MahaKumbh 2025 experience
Day 0
Started journey to maha kumbh 2025 realising that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity and being grateful to my parents for their blessings and supportive wife who manages to run everything. Everything is a once in a life time opportunity, this life, every day, and every breath.
What is making this journey interesting is that there is alignment. Even though the bus is late by 24 hours not a single person shows any disinterest because all are waiting for the reward that is in store. What a great company to have in this journey is such fellow travellers and the lord himself who is taking us through this experience. Unaware of when we will get there, or when we return back but that seems inconsequential with this current state of mind that is hyped up of the unknowns of what lies ahead in the next two days is not just a legend playing its story for millions of people, but participating in it seems like living it, rather than knowing about it. The bus has deboarded and all passengers joined like drops into the whole and merged into the ocean of maha kumbh.
Day 1
A lot of people visited in groups and every group had a leader who kept the people together. Each group leader had his different style to keep the team cohesive. One had a dumru and kept sounding it. Many surrounded their team with a rope and everybody moved inside the rope. Some had a rope like a straight thread and each had to put their hand on the thread while moving. Some had uniform dress code. Some had flags. Some just held their hands so tight which walking that they surrounded the people inside forming a virtual thread. A set of 4 women tied the end of their sarees together, so that nothing can keep them apart. The need to stay intact was high. Singing songs in indian dialetcs together, they seemed driven by purpose. Noticed that in a small group a person with a big beard was applied fragrant oils like doing a prayer by his son, probably. Women were wearing a strange pink tilak from nose tip to top of head. People in a wheel chair, old people whose back is stretched by 90 degrees, and people with single walking stick, double walking stick, a man carrying a women on top of his head are what i see. Every group in the country seemed to have a representation over here.
Day 2
It is said in Siva Purana that during kumbh, 1100 drops of amrut fell over the sangam area and this belief held strong among all who came.
A lady after having sangam bath hugs relative thanking her for the opportunity to be there. and few drops fell involuntarily from her eyes into the sangam adding to the amrut. Every akhara is preparing their best food for everyone. They are inviting all, to consume and until they are completely fed and say no due to tummy fullness, they kept on serving. The people serving the food seemed like sages and saints from whom we usually take blessings from. Who said there is no free lunch. A small boy asks with 2 hands and gets 2 plates, more than what he can carry indiscriminately. There is more blessing here than one can take back home. One can only be ensured of a full tummy at the most. The happiness is perceptible and tangible by just the looks of happy smiles on everyones faces. May be this is a snippet of Rama Rajya or an idea of what true Bharat looked like, about which we read in the books and heard from songs. Aayiye bhandara mein prasad lijiye aayiye. Aayiye bhandara mein nashta kar lijiye aayiye. Such a loving invitation with 0 expectations. Did the civilized world spoil us. What a heaven it would be like if every place is like this and if everytime is like this. An announcement asking to partake rasagulla made me rush to a stall. On noticing that it was a gulab jamoon that was being served instead, i also realized that every gulab jamoon is also a rasagulla.
Another amrit for which there is incessant searching and finding by the visitors is, people moving fast to cover the place to find their spot of peace, to sit inside their hall where what they love to hear is being presented in a way they wish to hear and see. Are these the gopikas who are searching for their krishna? What katha do u want to hear.. ram katha, krishna katha, shiva katha or satya narayan katha and in what format? Like being presented as an enacted drama, or as a pravachan or directly in sanskrit by the mandalacharyas themselves. The best kathakaars have visited the kumbh mela to shower amrut on the listeners. It seemed like people who were gathering together at these pandals, as if it happened many eons back, to listen to the bhagavath katha.
Ye maha kumbh nahi, ye kumbh hai maha, one person said who was enjoying the experience himself. Sadhus taking the blessings from other sadhus, there seems to be an order to this chaos.
"Pesa varuma".. is what arunagirinathar said when he came to face to face with lord. It is not possible to chronicle the views as they pass the mind, because the more i stop to write about these, the more time i miss covering it and watching this place. Yato vacho nivartante, aprapya manasa saha. What gave me satisafaction is to see the big pandal of Swamy, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba in sector 17 and the sevadal discharging their duties, the same way in parthi.
To organize and manage at a high level, everything is divided into sectors from 1 to 24. But for the normie visitor one sector, one ashram, one guru and one katha, is more than enough for one visit of his, as that is where the depth is found. People have no clue in which sector they are and where they are heading. They seem to be carried away and just know where they need to go at the end of the day. People are selling plastic containers to take back the holy sangam water, but they have no idea what a sector means because they even do not have basic education, forget about the english word, sector. This place is so core, so hard core, so native and so raw. Some see it clean, some see it dirty. Everyone sees it from the colour of the spectacles they wear. Everyone knows one answer to any question they cant answer. Prashashan se puchiye. Looks like the prashashan is a decentralized guide to all the people in the form of police guiding everyone.
In mahakumbh , if anyone knows everthing about anything, it is prashashan. No google maps can match them because the roads are changing so dynamically. In a city that is built and teared down in a month, roads are just like water. The police who is a visible force of the prashashan work tirelessly guiding, assuring and helping all the visitors, and to whom every visitor should be thankful for. There might be many more unseen hands working to make this event happen. Shiv ki Sarkar is written on a jeep as i write this.
There are townships inside townships inside townships. So many in saffron robes busy doing their yagna, their tapas what they do daily with fire burning in the logs for individual saints and in the shape of havans for groups. Some taking group photos with the sages as they are the celebrities of the show. Also the difference being the indifference of these saints not wanting anything from the people who want photos from them.
