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India's most popular spot beckons to millions
India's most popular spot beckons to millions
By Nelson Graves
ALLAHABAD, India, March 9 (Reuter) - Kamla visited because the river
called her. Chandragi gets everything he needs here. Soukou digs on his
hands and knees for a fistful of coins.
They are among millions of pilgrims who converge every year on a sandy
Indian riverside looking for a dip and salvation.
It's India's most popular spot, where the mudddy brown Ganges river
merges with its dark green sister, Yamuna.
"Everything I've ever got, whatever I have wanted, I have received
because of this holy place," says Chandragi, dressed in olive army fatiques
and combing his raven black hair after a daily bath in the holy confluence.
Tens of millions of Hindu worshippers, many of them barefoot and in
rags, swarmed to the sandy spit during a recent 40-day festival to wash
away their sins.
Turbaned policeman Dinesh Ravath, who helped look after 10,000
gun-toting colleagues, said up to 60 million bathers visited -- the world's
biggest gathering of people.
On January 30, the day which astrologists proclaimed the most
auspicious for bathing, 18 million people splashed in the swirling river
junction called the sangam.
Hindu scriptures say the sangam's sacred status dates to the earth's
origin. Gods and demons squabbled over a pitcher of holy nectar, one drop
of which guaranteed immortality.
During the struggle, the gods spilled nectar at four places --
Allahabad, Nasik, Haridwar and Ujjain -- where bathing has since been
considered a sacred rite.
A city of grey canvas tents sprawls over 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres)
outside the northern city of Allahabad. Seated on jute mats in a neat line
along a rutted road, invalid beggars stretch out tin bowls. A fingerless
leper, his hands swathed in soiled bandages, spreads coins on his dusty
mat.
Still hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the sea, the shallow Ganges
carves a lazy curve, then all but disappears in sand flats before meeting
the faster flowing Yamuna.
A jumble of makeshift shops made of bamboo and straw cater to
pilgrims' needs: garlands and coconuts for the gods, plastic bottles for
carrying some holy water home.
Women in bright yellow and green saris carry belongings in sacks
perched on their heads as they walk past a herd of goats. A half a
kilometre across the Yamuna, loudspeakers blare high-pitched Hindu chants.
Pilgrims stumble into long wooden boats to be rowed to the sangam. They pay
a handful of rupees a head. Tourists and journalists pay 100 ($3).
Makiphal kneads oil into a man's scalp. He pulls a long single-edge
razor from a satchel, pushes the kneeling man's head forward and begins
scraping. In minutes the man is bald except for a small tuft of hair, and
ready for his holy dip.
Makiphal, 30, came to Allahabad one month ago from the central state
of Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of kilometres (miles) away. Clients, who offer
their hair to the river, pay what they can, generally two to five rupees.
"I have shaved more than 1,000 heads," he says. "The problem is, there are
more than 1,000 barbers."
Kamla arrived with her father six weeks ago from the eastern state of
Bihar. They bathe once every day at 6 a.m. Her first pilgrimage will cost
them 2,000 rupees ($65), a large sum for most Indians.
"If the Ganges calls me, I will come back," says the 35-year-old, her
teeth glittering white and her hair flecked with grey.
Two dozen bare-chested men clad in white cotton dhotis, their heads
newly shaved, chant in a circle to the beat of a crude drum. They light
incense and fresh leaves, then smear green paste on each other and a
journalist standing nearby.
On his knees at the water's edge, Soukou, 75, draws a piece of bent
scrap metal through the moist sand. He finds 2, 3, 5 rupees' worth of lost
coins a day.
"I don't want to do this but I have to," the wizened man says. "There
was more money after the main bathing day. But then, thousands of us were
looking."
Lalou is selling milk in a pail. For five rupees, you can throw three
scoop-fulls into the Ganges as an offering.
A young mother clutches her naked, four-month-old daughter as a barber
shaves the infant's head. The woman, still in her yellow sari, wades into
the water to dunk the howling girl.
Knee-deep with eyes closed, pilgrims press their hands together in
silent prayer before swiftly ducking under the water. Others lean over boat
gunwales to offer flower petals to the rushing current.
The sun is a red ball hovering above the far bank of the Yamuna. The
current is strong as the silty water sweeps past the beach. Far from its
Himalayan source, the shallow Ganges is warm to the touch. Time for a dip.
