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Indian Tour; as a Traveler, I went Across Indian Crazy Kumbh, it could happen only in India July 3, 2008

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It is the largest gathering of people in the world, it happens every twelve years and it could happen only in India. They come by train, they come by bus, they come on foot. But they come. They come to bathe in the Holy Mother Ganga. This year four million come to be in one place at one time. The place is Hardwar, the time is eight minutes past two on the morning of April 14th. It is unbelievable. It is unique. It is the great Kumbh Mela.

The Hindus love a good legend and the mythological beginnings of this unparalleled religious spectacle are no exception. Many moons ago, the son of Indra, king of the Gods, managed to retrieve (not unlike some sort of celestial “Repo Man”) a kumbh (pitcher) filled with the elixir of immortality that some demons had stolen from the bottom of the ocean.During the twelve-year chase that followed, one of the places in which he and his ambrosia happened to take refuge was Hardwar. Meanwhile . . . back on earth it seems the Mela started as a vehicle for the propagation of Hinduism; a forum where the Sadhus, the Holy Men, could wax enthusiastic about its many virtues to all who cared to listen. That wasn’t very many, so, in order to attract more people, it was decided that anyone who bathed in the Ganga at a Kumbh Mela would be absolved of all their sins. No questions asked. This, of course, had the desired effect, and since the thirteenth century it has become part of Hindu culture.

Travel GuidebookThis year there had been a call for the Mela, once again, to be the platform for a serious Hindu revival, but the millions flooding into Hardwar didn’t care. They were coming because of their unquestioned belief that bathing in the Ganges on April 14th would cleanse their souls; the Holy River washing away those stubborn sins and taking them, and any other flotsam that might happen to be in the water, somewhere off in the direction of the Bay of Bengal.

To wash my own sins away, even at such an auspicious occasion, would have taken far too long, so, leaving my swimming trunks in downtown Delhi, I found myself sitting on the top of a crowded pilgrim bus heading for Hardwar in the foothills of the Himalayas. Jupiter was in conjunction with Aquarius and, as any astrologer worth his star charts should know, it could mean only one thing. After two months of frenzied build-up, the next day would be the climax of the Kumbh Mela. Four million sinful Indians all trying to bathe in the same place at the same time? There was only one place to be in India and, excited and nervous, it was exactly where I was going. Nothing could have prepared me for the next twenty-four hours.

From several kilometres outside the town a seething mass of humanity was inching its way towards the banks of the Ganga. It was on a biblical scale. Only Charlton Heston was missing as this swarm of people was sucked inexorably towards the water’s edge; the river of Life and Salvation. Gradually, as the streets narrowed, the multitudes became locked together into a solid lump and I was no longer able to stop or go back. It was too late, and as night fell I was pulled deep inside the Kumbh Mela and deep into India.

Lost in a swirling mass of people, colour and energy. Wet, cold, shivering bodies pushing their way through the crowds; people silhouetted in the clouds of dust thrown up into the air; small babies being held up and unceremoniously plunged headlong into the water; old couples desperately clinging to each other and to their precious vials full of “Holy water“; the very old being carried down to the river for their last act of purification; and everywhere people bathing in touching individual displays of faith.

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Indian Tour; as a Traveler, I went Across Indian Crazy Kumbh, it could happen only in India

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