Kajra tek..said a naga sadhu who wanted some cash to be given for his blessings. On reasking, he seemed angry just showing the cash others have given. For every experience that says one thing there is another that says the opposite. Who am i to judge but just a passerby witnessing everything as they pass by me. While walking on the road one asked for money to do puja. On handing him over a note. He gave it back to me and asked to close it with my fists. He hit on my back and asked to open my hand and inside my hand was a rudraksha. He asked for more money, the highest note i had in my pocket. And when i hesitated he took back the rudraksha from my hand and went away. Was wondering why he did not make it disappear from my hand and reconvert into the note i presented to him after. I am only limited and grow as small or big my thoughts are, as they form the basis of my beliefs, or was that an occult experience i just experienced and get to share here.
He who gives is the yajamani. He can judge. He makes the rules. He breaks them its his wish, who are you to question, coming from an asking mindset, from a wanting mindset, from a consuming mindset. That said my mind to me when i got refused to be served an extra biscuit that i asked for, with the tea that was being served as prasadam, after looking at someone who just got their extra biscuit with no effort.
Why do they say har har mahadev...because for every mahadev there are 2 of har..one is the mahadev himself and the other is the shakti of that mahadev. Just lifting head after writing these words came across shakti pandal and inside it, there was shirdi sai statue installed, with praises of guru being sung.
One cannot go to the maha kumbh. The maha kumbh needs to come to one. There should be kumbh happening for someone at some place at some time. It is not a place for certain.
Day 3
Walkers are the majority. They are the seekers, the effort makers, the energy burners, and the poor peasants. Bikers, truckers, vanners , just dont see why the walkers cant give way to their movements and they keep honking until a walker concedes. They want to go there fast, finish the bath and return even faster, assuming that the seat is guranteed in heaven because they had snan in the promised nectar, intoned in the scriptures.
After having a mango lassi, came across some log(hindi)...starting with the log dwar. The log, the aam aadmi talking about the prime minister as if he is their own related person..modiji ne bola hai ki...aisa..aur waisa. Kya such a bond between the prime minister and their citizens. A helicopter is spotted going over the sky and one person shouts..modi, modi, modi. Bhagwan kabhi akele nahi aate hai..saath mein balram bhi aate hai..modi ji ke saath yogi ji., aisa bola hai ek ne.
Chaliye, aage badhiye. Yaha photo lene ke liye thodi aaye hai..ye picnic ki sthal nahi hai..yaha jis liye aaye ho vo karlo aur apni apni gantavya ke liye prasthan kare, says the announcement in the speaker phones placed everywhere.
Are rehne do..aaj nahi lenge to kab aur yaha nahi to aur kaha..says a women to her husband who was preventing a member from their group whole was taking photo on one of the temporary bridges constructed on the river.
Kya kare, Kaha nahaye bhai...?
Mein to sangam me hi dubki lagaa ungi. Jaha ganga, jamuna aur saraswati ji milte hai..kahee aur naheen. Said one whole expressing specific interest.
Ek hi baat hui bhai..jaise aap school mein pad rahe ho..koi 1st class mein aur koi doosri kaksha mein sab log school me hi pad rahe naa..vaise bhi kahee bhi snan karo, ek hi baat hai...said some other grand father instructingnhis grandchildren on their walk. Jaise man vaise bhavna..
Sleeping inside a tent with a cozy mattress and 2 thick rugs to protect against the cold nights and trying to adjust with this, i noticed that there are many hundreds of naga sadhus sleeping just nearby with no clothes on, and seemingly at ease.
What is Mahakumbh?
i am not qualified to answer this question, i present what i felt at this place. Certainly this is not a place. It appears to me that if we put 10 Ayodhyas, 10 Kasis and 10 Vrindavans one beside the other, what we get is 1 mahakumbh.
I heard someone say that each sector is 20 kilometers long and there are more than 24 sectors. Ever since i left Puttaparthi, some 25 years back have i been so attached to a place, that i only wished to have stayed a little longer. But as they say, you get only what your destiny is and certainly some great blessing has allowed me to step foot at this place and stay here for the duration that i have been priveliged to be. This i write after getting energy from eating the most number of prasads ever for the past 3 days, at the bhandaras i know nothing more about. Free food, Free shelters and no clothing mandatoriness and Incessant sweet chants of Sita Ram, Sita Ram, Sita Ram, Sita Ram in the background, are what will go down the memorylane.
During the churning of the ocean of milk, a lot of by products emerged and each of them had to have a taker. It has not been an easy ride to get to the final state. Finally the most wanted amrut has emerged, which was distributed to the devas by vishnu in the form of mohini, or so they say in the puranas.
Triveni Sangam during the MahaKumbh is not just the confluence of the 3 holy rivers, but also the assembling of innumerable saints who came to deliver the amrut they have acquired as devas and the attraction of millions of normal people who have come to partake that amrut. It is a holy dip in multiple dimensions.
A lot of sweat comes out of doing ground work, walking, serving, speaking that come under karma from the pores of the skin. A lot of pelt up emotions surface while listening and learning in this place that form saraswati flow from the eyes as tears, and constitute bhakti. And finally there is a hidden undercurrent that goes all the way up and tries to gush out by looking for pathways to exit as ganga which is the jnana coming out of the jata of lord mahadeva brought back to the homes collected through bottles, completing the triveni sangamam. Blessed is the land, that hosts the kumbh mela. Dharma kaa jai ho.
Time to go back to the Sabhya Samaj.
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