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Five days prior to Mauni
Amavasya, the biggest day of
the biggest religious festival
in history, the district High
Court of Allahabad decreed that
ALL photography had been banned
within 500 meters of any holy
bathing area, or sangam.
This was the worst news possible
for anyone with a serious
camera, with the lone exception
of NASA, who had agreed that
the
single largest gathering of
humanity the planet earth has
ever known
was worth orbiting over for a
snap or two.
I heard the reasoning three
ways: 1) That Channel 4, during
some of its broadcasts back to
the UK, had shown Indian women
with exposed breasts bathing in
the holy sangam and had
therefore made mockery of the
Hindu religion for purposes of
monetary gain via high ratings.
This on its face was patently
ridiculous. Even if such
occasions did occur on Channel 4
broadcasts, they would likely
have had just the opposite
effect. Trust me when I tell
you that the quality of breasts
exposed in the sangam
were not anything anyone wants
to see, not even an Englishman.
2) That a Western photographer
was seen aiming his lens
in the general direction of a
pair of Indian breasts in the
throes of watery worship. 3)
That a Western woman carried
away not by devotion but by
drugs and raving sacrilege,
stripped herself nude and
frolicked through the sangam,
again making mockery of the
Hindu religion as slavering
photographers snapped her every
frolic.
The first two possible reasons
were in the Allahabad papers and
widely circulated on a grapevine
of slowly shaking heads and
incredulous smiles. The last one
I heard from an AFP cameraman
two months later at the FCC in
Phnom Penh. In any event, or
even in the event of all three,
the decision to ban cameras
would prove short sighted,
virulent, and typically
Indian—God bless all billion of
‘em. ‘Small fire is best being
extinguished with petrol’ might
as well be the national
motto.
The first proof of virulence—and
casualty—came immediately. An
Indian cameraman was set upon
with a cane for shooting near
the sangam and had his
camera confiscated by an army
officer. He was justifiably
furious and took his case
immediately to the Media
Center—an assemblage of drab,
uninspired tents and equally
drab and uninspired bureaucrats
seemingly assembled for the sole
purpose of doing nothing at all
constructive.
A heated debate ensued,
resulting first in the
photographer’s camera being
smashed to the ground, and
second, with his head being
smashed with a brick. This
‘petrol’ looked to be
of high octane. A media
protest was later organized and
a demonstration took place
outside the Media Center,
resulting, predictably, in
nothing at all constructive.
Despite dire warnings of the
inevitable chaos to come, the
High Court stood firm. Now you
had a case of photographers and
camera crews from all over the
world having gone to a lot of
effort and expense to be
here—some even at the behest of
the Indian government—being told
they could not do what they came
here to do, which was,
ostensibly, something
constructive. Now it was all
starting to make sense.
Everybody I spoke with was irked
but undeterred. Britain’s
Channel 4 was going with hidden
cameras. So were the Japanese
and even some of the Indian
crews. A Dutch group of still
photographers was going to try
and man the tower about 600
meters from the sangam
with high-powered lenses. Others
were going to try their luck in
a rowboat. They would need a
submarine with a zoom
periscope. Other still
photographers like Mac (demi-famed
Australian photographer Alastair
McNaughton) and myself were
tucking our cameras under our
clothes and taking our chances.
So basically, what you had was
some 10,000 Indian Army troops
going into battle against a
couple of hundred miscreants
with cameras hiding amidst
millions upon millions of devout
civilians. Though the army was
brandishing a wide array of
death causing devices, canes,
praise Vishnu, were to be the
weapon of choice.
With all those millions of
people and all those square
miles of vast Mela grounds,
you’d think your odds as a
photographer of going undetected
were pretty good. That is until
you took in the other factors.
The target area on this day was
comparatively small—the 20 to 30
meter wide 2K long procession
route that would carry the
Mela’s main attraction, those
zany naked warrior ascetics
known as Naga Babas, down to
bathe in the Naga section of the
main sangam. That was it.
This was Ground Zero.
Another factor not to be
overlooked: that of being a
foreigner. We stood out in this
dark-skinned Indian crowd like a
rainbow in Pleasantville.
Add a camera to that, which you
had to take out sometime, and
you morphed into the aurora
borealis. Where on the Shahi
Snan (major bathing day
determined by Naga astrology) of
the 14th we were
given fair access by army and
pilgrims alike, on this day we
would find both working against
us. The pilgrims knew about the
camera ban and believing the
hyperbolic papers, many among
them would consider us a
scurrilous enemy to piety on
this, the greatest day of their
religious lives.
‘Holy
War’
The 24th of January
2001 AD. Five thousand four
hundred and sixty-five years
after the first Mauni
Amavasya, observed by that
unnamed nudist proto-astronomer
in 3464 BC, marks not only the
origins of the Kumbha Mela, but
also the Naga Baba’s as
“proto-originators”. To this day
the 13 akharas of the Shambhu
Panch, led by the infamous
Juna Akhara, determine
exact bathing dates and throw a
lot of general weight around
this very heavy happening.
