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Maha Kumbh Mela
Maha Kumbh Mela, Allahabad-Prayag Jan 2001 Our Camp:
beyond expectation A whole settlement was
created on the 2-km wide river bed of the Ganga! This would on the Big Day
handle more than the population of New York and London combined… …a government of the
people, for the people and by the people! Rivers of India are not merely flowing water Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn Benaras,
the oldest city on earth VIP
visitors: Madonna, Paul McCartney, Dalai Lama et al Observations and Experiences and
Impressions (this section recommended) Bhuley-Bhatkey
Shibir (Camp for the lost) leela,
navtanki and the modern electronic zamaana Beating
the cold: group comfort Dissolving
into the crowds, and dissolution of the ego On the eve of our departure from Allahabad, we got
news of the devastating earthquake in Kutch and Bhuj. Though the news were
trickling in, we sensed ominously the enormity of the catastrophe. My
brother-in-law and friend Raju, an amateur
rock-climber, called me up to join him for a visit to the Kumbh Mela. It turned
out we were 22 people including some couples with children. We
arrived in Allahabad at 4 a.m. The coach we hired to take us to our “camp” took
us to the river bank up to the the sandy bed of the Ganga river. Along came a tractor with a long trailer. It was funny
hailing a tractor like a cab. We dumped our sacks on the trailer and proceeded.
While I perched on some foothold (or rather, butt-hold) on the tractor, I began
feeling that this could well turn out to be an interesting trip. Top Our
makeshift camp on the riverbed was beyond expectation. Several huts made of
straw mats and army tents. Straw strewn on the fine sand made up the floor and
promised protection from the cold earth at night. We got a large army tent and
quilts for our group. The camp
had piped water supply for the kitchen, common toilets and wash
areas where inmates fill buckets for the toilets and have an occasional bath. Gas
cylinders were available at the Mela. For lunch and dinner
we sat on a long mat placed on the sands and food was served in plates and cups
made of dried leaves (patal and duna). It was reasonably eatable,
though there could be specs of sand on your chapatti! We were ticked off that
we were expected to give a helping hand, so we participated in serving when we
were waiting for our turn to eat. The camp
was in charge of a swami who was the head of all the mandals associated with
the camp (therefore, “mandal-eshwar”). Every morning we woke up to
chanting of vedic shloka’s recited with perfection, and through the rest
of the day and well into the night, there would be a cacophony of various
recitals in other camps all around us. At the end of our stay, we paid some reasonable
amount for the stay, about Rs. 300 (about $6) per day for the stay, food,
quilts, and the “amenities”. Top Like our
camp, there were hundreds of camps of various mandal-eshwars. The whole mela
area was divided into 10 sectors and our camp was in one of them. Apart from
this, the administration had also made some camps for free inhabitation. Besides,
several organisations had also set up an exhibition area, e.g. the Ramkrishna
Mission, Iskcon (Hare Krishna people), Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and so on. With
big displays, free dispensaries, bookstalls, picture galleries, even a stage
for discourses, hymns and other performances. Like in a trade fair. In the
evenings crowds thronged to these pavilions. Huge entrances made like Indian
palaces were erected out of plywood. Foreigners were much attracted by these structures. Then
there were the camps of the District Administration which had moved in here; of
the tent, blanket and quilt contractors; of the police, paramilitary and
military, and others. The General Area: The
rest was free territory for all; where individuals or groups would place a mat
and dwell for the duration of their stay, cook food and sleep. Top The
person in charge of setting up and administering the mela deserves a Padma
Shree. A whole settlement was created on the 2 km-wide river bed of the Ganga! This
would on the Big Day handle more than the population of New York and London
combined! The bed was of fine sand, and wide streets and small lanes
were made out on the sandy bed with street lighting, as you would see on
big-city roads. Flat steel plates were placed on the sand for the cycle
rickshaws and some vehicles to be able to ply, and also to make walking
convenient. Tapped underground water connections were given to all the camps
like our’s. In the general area, over 11,000 makeshift pit toilets were set
up. There
were STD public call offices, at 100 metres in every sector. Police and Special Reserve Police
everywhere, and surprise: they were very polite and helpful! Even to the common,
rural folk, whom they are used to treating as cattle. It was a sign of
technology revolution that so many rural people were making use of the STD
telephone centres to call their families in remote villages. Cleaners,
sweepers were pressed in service in large numbers. There
were over a dozen temporary (pontoon) bridges over the two rivers. In the
waters where people were having their Snaan (this is an exalted word for a
bath, combining spirituality and the act of physical cleansing), there were
