The Maha Kumbh experience
- JB
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
In the gathering of millions, find your own path, your own connection to the divine.
Sometime in November of 2024 I woke up to an earlier memory twelve years ago - one where i had wanted to go to the Kumbh Mela. There were sporadic reports of how Uttar Pradesh was gearing up for what they said would be the largest gathering of humanity, within a forty square kilometer area at the heart of which is the Triveni Sangam - the meeting of the Ganga, the Yamuna and the underground Saraswathi. A once in a 'many-a-lifetime' event.
After making some half-hearted attempts at figuring out the logistics, time just went by. Soon it was February of 2025 and procrastination was winning. Every time i heard of someone having gone and visited I felt a fomo moment. The lazy excuse that 'if it is for me then it will happen' was often found hovering under my breath.
Why was I so keen? For one, the next time, even assuming I was on a rebirth-roll, would be taking place way beyond the 'singularity' point that our AI pundits say is not far in the future. And finding cheap transport from Mars or one of Jupiter's moons to the Triveni might just be difficult.
Speaking of cheap transport, it was anything but that, when I finally got 'the call'. There were just a couple of date options and a route which required that I fly to Varanasi (aka Kashi) and make my way from there. Now that was something fortuitous, that I would be flying in and staying in what is said to be the oldest living (continuously inhabited) city in the world. At least 3000 years old and if ancient Indian texts are consulted then it is said to be 10,000 years old.
The agency did my bookings and I was all set to make the trip in two weeks. A detailed questioning would reveal that I was going alone, which sent my panicked family into a 'companion' hunt, culminating in my cousin Arun making it a journey of 2.
In the brief waiting period that followed, I get messages from friends who, like I had planned, had zipped in and out of the Kumbh mela. And from other friends who thought I was certifiable and having a loose nut in my head.
Whitesnake crooning,"But I had made up my mind, wasting no more time, here i go again" in my head, I prepared to tackle any eventuality. Arun and I sync up briefly and he too was ready to 'play it by ear' when we hit the hallowed grounds.
The flight to Varanasi was full, uneventful and for a change everyone had only one final destination viz Prayagraj.
The airport was a pleasant surprise, modern and spacious, fast baggage claim and we were escorted by Vikas our cab driver and soon to be ally, into the city.
The surprise turned into amazement at the road we went on, a 30 minute super smooth expressway ride, right into the city.
Our hotel situated right next to the cantonment area had a well appointed room and a 24 hour restaurant. Just right for a meal and a few hours of sleep.
After, what turned out to be a pretty good meal, we feel the need to walk both to get some digestion going as well as to shake of the hours of sitting that we had done. So we step out of the hotel and right into the midst of a band bajaa baraat (wedding procession). Here we were amongst the millions to take on the Kumbh only to recognize that life-as-usual just goes on no matter what.
Our driver Vikas had told us that reaching Prayag and then the boathouse could take 5 hours and so we were ready and in the lobby at 430 am the next morning as instructed by him. At 445 am not sighting Vikas we call him, probably a wake up call. The hotel is nice enough to give us a packed breakfast containing, fruits, sandwiches et al. We finally leave at 530 am IST (Indian Stretchable Time.) The journey to Kumbh had begun.
The ride was smooth and minimal fuss for most of the way, on what was a really high quality expressway. It connected Vararnasi to Lucknow and beyond in a few hours. I had read about these roads being develeoped in the region and now was on them. Having started an hour later than planned, there was quite a bit of traffic but we kept moving. An hour into the ride we pulled over for some chai at what looked like an informal layby that had a clutch of shops selling tea, biscuits and other sundry stuff. A lot of vehicles had pulled over.
Many people must have been traveling through the night as we saw several men (mostly men) chewing on Neem sticks, a reminder that the toothpaste industry had some way to go. It also made me think that there was an entrepreneurial opportunity here for someone. The neem twig is as long as a toothbrush of which an inch or so is used and the rest discarded. Why not design a holder made of bamboo or wood into which you insert say a 2 inch twig half way through. Package a couple of holders and a dozen 2 inch twigs for example and market it in the hinterlands where they still use Neem or Meswak twigs. Set this up as a social enterprise. Get a good product design agency to design and test the product (holder mainly). Give the design to interested entrepreneurs in different areas/regions of rural India.