The night prior to the big event
Mac and I settled in for our
illegal cocktail hour at Camp
Pilot Baba (Pilot Baba, perhaps
best known for crashing a record
number of Indian Air Force
planes and living to tell the
tales, was the ‘Rolex guru’ in
whose camp we were staying. He
was aligned with the Juna
Akhara, the most notorious,
violent sect of Naga ascetics
surviving today. As part of
Pilot Baba’s media retinue we
were able to gain access to the
Juna Akhara when it was
otherwise closed to the public)
and discussed our camera ban
battle plan. Mumbai black rum
and ‘reverse osmosis Ganges
water’, (presumably to purify it
of burnt body parts, raw sewage,
industrial pollutants, etc.),
stirred not shaken, served in
tiny plastic chai cups was the
best we could do under the
circumstances.
We had two plans to consider,
and neither included obeying the
High Court. They were, in order
of triteness, Plan A and Plan
B. Plan A, was to make our way
down to the main sangam
(holy bathing area at the three
rivers’—the Ganges, the Yamuna,
and the invisible Saraswati—confluence)
where the Grand Procession and
the Nagas would dump out to
splash, hoot, holler and
otherwise avail themselves to
God’s good graces. There we
would stake out a vantage point
behind the lines, cameras
hidden, and hope for the best.
But the drawbacks didn’t excite
us. Without the front row
advantages afforded by the now
off limits media corral that
lined the route, and the laid
back security forces that made
the much smaller Shahi Snan
of the 14th a breeze,
both would now have to be
struggled with directly. Not to
mention the burgeoning slew of
other cameramen and
photographers all trying to stay
invisible while vying for
position. There was the distinct
possibility of being left
walking away with a squat named
Diddly.
Plan B, as befitting the nature
of Plan B’s, would be more risky
but the payoff was potentially
far greater. It meant walking
right under the vigilant eyes of
that pesky, ubiquitous Indian
Army and millions upon millions
of Hindu pilgrims on high camera
alert. We would attempt to walk
right smack in the middle of the
Grand Procession, joining it
first at the source, right
inside the Juna Akhara.
And keep every available
appendage crossed.
Plan B it would be.
The decision made, we had a few
more plastic thimbles of rum,
did ritual puja to Lord
Shiva, and Mac the ‘Snap Baba’
held satsang, regaling
the night with photographer’s
war stories from the far flung
reaches of the earth, all
thematic and inspirational to
the snapper’s ongoing quest to
get—the
shot.
***
The inner circle of devotees,
seventy-five or so, which
included half a dozen
Westerners, made their way from
Pilot Baba’s compound to the
Juna Akhara camp beginning
about midnight. What that meant
to us was about five hours of
standing around shivering in the
darkest before the dawn and the
start of the Grand Procession.
No thank you please. We slept in
to 4 am confident we’d be able
to get into the akhara
before it was sealed off. It was
neither a good sleep nor an easy
rise. It was freezing ass cold.
Speaking of ass…
There was rumbling and
foreboding.
In anticipation, I sent Mac off
for chai and ran to wave a
white flag at the bad sabji
Jihad that had been firing
mortar rounds around my
intestines for the last 48
hours. Actually, ‘Jihad’ was a
poor choice of metaphors, for
what then passed from me—with
extreme prejudice—had more of a
Vesuvius like quality. The
staccato bursts of molten green
sabji that erupted from
the bowels of my bowels were so
loud and so fabulously
ridiculous that I couldn’t help
but laugh ridiculously. Doing
so—and considering all the
bleary eyed Indians in nearby
tents likely waking to the
magnitude of this mad
foreigner’s magma
melody—launched me into near
hysteria. But let me tell you,
I wasn’t the least bit happy
about it.
The trek through the choking
dust and dung fire smoke that
hung like another dimension over
the Mela grounds would take
about an hour, including chai
stops, wherever chai was there
to be stopped for. Just as we
were exiting under the flashing,
gaudy pink archway that marked
Camp Pilot Baba, still clearing
the fog from our heads so as to
make room for the smoke and
dust, some gangly, wide-eyed
Englishman on the way in stopped
to ask a question. “Excuse me,
but do you fellows know where
they’re having the function?”
The function? It was too absurd
to elicit an answer from me.
Without stopping, Mac managed a
vague sort of half-armed,
grunt-n-point in the general
direction of where the 30
million bodies were gathering,
some three miles distant.
“Did you here what that moron
asked us? A function?!” Snap
Baba was aglow with Aussie
incredulity. “What does he think
this is, a fucking tea party?”