river guards in bright shirts spaced 30 feet apart, standing continuously in
the cold water; and behind them were police boats. * The
threat of a terrorist attack loomed large. The police, mounted police, military
and paramilitary people were omnipresent must be spending all these days on the
edge of their nerves. But all such fears seemed to be far from the minds of the
millions who descended to Allahabad, and there was no sign of tension. * There was
hardly any food, except milk and bread packets, available on the mela ground
for payment. And it makes sense. It would have posed a problem of gigantic
proportions of garbage collection and maintaining cleanliness if they had
allowed food stalls. * This region counts as one of the retrograde states
of India! And the government set this up for the commonest of common people of
India, for no charge! Truly a government of the people, for the people and by
the people! Top Some of
you might know the line “Those who came to scoff, remained to pray”. Initially,
I was hit by the number of people, perplexed at their motivation to stick out
and face such hardship, angry when they lost a kin in the crowds and so on. But
by Day-2 itself, I could find myself immersing not in the river, but also in
the general scene… realising the power of the positive energy of millions of
people towards a common purpose… like rays of light, if coherent and in phase,
become a powerful laser beam…. realising the significance of vedic chanting
when done in coherence (Think of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters…) Top In India,
a river is not merely flowing water. Except
the rivers that go into Pakistan, and the solitary, mighty Brahmaputra, which
is son of Brahma, every Indian river is a woman, a goddess. She is revered, in
the Vedic tradition, along with all the Nature’s elements that are bountiful,
munificent, sustaining, providing (Pushti-karta, Kshem-karta, Trushti-karta…).
The river
reflects life in all its manifestations. Born to the mountain: a solid,
immovable, imposing but proud father. How it rushes down as freely, innocently,
as a child plays in the lap of its father. So full of energy and life! So
playfully selfish that it thinks only of itself as it removes everything from
its way. Then as it comes into the plains, how much more the wiser, mature,
calmer, giver and provider to the people! So pretty: the serpentine, river with
bountiful banks, and village belles walking in colourful ghagra cholis
carrying water pots on their heads and in their sinewy waists is one of
India’s prettiest pictures. Finally, as it approaches the sea, the
inevitability of every mission… the journey that starts must end… the feeling
that the journey’s mission has ended, life’s purpose is over: nothing else
remains but to immerse oneself into Nothingness and the Unknown. Finally the
anti-climax: so sudden and so complete disappearance of an entity. The sudden
quiet, calm, peace. The complete dissolution of the Ego. Top At
Allahabad, two of India’s most revered rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna, and
the third Saraswati (the goddess of learning) meet. A Sangam is a confluence of
rivers, but such a major Sangam is given the name of Prayag. The Prayag
represents also the confluence of the two major Hindu faiths: the Shiv and
Vaishnav, respectively. Thus this place is a pilgrimage centre for all Hindus.
Hindus prefer to have their ashes immersed in the Prayag after their death.
Most people come here only for one purpose: to immerse the ashes of the dead
and to have a dip in the Prayag thereafter. Top At one of
the times when Raju and I slipped off from the group, we came to the riverbank
where boats ferried people to the Sangam, or the actual confluence of the
rivers, for the snaan (this is an exalted word for a bath, combining
spirituality and the act of physical cleansing). Impulsively, we asked a
boatman who had a small boat and not able to match competition, if he would
ferry us across the Yamuna river. We negotiated and the father-and-son pair
rowed us across the Yamuna and we had a grand view of the bathing ghats, the
gulls flying all over, the fort and the railway bridge. The water in the Yamuna
is very deep. Then we negotiated with the boatmen to take us to the spot
nearest to our camp. We were
now in deep waters and stiff turbulence of the confluence. Finding it
difficult, the boatmen landed on a little island of sand. The father boatman
asked us if we would like to have a snaan right there: after all this was the
Sangam and he would lend us his lungi (a male person’s sarong). Raju and I
jumped into the chest-deep water. The current was strong and we had to dig our
feet into the sandy bed to avoid being dragged. It was cold, but we had fun and
we stayed in the water for quite some time, and felt like Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn. Top The New
Moon Day was a big-snaan day. The authorities were expecting 30 million people
to have a dip in the river in one day! On that
day, our camp assembled at 4 a.m. in the morning and proceeded under the
leadership of our camp’s mandal-eshwar swamy. Flag bearers were beacons for
staying together. At a certain place, other camps had assembled or were in the
process of arriving. Our mandal-eshwar mounted a decorated tractor (instead of
a horse, which under the circumstances would have surely panicked). During this
