Her accompanying disciples, who were Samvidanand’s friends, helped us find hand-holds on the rath. And we began our rath yatra to salvation, moving at an excruciating inch-by-inch pace. After an hour and half during which we must’ve moved 500 meters, Shashi Kumar said, ‘I’ve decided to wash my sins back in my room. Good luck!’ And he vanished. That left only Prema, Swamini V and myself to seek moksha.

When we had reached Sri Sankara Chowk, Samvidanand appeared before us as if he had dropped out of the sky and whispered, ‘See the policemen on horseback. That’s where the final barricade is. Hang on to the rath. Keep the ID card visible. If things go wrong, we’ll regroup here.’ At this point we lost one more moksha-seeker. Swamini V said she too preferred a bath in her room and withdrew. That left Prema and me. As we approached the barricade, we held on to each other by hand and with the free hand clung with all our might to the rath.

Then everything happened in a flash. The rath had half-crossed the barricade when we found ourselves plucked out like flies. A brown something throbbing with massive force came between me and the rath, and gave me such a savage push that I was thrown several feet away. I was trying to scramble up when the horse that had pushed me turned around and stepped right on my foot. I screamed in agony and barely managed to roll away before the horse came for me again. Prema was nowhere to be seen.

I limped my way back to where Samvidanand waited. Prema had already got there. Swami had no time for words of condolence. He asked, ‘Are you ready for another try?’ I think Prema and I were in an insane state. We wanted revenge. We said, ‘Yes.’ Swami told us that his own guru Maha Mandaleswar Visweshwaranandagiri of Surathgiri Bungalow ashram of Haridwar was about to start his yatra to the ghat. If we ran we could catch him. We ran, I limping, and Swami entrusted us into the hands of his friends who stood around Vishwesharanandgiriji’s rath. The procession started.

The rath inched on its way. Vishweshwaranandgiriji sat high up on a throne, smiling joyously and blessing all. Now, we were approaching Sankara Chowk, and now here stood the dreaded policemen on horseback near the barricade. My heart drummed in my ears. Prema looked at me once and looked up at the heavens. Now we were at the barricade and the police had surrounded us. Suddenly I heard Swami Vishwesharanandgiriji declare loudly: ‘Let the rath return!’ A shocked silence followed his words. People looked at each other incredulously. Swamy now added in a resounding voice, ‘I shall not take the holy bath without my followers.’ The applause was spontaneous. So were the ‘Jai’ ‘Jai’ shouts.

It took hardly five minutes for a top policeman to arrive. It took him only a couple of seconds to open the barricades and let the rath and all who went with it enter. ‘Bum Bum Hara Hara Bum Bum Bol! The shout went up. Vishwesharanandgiriji smiled again. We all smiled with him. Our rath was on its victorious way to the Brahmakund. I told Prema, ‘I think sinners are privileged people.’ She was busy taking photos.

The bath itself is a routine Ganga bath. Except that there are thousands around you and the water is more unclean than usual. You dip once, twice, thrice – it is over. In any case, the police do not allow you to wash your sins too long because there are thousands waiting.

Our good luck continued to hold. After what was – to make a big understatement – a grueling day, we began our 7-kilometer trudge to Kashikanandgiriji’s ashram through the multitudes. Suddenly there came a shout. ‘Come on! Join us!’ It was from a sannyasin friend of Samvidanand, a disciple of Swami Bhagavathananadgiri Maharaj of Maharashtra. He was inviting us to join him on the tractor which pulled the Maharaj’s rath. We nearly swooned with relief. This was incredible! Har! Har! Mahadev! we murmured.

We bowed to the Maharaj with joined palms and took our seats on the tractor. Prema sat on the mudguard of the big wheel and I on a step of sorts, which was the size of my palm, over the small wheel. I hugged the leg of a disciple who sat above me for balance and he secured me further by tugging me in with a festoon cloth. After a while he introduced himself as the District Congress Committee member of ‘---' and chairman of the Anti-corruption Cell. I was happy. I was in sinless company.

But the greatest miracle was yet to come. The rath was held up in a traffic jam. A lady rushed in from the crowd, bowed before the Maharaj, touched the tyre on whose mudguard Prema sat and bowed, touched the feet of the Congressman and then - believe it or not – touched my feet and bowed. It was with great difficulty I stopped myself from jumping to the ground and touching her feet. I was a holy man! – at least in her eyes! The bath had worked!

We picked up the car from the ashram and started our return journey. Sashikumar took the steering wheel at first but admitted defeat after a short while. The road was a battlefield, people and vehicles running amuck. Prema took over and drove through the whole night like a woman of steel, and, as the sun was rising over the Yamuna, brought the car to a stop in Delhi.

----------------------

*I have not been able to contact Swamini V as I write this. Hence, in order to respect her privacy, I have not revealed her identity. Her face is covered in the photo used here.
Paul Zacharia is a well-known Indian writer and columnist.