The army’s mindset was clear at
the outset. If they thought you
didn’t look like you belonged
wherever it was that you were,
you were beaten somewhere they
thought you did. With a
hardened, bamboo cane. The
Calvary was everywhere. As we
approached the Juna Akhara,
Mac was keen to go for another
cup of chai before entering.
Noticing the intensity with
which the Calvary was cracking
down on the crowd, I recommended
we get our sorry asses into the
akhara and pronto. We
slid in just at the last second.
As we stood inside, nervous and
unsure as to the status of our
belonging, we watched two men
get thrashed away from the
entrance. This was both a relief
and a cause for concern. Would
we be next? We hurried further
inside and were recognized by a
friendly Naga who raised a hand
to the stave off approaching
soldiers. After all, we were an
essential part of our Rolex
guru’s personal media team, were
we not? Well, not really, but
they didn’t know that. At any
rate, the perception was good
enough to make it look like we
belonged. Sort of.
The Juna Akhara is
considered the most fierce and
individualistic of the 13
akharas, still adhering to
and practicing many of the more
ancient rites, rituals, and
tapasayas. They are a Shaiva
sect but their present deity is
Dattatreya, a partial
incarnation of rival deity
Vishnu, with many Shiva
characteristics. Only in recent
years did the kinder, gentler
Dattatreya replace Bhairava, who
was depicted in a multi-headed
perpetual ecstasy, surrounded by
a bevy of hot Hindu babes,
slugging wine, fornicating like
a mad sultan and eating flesh
from a human skull.
Though it is clear the Juna
hierarchy has seen the
future of their existence as
dependent on a certain level of
Hindu style political
correctness that includes a
manipulative openness to the
media, it is just as clear that
certain minority factions within
its ranks do not welcome these
changes. The problem is, you
never know who these ‘brain
eaters’ are until they reveal
themselves, and these
revelations are never pleasant.
In light of this—even with the
general mood within the
akhara one of positive
excitement, with plenty of
laughing and hand warming over
dhunni fires, passing of
the charas chillum, (hash
pipe), yogic asana
practice, and rolling naked
through holy ash—we thought it
best to mingle into the relative
security of the Pilot Baba
retinue.
In stark contrast to the mood
inside, outside the akhara
where our immediate futures lay,
was a different story. There is
a certain tension that
accompanies incessant cop
whistles punctuated by the
crisp crack of cane. No, this
wasn’t war, and barring some
terrorist siege or stampede, not
even life or death. But it was
to be a battle, and the threat
of bodily injury and destruction
of expensive equipment hung
heavy. Perhaps worse and
weighing more heavily was the
very real possibility in all
this mayhem of being denied
position to get the
shot.
I didn’t come all this way and
go through all this shit to get
shut out.
As we stood around and shivered
waiting for things to get
started, wouldn’t you know it,
‘Vesuvius’ began rumbling again.
Its molten dissonance obviously
hadn’t been exhausted during its
most recent pyrotechnics back at
camp. Rather than risk missing
something and seek out the
akhara squatter however, I
decided to cinch up and bear
it.
The assassins of aesthetics and
proper pomp—the tractors and the
attached steroidal Radio Flyers
that would serve in lieu of the
elephants and chariots of the
past—had been earlier fitted
with the Shaiva red thrones
trimmed in gold that would frame
the gurus, shading them with red
umbrellas hung with gold
tassels, and festooned with
garlands of marigolds enough to
endanger the species.
We had been standing around
observing and conversing for
about 45 minutes when the
tractors roared to life and a
line of Nagas came running
through and out onto the sandy
boulevard where the procession
had begun to take form. We
followed them out, sticking
close our protective pod of
devotees carrying pennants and
banners emblazoned with the
black bearded image of Pilot
Baba, our now beardless master,
and more importantly, as a major
player in the Juna Junta,
our protector. For the time
being, anyway.
As the light of dawn crept into
the sky, the ‘chariots’ began to
fill with honored guests and
hierarchy who stacked themselves
in around the thrones of their
masters thick as french fries
stuffed inside extra large red
and gold containers. In the
procession line we again did our
best to act like we belonged.
This consisted entirely of
looking for all the world like
we didn’t, which of course, came
naturally. As if to press home
the point, a white uniformed
brass band ambled right up to us
and began belting out utterly
unrecognizable, and to our ears,
utterly un-rhythmical swaths of
brassy, pounding sound that
seemed to scream, ‘you don’t
belong here!’
Paranoid? Perhaps. Justifiably
so? Damn straight.
But never mind all that. What
happened to our Nagas? We’d lost
them. Just how one manages to
lose hundreds of naked,
ash-smeared madmen wielding
medieval weaponry I don’t know,
but we had. Just where they had
gone we would be able to surmise
shortly.