stage, we were really squeezed in the crowd. I could sense how one false move
can create a stampede from which one might not survive. I found two elder women
in front of me who turned out to be from my ancestral town and spoke the
language I spoke at home. I asked her, amidst the shoving and pushing, what
made her come all the way here and endure such hardships? She said this was a
repeat for her: she had already been through this on the earlier big-snaan day,
which was on 14th January, considered a very important day as the
sun begins its northern journey. Ultimately,
we were given clearance, as airplanes get their clearances from a control
tower, and we moved ahead. One pontoon bridge was reserved for the
Mandal-eshwars’ processions towards the sangam. The unorganised and camp-less
masses behind the cordon, waiting for the mandal-eshwars and their camps to
finish before they could have their turn at the sangam, saw us pass through
patiently, and many of them reverentially folded their hands towards the
mandal-eshwars at the head of each camp. To have a darshan of saints is a big
thing, it dawned. I was
learning, and becoming more and more humble, all the time. When our
camp people hit the sangam, we had to have our maha-snaan maha-quick, so we
stripped into our bathing clothes, made a dash for the chilled water, and had a
pre-dawn snaan. I went as far as the cordon and was so impressed and humbled by
the view as I turned towards the bathing ghat that I wished I could have stayed
longer. I made 3 dips of my head in the name of dead parents and brother, family,
extended family, in-laws, friends, relatives and close associates at work. Our way
back was through a separate pathway and pontoon bridge. Such were the excellent
arrangements. Top We
watched a major procession of naga-bawa’s. The mounted police had cordoned it.
In the front were the flag and staff bearers, followed by one bawa on horseback
beating a drum, followed by an army of naga bawa’s waving swords and tridents
(trishuls). It would
be closer to call such naga bawa’s as hermits rather than saints. What is
special about them is that they have nothing to do with civilisation and do not
obey our laws. The police are always worried about their going out of control.
Many of them live, without clothes, in the snow-capped reached of the
Himalayas. They smear ash on their body to protect themselves from mosquitoes
and fleas and cold, while they have (or need) a regular dose of opium, which
probably lets them endure such conditions. They are quite crazy but that could
be because we expect humans to respond and behave as we have been conditioned. Later we
visited a special camp of naga bawa’s. We saw a hath-yogi who just stands, he
has not sat or slept horizontally for years. He was dozing and was suspended
from a sling to avoid falling. Another
hath yogi we saw during the day was sleeping on a bed of dry thorny bush and
also covered with the same. People
like me saw them with amusement and wonder, while many folded their hands in
respect of these who had nothing to do with the world as we know it. Who
knows, it might be we who are really living in an illusion. Top A
day-trip to Benaras, a holy city of India. Had a darshan of the presiding deity
Kashi Vishwanath (the Lord of the Universe presiding at Kashi, the mythological
name of Benaras). The temple is suppressed by a mosque built by Aurangzeb and
therefore is a future flash point. Had a boat ride in the waters of the Ganga
along the ghats at Benaras. It is
easy to dismiss Benaras as a dirty, dusty town. But consider that it is the
only pre-Christ (Pre-BC) city along with Cairo, Rome and Athens that still
survives and thrives. Historically it is second only to the Egyptian city of
Cairo, but if you consider mythological references, then it is the oldest city
on earth. Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever (Alfred Lord
Tennyson). It is this quality of timelessness that makes one appreciate that
dirt and dust are cosmetic aberrations. * The young
foreigners there, I think, are more sensitive to this aspect than the urban
Indian himself. Foreigners here are
much cool than urban Indians. The latter are quite snooty. * “Kaashi
nu maran” (death in Kaashi/Benaras) is considered ideal. Funeral processions
with chants of “Ram bolo” continue night and day to the Burning Ghat on the
banks of the Ganga river. Well, while Raju and I were travelling in a cycle
rickshaw (like the hand-drawn car in Hong Kong, except that it is pulled by a
cycle driver), the rickshaw alongside was carrying a corpse (draped in jari
cloth, so it must be that of a woman, a married woman), with a man and a boy on
perched on either side of the corpse, holding burning incense sticks in their
hands and muttering “Ram Bolo”. Our rickshaws travelled next to each other in
the traffic for quite some time. Eerie, funny, maybe, but quite normal in this
city. Top * It was
very easy to get separated. Once you lost sight of your friends, it was very
difficult to find them again. It happened very regularly with us. As it is,
Raju and I had gained notoriety for slipping off, and at times when our group
was moving around together, we had to be extra alert that we did not lose our
group members. Once when
our group was walking towards where the taxis were parked, for a day trip to
