JANUARY 27, 2013
Back to back nights going into the Kumbh Mela. The anticipation was incredible. I didn’t know what to expect, though I was
certain it would be crazy. Rumors have
spread through our ashram about who was going to go in at night and when. Nearly ten women pulled me aside to see when
I would enter and if they might be able to tag along, as small groups of women
are advised against it and solo women need not even think about it.
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| All meditation and no kirtan dance party makes Scott a dull yogi |
What would the experience be like? Would there be crazy Sadhus everywhere, naked
other than the ash they cover their bodies in?
Would it be a shoulder to should spiritual mosh pit of Indian men? Would the intensity of at all be too much to
handle? These are the questions that
entered my mind as I lay down each night and arose each morning with the
distant but loud chants and songs and music of blasting from the cheap
over-amplified speaker of various spiritual camps and ashrams cranking 24 hours
a day. My mind danced with scenes from
the documentary Shortcut to Nirvana. The
Burners in our group compared their experience here to Burning Man. And that scared the hell out of me.
In the end, the experience was somewhere between lame and
mildly entertaining. For both nights I
somehow ended up trekking in with only one other male, DJ the first night and
Ben the second. Each night started
incredibly slow, seeing nothing too crazy.
The last half of the second night got interested when Ben
and I randomly paired up with a guy from New Delhi who was escorting a Chinese
couple around. His English as great,
energy high, and we never once were asked to pay him anything as so many
spontaneous Guides tend to do. He was
simply interested in showing us the Mela and making sure we had a great
experience in his country.
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| You think I don't know how to use manual focus? This is, like, art, man. |
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| And at this point in the trip this is somehow not weird. |
Our first stop was an ashram hosting a play. These low budget theatres sprung up at night
in may of the camps seem to be more about what the Kumbh Mela embodies, which
is to say entertainment and recruiting efforts.
The speakers were so loud in the place that you had to yell at anyone
you were trying to communicate with. The
play was in Hindi of course. Like all
others, I assumed it was a tribute to one of the gods, though I really had no
idea what was going on. The deafening
singing was too much for my low grade tenidis.
Somewhere in some deep dark government hideout that CNN doesn’t get to
report on, there is a sleep deprivation torture chamber. This is what I image that hovel to be like.
The next thirty minutes were a blur. By chance we ran into our guides friends from
back home. About ten guys exploded out
of an SUV and wanted their pictures taken with the weird looking white
guys. I was fading fast and want to call
it a night. It was enough sensory
stimulus for one day. Our guide offered
to get us a ride. And not a tuk tuk or
taxi, but a free ride from someone driving by.
Next thing I knew Ben and I were loaded in the back cargo area of an SUV
and being driven home by some Allahabad locals who called us their guests and
insisted on taking us all the way.
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| Just outside our retreat grounds. |
It was not the insane spiritual
experience I had envisioned. It was
better. It was Indian kindness and
hospitality at its best.
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