Make no mistake; to the Naga
Akharas (and all the other
thousand plus Hindu sects
present as well) the modern
Kumbha Mela is the greatest
religious recruitment boon since
loaves and fishes. With rare
exception, all new prospective
Nagas are initiated at one Kumbh
or another, every three years.
Naturally it is ‘being extra
most auspicious’ as one sadhu
told us, to receive
initiation during the rare
Maha Kumbh, the one we were
smack in the midst of, which
ends and begins a 144-year
cycle. Regardless of the level
of auspiciousness, of the
thousands who receive initiation
at each Kumbha Mela, fewer than
10% stick around long enough to
see the next batch of recruits
get their heads shaved and
shikas lopped off.
Evidently, a life lived naked
and unemployed; spending summers
meditating with cow dung fires
on your head is not as easy as
it might first appear.
‘Here they are!’ decreed Mac,
‘Our nutters…’
And there they were, our nutters,
streaming and screaming right
past us with a fresh batch of
nutters in tow, (Vaishnavas),
evidenced by the single, rupee
sized patches of hair left on
their shaven heads, the last
vestiges of their guru shorn
shikas. They emptied into a
semi circle just ahead of us,
where several veterans, easily
identified by their unfurled,
knee length jatas (matted
hair) began whirling swords and
battle-axes in a skillful
display of martial artistry.
Some of this I was able to
capture on video just before a
bit of brazen adumbration befell
me.
Some asshole, here affirming the
[There’s an] Asshole in Every
Crowd Theory, appeared from
nowhere and struck down fiercely
upon my pack and tried to grab
my camera while shouting—ever so
distinctly —‘No photo! No
photo!’ At least he was to the
point. As much as I would like
to have ripped him an expansive
new orifice befitting his
station in life, I did the smart
thing instead, saying nothing
and immediately spiriting away
into the crowd. He did not
pursue, as is almost always the
case with these Assholes in
Every Crowd. It works well with
Indian cops and soldiers too.
I was rattled a bit, not wanting
to be exposed and thrown out
before the ‘function’ officially
began. As the Grand Procession
started to roll shortly
thereafter, the great babas all
ensconced in their thrones
surrounded by VIP devotees, I
made my way back near the front
where Mac and the pod were.
Quite matter of fact Mac said,
‘You should have left that
bloody video contraption
behind.’ He was right of course.
Under these conditions one had
to get his shot and get it
quick. The video camera was a
burden and a risk, but I
couldn’t bring myself to leave
it. I had to have some live
action footage.
We shrunk into the middle of our
now chanting pod of belonging
and began the march, taking care
to keep our big, guilty looking
white heads from jutting too far
above the others. There were
about 2,000 Nagas and initiates
immediately ahead of us and
another two thousand behind, but
that’s just a guess. The entire
length of the procession, which
included all 13 akharas
and their farm equipment,
stretched back as far as I could
see. It would take nearly three
hours to complete. Being near
the front however, where the
real action was, meant we would
do it in something under an
hour.
The army was positioned
everywhere along the route.
Indians who dared enter the
procession or even stepped
towards it were routinely
thrashed back with canes.
Whistles curdled the air, often
piercing through the noise of
horns the drums and chanting.
Soldiers glared in at us
routinely, bemused by two
shrinking white men hunched over
bulging (cameras) jackets
crudely lip synching chants in
Hindi.
The #5 pontoon bridge over the
Ganga would mark the next
crucial stage. Soldiers
clustered near the entrance,
some on horseback, and the
procession line would have to
narrow considerably in order to
file onto the bridge, exposing
us further. No soldiers were on
the bridge however, and if we
made it on we’d be free to shoot
and enjoy the ride. Until the
other side anyway, where another
cluster of menace awaited.
Feeling more naked than our Naga
cohorts, we nevertheless
squeezed through and onto the
crossing safely.
It was there that we were able
to finally take in the enormity
of the crowd gathered to watch
the procession (us!) and to
bathe along the east bank of the
Ganges. A thick kaleidoscopic
expanse of pilgrims stretched
into the distance past the
highway and railway bridges, as
far as the eye pressed to a 320x
digital zoom could see. It was
an amazing rush to be in the
middle of it all, the energy
sweeping the angst away like a
cosmic Bissel. Then that I’d
deciphered the words, I was
genuinely moved to join in the
chanting: “Har! Har! Maha Dev!
Har! Har! Maha Dev!” It was a
grand and glorious release, arms
raised like a victorious Caesar
returning to Rome, right there
in front of
the single largest gathering
of humanity the planet earth has
ever known.
We made it easily past the
soldiers on the other side, who
weren't paying much attention.
Two hundred meters of chanting
later we made the left turn that
led down to the main sangam,
perhaps another five hundred
meters beyond. The media towers
along the route were either
empty or manned by soldiers, and
I never did find out what
happened to the Dutch crew who
hoped to occupy one. At this
point the procession split in
two, with the Nagas to the left
and everybody else to the right.