Benaras, Raju and I stopped for just a moment to buy a chillum (clay pipe, from
which the hermits smoke opium). And we lost our gang. We stood our ground so
that those behind us would spot us, but to no avail. “This time we’ve had it,
we are going to ruin the day for our group”, thought Raju and I. Eventually, we
hailed a cycle rickshaw (a cycle taxi) and were lucky to find them just before
they noticed we were missing-as-usual. Top * Raju
and I were leaving our camp and walking back to the railway station to catch
the train back home. There were streams of people carrying belongings on their
head, travelling in one direction. I asked one person whether he was coming to,
or leaving, the Kumbh Mela. He said he was leaving. When he found we were from
Mumbai, he said he had two sons in Mumbai, one was a taxi driver and other was
a mill worker. I asked him why he did not ask his sons to bring him for a
pilgrimage/snaan to the Kumbh Mela (in India it is considered quite a good deed
for a son to take his aged parents for a pilgrimage). He said, “Kaa
karey, ee to kal jug hai” (What to do, the era/times is like that). I
found what a great idea it is, this stoic practice of blaming the time
rather than the people! It helps you not to bear grudges. Top Returning
from the day trip to Benaras, halting at a railway crossing late in the night.
It is the eve of the Maha-snaan. The train is packed in every window and door,
and there are people on the roofs in the chilly night. Again, I marvel at the
fantastic motivation. I realise my brother is travelling this same day to
Allahabad and he does not have a reservation. I shudder to think of his
journey. Top * The prime
initiator of our visit, the zealot among us, planned that we sponsor a Bhandara
(lunch) for our mandal-eshwar and camp inmates. Barely was that over, and we
came to know that the next day another very big (i.e. rich) family had
sponsored, at our camp a lunch where 35 mandal-eshwars were invited; and over a
1000 hermits and visitors to the mela would have a free lunch. How could we
pass of an opportunity to have a darshan of saints of a high order? So out went
the idea of an excursion trip. That day, we urban guys one after another
dropped out of volunteer serving due to back pain (how unfit of us!). There
were foreigners in saffron robes who accompanied some of the saints. I could
have sworn that one of them was George Harrison
the Beatle, but I assumed it so unlikely that I did not make any effort meet or
talk to him. Now I wish I had tried. It would have been more inspiring than the
uninteresting mandal-eshwars. Talking
of famous people, it seems Madonna, Paul McCartney; Richard Gere
visited the mela; the Dalai Lama, a couple of Shankaracharyas
and Sonia Gandhi too! The last of course, was a political visit
and a photo-op for a devout catholic to be seen identifying with the largest
congregation of common people of the state from she is elected (and a potential
vote bank) and the hometown of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Jawaharlal
Nehru. Talking
of this rich Marwari family, the youngsters of this clan had stayed in a city
hotel while their elders, the real scions, changed to dhoti and stayed at the
camp in humble surroundings. Top An
obviously emotional member of our party, who must be 4-5 years elder to me,
remarked that the next time he comes to Allahabad will be in the form of ashes,
brought by his son in an urn. Top On one of
our explorations, Raju and I passed a Camp for the Lost and Found folk, where
they provided them shelter and food until they were met by their kin. * There is
a tower at the main bathing venue where announcements are made all through the
day. In the various sectors where the camps are located, the announcements are
made round the clock. * When I
came to know that my brother had also come to Allahabad, Raju and I went to the
tower where they made announcements for the lost and found. Simple, illiterate
people who wanted me to write their messages on little slips of paper mobbed
us. And we wrote a few before tearing out from there. * The
messages that we wrote in Hindi went like this: “Jitender Ki Maa (mother of
Jitender) , resident of village Rampur, District Azamgarh, wherever you are,
come to the Bhuley-Bhatkey Shibir”. It reminded us of the tradition, long
forsaken by our urban men and women, of not calling the spouse by name. * To one
such lady who would have said Pappu ke pita (Pappu’s father), I asked, but what
is indeed the name of Pappu’s father, and with great difficulty, she would
utter it out. It would have been hilarious, were it not for the tears in the
old lady’s eyes. * So many
announcements were heard for a Pappu’s mother or a Munna’s father. Munna and
Pappu are very common fond names, not real names. There would be thousands of
Munnas and Pappus. Everytime a Munna’s father announcement was heard, I am sure
a father would ensure that his Munna is securely attached to him. * One
announcement was heard “ Kapdey Nahin, Nahanaa kaisey?” (I have no clothes, how
do I bathe?). Top The
suave, urbanite: There was one in our group. We found out when he shouted from
behind the tin shed which was the toilet “Hey, there is no tap in this toilet!” Then on
Day-1, he made this statement, “After you have had a snaan, there is
nothing more to do or see, except droves of people, and that too, low class!”
