KUMBH MELA: FAITH AND HYPOCRISY

In the planet’s greatest act of faith, 60 millions pilgrims bathed in the holy waters of the River Ganga in Allahabad during the 2001 Kumbh Mela, the Pitcher Fair, seeking salvation from the cycle of birth and death. “It was a grand spectacle, the biggest congregation of humanity, of saints and sinners, of believers and atheists, of idolaters and cynics, of rich and poor, of the superstitious and the enlightened, of the attired and the naked. Millions gather at one place, on their own accord, in pursuance of the common objective of getting off this world, in quest of salvation.” Author Akhil Bakshi joins the shuffling masses for the main bath on the fifth day of the waxing moon. The next Kumbh Mela will take place in January 2013 in Allahabad.