There the rest of the Nagas
caught up and paired up—marching
two by two the final leg towards
the Kumbha Mela’s Big Splash
Moment, holding hands and
yelping and stabbing at the
heavens with trishuls, swords
and battle-ax’s.
By this time we had managed to
snap a few shots each, but they
had a perfunctory feel for me,
taken more for the act than the
result. This was the kind of
difficult light and building,
noisy action that begged for
video, which I was managing to
steal a bit of as well. I was
thrilled, as I knew nobody else
was in any kind of position to
get the footage I was getting.
That is until I took in the
incongruous sight of an
especially maniacal looking Naga
sporting a Panasonic Hi8, freely
immortalizing his naked
brethren’s march towards the
waters of
moksha.
I felt strangely slighted, but
also thought: “Why didn’t I
think of that?” A Rasta wig, a
trishul, a little ash smearing,
a whole lotta naked and…”
And this is where it all began
to go terribly wrong.
My photo envy got the best of
me; there was just no way I was
going to be outdone by some
pre-historic, hash-laced heathen
with inferior equipment. Right
on cue, another ‘illegal’
photographer suffering perhaps
the same pangs of envy I was,
stepped out from behind
somewhere and into the no-man’s
land between the marching Nagas
and us, and started snapping. He
was soon beset upon, not by a
soldier, but by one of the
additional security personnel in
faded orange robes employed
specifically to keep
processional order. These guys
were thugs in turbans is what
they were, who went to the cane
even faster than the soldiers
did. This particular thug
however, quite un-thug like,
held his cane and lashed the man
severely by means of tongue and
larynx only.
“Is that the only price I have
to pay?” I thought. I can take
a tongue lashing with the best
of them if need be. The
photographer returned freely
from whence he came. Next thing
I remember, I, the great idiot,
was out in no-man’s land myself,
face glued about a second too
long over the video eyepiece.
CRACK!
Blindsided by a cane across the
trapezium, followed by a death
grip seizing down from behind
and onto the video camera,
trying to wrest it away. I held
on for all I was worth,
instinctively bending forward
and spreading out my base so as
not to be brought down to the
ground and—in all that
strain—‘Vesuvius’ let loose!
It was not a major eruption and
no villages would have to be
evacuated, but it was of
sufficient force to cause
serious blight across the back
forty of an otherwise pristine
pair of olive green Exofficio’s.
Well, it could have been worse.
I mean, for example, I could
have just shat myself in front
of
the single largest gathering of
humanity the planet earth has
ever known!
As
if this weren’t obscenely more
than enough, my two assailants
forced me back through the
procession line, pod bodies
parting in mortal dread, and
crashing into the cruel irony of
the empty media corral. The thug
was hell bent and still trying
with all his might to tear the
camera from my desperate grip.
For me, the camera represented
the last shred of dignity I had
and there was just no way, kumbh
hell or high water, that he was
gonna get it. I’d sooner we
ripped the thing in half. For
some reason no attempt was made
on my 35mm Nikon, which just
hung and swung in the ruckus,
refusing to get involved.
With the thug still gripping my
camera and the soldier whacking
me with his cane with one hand
while pushing me with the other,
they forced me through
the fence and into the media
corral. There, waiting to get in
on the fun stood another
soldier, cane at the ready.
WHACK!
I had seen it coming and lurched
forward just in time. He had
struck the thug. Small
victory. I struggled down the
corral determined to get away,
pulling the thug, who was really
starting to become a nuisance,
by the camera with me. They
tried to shove me down and
through the fence on the other
side into the crowd of pilgrims,
but I wanted none of that. I
just kept boring forward at an
increasing clip hoping they’d
abandon me, like these asshole
in every crowd types always had
before. But not this time.
Finally we wrestled to an
exhausted stop in front of a
gawking throng of pilgrims who
were no longer paying any
attention at all to the
procession. A parade stands no
chance against good, live action
toilet humor and a good
thrashing.
I immediately launched into a
colorful bit of hyperbole,
professing my innocence as the
official photographer of the
Juna Akhara and Pilot Baba
and my right to be let back into
the procession, where I
belonged, shit pants and
all. They responded by
continuing to thrash and shout
at me in a Gattling gun hail of
gibberish they evidentially
fancied as English. I was
getting nowhere but further
humiliated and chose,
choicelessly, to acquiesce. I
bent to duck through the fence
into the crowd and was kindly
assisted with a parting blow to
the shoulder and a jack-booted
stomp to the calf.
Walking away my attackers were
laughing like hyenas after a
kill, presumably, at the jackass
who just shat himself in front
of
the single largest
gathering of humanity the planet
earth has ever known!