Later, when he tried to offer some money to some of
these “low-class” people, he was surprised to find it politely turned down.
They were not beggars, he was told. This person, during the course of our stay, was
greatly transformed from his original snooty self and had considerably warmed
up to these “low-class, gawar (uneducated) people”. * Raju
offered an old sweater to a woman for her child, both of whom looked like they
were camping in the sands in the cold. They did not accept it. At Chitrakoot,
we met two shepherds from Gujarat region - from where we hail - who had set off
from their village 500 miles away on foot or travelling without tickets. They
had only a pair of clothes in their cloth bags. One of us asked them if they required any money, and they replied
that they were only too happy to be able to talk to someone in their language. Raju and
I found several rural women going from one mendicant to another putting a
fistful of grain in their tins. These were people who were giving what they
themselves probably had too little of! And these
were the supposedly “low-class” people. Top In just a
couple of days, we had become used to calling womenfolk as Mataji (mother) and
Benehnji (sisters) * Some of
the non-urban inmates of our camp felt it quite odd that male members should have
their bath behind the closed doors of the makeshift bathroom. Only women should
use the bathroom, the males can sit under the common water tap, they felt!
These people, unlike the city-bred, are used to bathe at the village well or
the river. * At one of
the better cafes in Benaras, there was a sign “Toilet Not for Males”. The owner
actually refused to allow male members of our group to use the in-house toilet.
* This
restaurant owner admonished a foreigner woman for blowing her nose loudly in a
tissue paper. She did not know what happened, and her boyfriend quietly
explained to her. Blowing nose inside the premises kills the sanctity of
the eating-place. Top * There
are banners all over the mela, saying (translated) “Never do abortion or
vasectomy: if you do not want children, observe control”. One can understand
that the Unborn Children Protection Committee, by virtue of its name, is
against abortion; but vasectomy? * Once, Raju and I strayed very
far away from our camp. The slow walking, shuffling and stopping weared us
down. We spotted a couple of camels and negotiated with the owner to take us as
close to our camp as possible. Only one of them agreed and led Raju and I
seated on his camel. On the way, people looked at us amused. One jokingly
remarked, wonder which is the “Uunt” (camel: a camel is the simile given to
shapeless, ugly persons). Top * Raju and I came across a camp called Parmarth,
which looked quite well-oiled. We wondered how they had raised several tufts of
grass (with a lamp and a cane lamp-shade) in the sand, and checked if they were
plastic: they were real. The foreigners in the camp wore silk kurta-pajama’s
and expensive shawls; and Indians in branded casuals. There was a Yagna (fire worship) in several camps that day,
including this one. But here the Yagna site looked like the coffee shop of the
Taj Mahal hotel. As I took off my shoes to step into the Yagna mandap, I
couldn’t help noticing that that my worn-out shoes without shoelaces were in
the eminent company of Gucci shoes. Top At the
Iskcon (Hare Rama, Hare Krishna) camp, there was a stage on which a couple of
foreigners and a couple of Indians were dancing lively to the chants of Hare
Krishna. Their dancing was spontaneous, probably because they are more used to
dancing often and in public places like proms and discos in their earlier
years. It had a musical quality and rhythm and soon they had even got the
common rural folk among the crowds to dance to the chants and raise their hands
and shout Hari Bole. What the heck, Raju and I also joined them in responding
to the exhortations from the fantastic showman on the stage. The
Iskcon movement takes after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who was a contemporary of our
own Vallabhacharya around 800-1000 A.D. Such a devotee was Chaitanya that he
used to go into a trance when he uttered Hare Krishna, and would be seen
dancing on the streets in total bliss, ignorant of his surroundings and
ridicule. Top * leela, navtanki and the modern electronic age At night,
some of the camps had children all cutely dressed up and enacting mythological
tales; somewhere, it was a veiled village belle (was it really a woman?)