And yes, also teach some civic lessons on how not to litter the area and that there are better ways to leave your mark on this planet. Incidentally this was the only place that we saw such littering, on our entire trip!
We soon reach the outskirts of Prayagraj. The highway being a bit elevated we could see the traffic snarl going into the city. We were told that it would take around 3 to 4 hours to cover the 10 + km. So we asked Google. It promptly showed us a route that directed us further on the highway to a service road exit which was non-existent and did that to us a couple of times. We finally reached an exit that merged us with the road coming from Ayodhya, so we were back on track, but probably 25 km from Prayagraj now.
This road looks promising (really) though the left-turns that the map wanted us to take were all barricaded. I managed to talk one of the policemen into opening one of the barricades thus sending us back towards our destination.
After an hour or so of driving through rural settings, we found ourselves in a neighbouring town named Phaphamau which is separated from Prayagraj by the Ganges. Here our car journey came to a halt. The line of cars that were ahead of us was estimated to take 4+ hours just to get to the other side. So we get off the car and decide to find another way in. Luckily for us we found a gent who offered to get us there on a couple of motorbikes. After a brief reccy we ask Vikas to park at the parking lot , which was basically an extention of the Bela Kachhar bus stand.
Thus began the mobike adventures. Two young bikers with no protection, rode like crazy through the standing traffic riding what i thought was headlong into oncoming vehicles. After a while I got numb to the constant risk of extinction.
We finally arrive at a point which we are told that the Sangam a 500 metre walk ahead. Arun in his happiness hands over a box of sweets to our pilots. We look around and dont see any boats or the boathouse. Probably miscommunication or misunderstanding of each other but we had been dropped at Sangam ghat, which is not where the boathouse was. The boathouse in fact was on the opposite bank which meant that we had to figure out a way to get there, again by motorbikes.
After much discussion with some locals who all came forward to help or get involved, we picked up two bikes again run by young boys, all now part of this micro economy that had been created. For not a very large sum of money, which probably was a lot for them, we embarked on another 'exciting' (more like death defying) motorbike ride, one of a kind that you only see in movies and finally were deposited outside the river bank where we could see the boats.
The biker boys of course were not satisfied by just dropping us there and wanted to make some money by arranging our boat.This opportunism, resulted in multiple boatmen being brought to us and finally on us choosing one of our own, caused a lot of heartburn with the biker boys. Anyway, that was that and they left.
In all the ensuing brief commotion, I walk across to a middle aged boatman to ask what he thought about all this. He quite sweetly gave me an interview,
We were now on the final leg of our journey to the Sangam, one that we started six hours earlier in Varanasi. We had rented the entire boat to ourselves not wanting to get stuck by somebody else's schedule.
This journey is where we saw, once again, the organisation power of the state; the water was completely clear and clean, the boat man insisted on my buttoning up the lifejacket telling me that otherwise he would not proceed. Both buttons.
Seagulls keeping vigil while we reflect on the ride that got us here, as I'm sure would be others too
As we neared the Sangam there were hundreds of boats converging towards it. Yet there was a method to the chaos and the madness. Our boat was neatly manoeuvered into a spot where it was shallow enough for us to stand chest deep in the flowing water.s I went in first and did my 'dubki' (holy dip) and then we got Arun out of the boat and he did the same.
It was quite surreal, surrounded by so many people all coming to wash away their sins. Large families of people, men, women and children. An immense congregation of faith. Despite the large number of people even at the Sangam, the water was really clean. Arun had purchased a couple of Jerry cans which our boat man kindly filled up with holy water. Many months later when I had the need to open my can of Gangajal I was shocked and in awe to see how crystal clear the water was.