I could smell it now. Was that
me? Squatting to hide my shame,
battered and bleeding on my
cameras, I looked back at the
crowd that held me captive
against the fence. They were
sitting in the sand twenty rows
deep and standing another ten
behind. All oculi, wide and
stark white against dark faces,
were on me. What a fucking
nightmare. I struggled to take
off my sweatshirt and tie it by
the arms around my waist to hide
my shame.
The woman nearest me, who was
breastfeeding her baby and was
the one most put out by my
putting in, glared like I’d just
gutted a cow with a trishul.
Even her baby took time out from
its suckling to give me a look
of such seeming disgust that,
coming from a baby, was not only
strangely disconcerting
but—gauging from the smell—the
height of hypocrisy. I was
disconcerted enough without
getting the stink-eye from some
hypocrite infant.
II really had to get out of
there. Pressing matters to
attend to. But how? There was
not an inch of space anywhere to
be had in this sea of sari’s,
turbans and nose-rings. What
could I do but stand up and take
the first step? They could
either move or get stepped on.
Or worse, sat on. They made
way, and I stumbled through.
Once free I just started
walking, fast, hoping nothing
slid down my leg as I scanned
the land for the corrugated tin
sheeting that semi-privatized
the toilet facil—er, squatholes.
There were supposed to be 74,000
of them spread everywhere around
the Mela grounds. Everywhere of
course, but where I was.
II
was beginning to think this
wasn’t my day.
My worst fear (well, previous
worst fear) as a photographer on
the world’s biggest stage had
been realized. I would not in
any way, shape manner or form,
be in position to get
the shot.
In fact, the only position I was
likely to be in any time soon
was over a squat-hole. After all
I’d been through, of all things
to have happen to me, this! Had
I but practiced a few minutes
more of Mac-like professional
patience I’d have been out there
shooting with him.
With clean pants.
I had gambled with time
consuming, non-essential (at the
time) video, and lost out on
potentially the biggest pay off
of the entire Mela as a result.
I was now in a state of
full-blown
opprobrium—exceedingly pissed
and fantastically
miserable.
The big red cross ahead marked a
welcome sight—a hospital camp. I
thought it might offer a more
private, possibly more upscale
option for my squathole-ing
needs. I would be wrong. I
should have learned not to think
by then. My bleeding hands along
with the newly discovered
bleeding bridge of my nose
qualified me for immediate
entry. At first they said there
was no toilet and insisted I get
treatment for my wounds. I
protested, they insisted, I
protested some more, they
insisted some more. Then I
untied my sweatshirt and pointed
out the disposition of my ass,
and at last they, in unison,
pointed out the disposition of
the squat-hole off in the
corner, which to me in that
moment was Shangri-fucking-la.
But the nightmare was not quite
over. This episode had an
uncanny way of getting stranger
and stranger. The decidedly
low-scale, decidedly un-private
squat-hole had been in recent
use. There was no water. What
there was, set smartly against
the white porcelain urine
channel that led into the hole,
was a huge swirl of steaming
shit—the perfect shit—looking
for all the world like a Dairy
Queen ice cream dispenser had
been summoned from the ether to
squeeze it there for the sole
purpose of further fucking with
my reality. It stood so high
and well balanced that, to leave
his mark, ‘The Man With The
Dairy Queen Sphincter’ must have
had to gently rise and slowly
rotate himself with a precision
rarely found amongst the
non-metallic.
A fun loving dung beetle could
have run the spiraling ledge
from bottom to top with nothing
to break his stride save sheer
exhaustion. So skilled was this
fecal craftsman, so attuned to
the universe was he, that left
crowning this monument to the
gastrointestinal tract was an
impossibly delicate, thrice
curling pigtail—the final
artistic flourish of a
scatological masterwork. It was
so damned perfect it bordered on
the miraculous, the highest
manifestation of the lowest
order. Looking back on it now I
really should have photographed
it. I mean, who knows, maybe I’d
been in position to get
the shot
after all.
I waddled out to fill the water
jug. It just never ends in
India. Everybody in the
compound, including those
tending to patients and the
patients themselves, watched me
fill the jug. I was beyond
giving a shit. I gave at the
office. As the water pounded
into the clay jug my mind kept
repeating Mac’s fateful words:
‘You should have left that
bloody video contraption
behind…should have left that
bloody video contraption…’
Back in the relative privacy of
my squat-hole, the ‘masterwork’
mocking me all the while, I
cleaned myself with the now wet
and unsoiled front section of my
own Mervyn’s 3 for $20 boxer
shorts. I have never felt such
utter defeat. I just knew
Mac was down at the sangam
getting the shots, I knew
it! Not out of any supernatural
intuitiveness on my part, but
because I had learned through
personal experience how the
universe worked, at least for
me, and the point of my lesson
just wouldn’t have been driven
home hard enough had Mac somehow
been foiled.