twirling to foot-tapping folk songs and beats and whistles; and yet elsewhere,
there were big TV screens showing mythological films, with generous
interruptions of commercials targeted at rural folk. Top On the
first day, I was shocked at the extreme condition of some of the lepers who
were begging, but soon realised that they were painted to look horrible and
repulsive. I was
shocked to see, a group of women and children huddled together, over their head
a roof of tarpaulin sheet tied across a handcart on either side of them, and
the front shut with straw mats. They would sit that way till morning, with only
their shawls, numbers and closeness to keep them warm. Top * Dissolving into the
crowds, and dissolution of the ego At one
point, when smack in the middle of the road teeming with people, it dawned on
me to ask what am I, who am I, where am I. This sudden feeling of being an
insignificant drop in the ocean, on one hand made me reflective, but on the
other hand, it made me euphoric that it removed all protocol, all acquired
principles, beliefs, views, experiences, values, elitism, post-graduate degree,
dogmas… it didn’t matter, nobody knew, nobody cared. I do not have to be a
Pravin Gandhi, a person that could be defined by genealogy, education,
profession, temperament, mannerism, looks, habits, as one would describe me. I
did not have to behave and act as I have been taught to, or as I ought to. I am
nobody I know. I could do anything or nothing, and nobody would even turn his
or her head. So much privacy, ironically, in the middle of so many people! Like
a crystal of sugar or salt would feel, if it could, when it was dissolved in
water I DO NOT HAVE TO CONFORM! This sudden loss of ego acted as a drug, and
made me ecstatic, want to do many a weird things. I could understand the
hippies now. Top On one of
the truant walks, Raju and I spotted two foreigner women and 2-3 hermits in a
small hut. We stepped up to the tent, backed away, and again went back to the
hut. It would be a first time for us, so we had to gather our strengths. We
asked, “Swamiji, Kuch Milega”? (Can we get something?). The swami asked us what
we wanted. We stammered. The swami looked at us from head to foot. The
foreigner was rubbing the wrists of one of the swami. It looked definitely
shady. The swami asked us to step in. We stepped in, I without removing my
shoes. This upset the swami so much that he immediately asked us to get out and
never to “show our face” again. Top It took
us some more days to gather enough strength to go to a reasonably safe looking
hermit and his disciple who had called it a day and were squat on the sands. I
bowed to him, made a small offering and asked him if we could have some prasad.
He took out his pouch and gave us a pinch of opium, and we came to our camp,
happy with our success. We even had a chillum to light it in. However, we
resolved not to experiment till we got back home, lest we make a scene in front
of our group members and “fall in their esteem”. Top The
morning of the last day, Raju and I went away to do some voluntary service at
the Lost and Found People camp. We were to be back at 1:45 p.m. to pick up
stuff and head for the railway station. Finding
the Lost and Found camp at the river not opened, we wandered around looking for
the cymbals that hermits regularly carry. We found one hermit who had a very
nice chipiya, a pair of long steel ribbon on which were mounted several
cymbals. We asked him to give it to us for payment but he politely refused to
part with it. We increased our offer and still he would not part with it,
saying, this is part of a hermit’s belongings. We left, afraid if we continued
further, he would be offended and give us a “curse”. Rushed
back trying to reach our camp at the appointed time, but saw the hermit from
Bengal, from whom we had earlier tried to obtain a bugle-horn made from the
horn of a buffalo, in vain. This time, too, we were not successful as he
was unwilling to part with it even for revised offer. Needless
to say, we couldn’t reach our camp at the appointed time. Top Last day,
at the river bank, we would be leaving that afternoon. Raju and I decided to
officially bring an end to our visit and in the process, give a Brahmin some
dakshina (alms for offering prayers). Brahmins were doing brisk business (I
wonder if all of them were indeed Brahmins), and we looked around for a
suitable, unemployed Brahmin and when we found one, we specified the amount of
our generosity by asking him to do a sankalp for 11 Rs. We went to the
banks, held the water in our hand while the Brahmin recited his prayers ending
with Dharm Kaarye Siddhaye (May the good/pious/holy deed/pilgrimage be
successful). Top * Gau-daan (giving away a cow) I pointed out to Raju how nice it was that many
simple, poor people were giving away a calf to the Brahmins. But it was not to
be. The calf was the Brahmin’s own (or hired?). The simple, gullible people
would hold the tail of the calf symbolically as if they were giving away the
calf, along with some cash/food offering to the Brahman. Top |
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