We spent some time in the water, but soon it was time to head back. Our return ride was contemplative and silent. The river was full of seagulls diving all around us, the stray sounds of a motor boat splitting this silence as it cut through the waters towards the Sangam where even those VIPs would have to jump in with everyone else.
Looking at the boat man pulling the oars manually both up to the sangam and back which would've been a couple of kilometres each way made us appreciate his way of life. It also reminded me that this hard work that he was doing would probably make him a rich person by the end of the kumbh. Who says that hard work does not pay?
Now with the main goal having been achieved, Arun and I reflected back on the naysayers who thought that we were crazy trying to do this. All of whom were well meaning friends but who had not studied this phenomenon in depth.
We walk to the boathouse find an empty hall, change from our wet clothes to fresh ones and we are ready to continue our adventure. With the adrenaline rush tapering off, hunger pangs takeover. and we decide to go to the centre of the city for some food. We find a rickshaw that agrees to take us there and drop us off at a fairly central circle where we can spot a few restaurants. In the end there was actually just one (the others had run out of food) Hotel Prabhas and we were so hungry that we ended up eating pizzas and pasta - so much for wanting to search for the local fare.
At the same junction, Arun finds a statue of my earliest ancestor- Sage Bharadwaja outside an eponymous and pretty park. That again was a learning that he was venerated here in Prayagraj.
While we were having a great time, one of the things that I was hoping to see or meet did not happen. That was to encounter some Naga Sadhus. Given that we were here at the fag end of the mela most of them had left to go back home.
Soon it was time to figure out how to head back and find Vikas who we had left behind in this giant parking lot many miles away. We find two well dressed bikers, educated college kids, who apologetically asked us for some Rs.300 each to be dropped to the parking lot. We jump on and are on our third bike ride of the day, this time through a pontoon bridge that we approach alongside miles of traffic jam only able to navigate because it was a bike. I could hear drivers and people talking about how they had been stranded there for hours waiting for the traffic to move.
In retrospect, I tell myself I would like to review what I had claimed in an earlier blog (the one on EBC) that my three hour horse ride from 5200 m to 4000 m coming down the Himalayan mountains, mostly in the dark, my horse being happiest walking on the edge of the path of the drop of God knows how many thousand feet as the craziest ride of my life. These bike rides, equally riding on the edge of the road over the river, probably rivalled that.
Once again the genius of the state was on display. What must have been largely mudflats had been made into motorable two-way roads by laying out huge steel sheets to end along the entire 10-15 km distance.
We reach the parking lot surprisingly soon after we clear the pontoon bridge. And finding our driver is not that difficult. I guess he must've had some good long hours of sleep because he greets us looking very fresh and happy that we had managed to reach the Sangam and dip in the waters after all.
The ride back to Varanasi was quiet, as the adrenaline had begun to drain and we finally got dropped off at our hotel quite late only to realise that we had an early morning start as the next item on the agenda was to visit the famed Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. And a few more places that he had planned for us to go to and to which i added 'lets do a boat ride' and lets swing by Sarnath on our way out.
The day was packed, eventful and memorable as we do a whirlwind tour of the city. (covered in the blog post 'As Old as History' )
That evening we leave for the airport. Once again the airport terminal and facilities impress and serve as a reminder that Uttar Pradesh, which has the largest land mass and is the most populus state in the counntry has been developing its infrastructure in a big way. Iron hand or velvet glove, it seems to be working.
The flight is late. We eat at the airport. Finally board the plane and I shut my eyes. I wake up to the wheels of the plane hitting the Bangalore runway and this short, hectic, historic, memorable trip comes to an end.
I am reminded that our great festivals are the journeys we take and the places and people that we discover. The kumbh had been done. Sins washed in the flowing waters of belief. Gained an appreciation of the reverrence and worship of nature and the stars from the time of our ancestors. Or as Osho put it and I summarize "the kumbh mela is an example of collective consciousness and a reduction of the 'I' in you. And the penny drops!
My thanks to Arun, without whom this experience (Of the Kumbh and Varanasi) would not have been the same. And for his keen review of names, places, times and sharing his pics some of which are seen here.
Comments