Yes-sir-ee, ole Snap Baba was
down there snapping away
alright, filling his ancient
Nikons with BW images of
wild-eyed Nagas splashing around
and ululating like—well—Nagas.
Nobody and I mean nobody,
splashes and ululates like they
do. This of course is exactly
where I should have been, would
have been, if not for my own
lapse in awareness and the
intelligent application of just
a little more patience.
Bright side? Anti-climatic
perhaps, but yes, there was
indeed a bright side. Two of
them in fact. First, I was
pretty confident that I now had
something to write about that
nobody else could, or would,
even if they could. Second, the
extra liner the good people at
Exofficio had provided proved
the crucial difference in
reducing the outwardly visible
signs of my unfortunate
discharge into a single, egg
sized ovoid. This was more than
just easily cleaned; it was a
show of divine mercy for which I
am eternally grateful. My
eruption had been nowhere near
as noticeable to the
single largest gathering of—as
I had feared.
It truly is, the little
things.
****
Back at the house in Allahabad
proper (our documentary team’s
rented sanctuary) that night I
found out what had happened to
Mac and to the other
photographers who weren’t nearly
as lucky. Mac, as I had
brilliantly inducted during my
ego shattering moment of truth,
did indeed make it down to the
sangam to shoot the Nagas
bathing, untouched and
un-ululated upon.
On the other end of the Naga
sangam however, exactly
where we would have been had we
chosen plan A; all holy hell had
broken loose. Some of the
photographers that had staked
out their camera positions well
before dawn decided it might be
a good time to stretch their
legs a bit in the direction
of the Nagas and oh, while they
were out there, take a few
photographs to show the
grandkids.
The way I heard it was
essentially the way it read in
the papers the next day, here
allowing for a little authorly
color. One of them, we’ll call
him Leg Stretcher #1,
was shooting in the direction of
a group of five or six holy
bathers which, in retrospect,
was exactly the wrong group of
five or six holy bathers in
whose direction to be shooting.
They attacked the man, yes, but
not without a certain poetry.
Utilizing Leg Stretcher #1’s
camera, which was attached to a
strap that was attached to his
neck, they gave a concerted team
effort to the task of making the
waters of enlightenment vitally
available to him—by nearly
drowning the poor bastard.
NAKED SAINTS ARRESTED FOR
ASSAULT WITH
HOLY WATER, MINOLTA
Of course there would be no
arrests. (Nor were there any at
the minor Mela held at Haridwar
in 1998 when a gang of enraged
Nagas threw more than a dozen
Indian police off a bridge and
into the Ganges, drowning one.)
These guys throw a lot of weight
around.
Next, three additional holy men
set upon Leg Stretcher #2, who
was reportedly shooting the
assault on Leg Stretcher #1.
These three proceeded to tear
the camera from him and take
turns smashing it to the ground.
Once good and smashed they
performed a surprisingly well-
choreographed, primal Watusi
round the wreckage. And yes,
they were ululating.
Meanwhile, just down the
sangam, Mac the Snap, in a
rare splurge, snapped the last
frame of his third roll,
casually holstered his Nikons
and strode off into the
sunrise—my hero.
This must have been about the
time I was pulling up my pants.
Grabbing my gear hung on the
squathole door, I bade adieu to
Ashoka’s pillar—now awaiting
renovation under a tent of
Mervyn’s 3 for $20 boxer
shorts—and left the hospital
camp without seeking first aid.
My wounds were not serious and
besides, I felt like bleeding.
I steered straight for the main
sangam determined to make
something out of this yet. I’d
be damned if I were going to let
the bastards get the best of
me. Never mind that I was
probably damned anyway. I was
going to walk right down into
the middle of their precious
sangam and take some fucking
pictures. And if some fat and
sagging stretch marked granny
breasts intruded themselves into
my frame, then I’d take pictures
of them too. Apparently there
was a market for them in
England.
Along the way I passed a couple
of soldiers sweeping for mines.
Huh? If there were any mines
where they were sweeping they’d
have been discovered a couple of
million legs ago. You boys best
get back to your nukes. I
worked my way through the crowd
and eventually arrived at the
top of the bank overlooking the
sangam, about 80 meters
to the east of the great
Energy for Life (an oil
company ad) monolith. I think
it’s safe to say, without risk
of overstatement, that I’ve
never seen more life in all my
life, or more energy for that
matter. A crowd the size of the
entire population of
California—making modest
Allahabad the world’s biggest
city for a day—would bathe here
in the coming hours. As I
looked down the long stretch of
riverbank and out across the
shallow confluence filled with
the rollicking devout, it seemed
like they were all there in that
moment. It was a truly awesome
and exhilarating sight, the type
of which can never be adequately
described without an
accompanying shot of adrenaline.
You just have to be there, and
it’s a shame so few outside
India ever will. Most Americans
have never even heard of the
Kumbha Mela, let alone
considered reservations for
2013. Never mind that it’s by
far far far the largest
gathering of humanity the planet
earth has ever known. It’s also
the most ancient, by just as
far. Really, who cares when
there’s still so much shopping
left to be done? Then again,
what can you expect from a
country whose educational system
churns out routinely the kinds
of minds frighteningly
illustrated on a recent Tonight
Show with Jay Leno. Upon being
asked possibly the easiest
history question of all time—who
did the United States fight
against in the Vietnam War—a
woman disciple of Generation X
answered in all earnestness:
‘Canada?’ Perhaps in the wake
of the Blockbuster Terrorism of
9-11, a few more popping sounds
of heads being uncorked from
asses might begin to be
heard.
But I digress.
Jostled continually by the crowd
I managed to get my
day-and-a-half boots off in
slightly less time than that. I
tied the laces together and
garroted myself so that they
dangled on my back and out of
the way. My pants were
successfully rolled up above my
knees. And so, battered but
willing, I stood gazing out over
the Grand Spectacle of joyous
madness and thought: ‘I really
should get this on the bloody
video contraption.’ Just as I
raised the camera a ‘no photo!’
shout rang out—the aurora
borealis was attempting to shoot
some video. I tucked it away
quicker than the Delhi
pickpocket had with my Gandhi
wallet three weeks earlier, and
attached myself to the ass end
of a family of twelve
elephant-walking down to the
water. Actually I didn’t quite
hook the ass end, as I soon
found grandma holding on for
dear life to the ass end of my
sweatshirt as we serpentined our
way down the slippery slope to
salvation.
There was no respite here from
the soldier’s whistles, which
continued to sully the air of
excitement and revelry. One such
‘sullier’ lay dead ahead,
standing in the water where we
would have to enter, blowing
pilgrims past him through the
surprisingly well moving chaos.
I did the only thing I could do,
helping grandma into the water
and making an obvious show that
I was with her, that these were
my people, that I belonged. Once
past him grandma and I exchanged
smiles and namastes and I went
long.
Once you were well out near the
fence-line that kept people from
venturing too far out and
drowning in deeper waters, the
crowd thinned some. Some. No
soldiers were wading out that
far, but you still had to keep
an eye out for the photographer
hunting patrol boats cruising
just beyond the fence. Warily, I
began snapping a still here and
there, but was soon spotted, not
by soldiers thankfully, but
happy holy dippers. They
weren’t yelling at me not to
take photos but just the
opposite. They began posing in
the midst of perhaps their
greatest moment, apparently
anxious for a chance to become
an indelible part of India’s
long and inimitable religious
history. This had been a
familiar but forgotten theme in
the midst of this camera ban
fiasco, but it was making me
nervous.
I obliged one group, then
another jumped in on the action,
then another and another and I
knew I had to get out of there
before ‘No camera! Very bad! No
camera!’—The Asshole in Every
Crowd reared his ugly head. And
boy was his head ugly. He looked
like an obese, pop-eyed
Coelacanth that had just been
pulled up from the bottom of the
Marianna Trench, only not quite
as comfortable with his
surroundings.
Immediately I headed in the
opposite direction, and for the
second time on this fateful day
the 'Asshole' would not be
shaken. He continued after me,
yelling and waving a fat fin of
disdain. As I increased my pace
through the shallows, he
increased his, still yelling and
waving that fin. Finally I had
to break into a near sprint,
running over the water like a
drunk Jesus showing off for the
boys, just to escape him and his
malevolent fin. Asshole. Fucking
Coelacanth.
Circling back around through the
water and revelry I ducked in
along the low mesh fence-line
separating the pilgrim sangam
from the Naga sangam. By
this time there were but two old
warriors in loincloths loitering
around, tossing handfuls of holy
water over an arm here, a
shoulder there, when a group of
woman pilgrims broke through the
fence. Surely the water on the
other side—now sanctified by
thousands of Naga bodies’ worth
of dhunni ash and jata
grease—was holier. Soldiers
with lazy whistles and bored
feet herded them out. But it
didn’t really matter now. The
Naga Baba Show had hit the road.
Turning my gaze, two other
soldiers were staring straight
at me from atop an island of
sandbags originally meant for
cameras and the intrusive
bastards who stand behind them,
just as I had my bloody video
contraption half out of the
bag. I don’t know if they saw
it but I headed in the other
direction just in case,
continuing my involuntary
pachinko around the sangam.
Just as soon as their backs were
turned I yanked it back out and
shot some hasty footage of the
massive wall of humanity that
smothered the fifty foot high
bank and stretched for more than
a kilometer toward the Red
Fort. I thought of the
anti-aircraft guns laying in
wait for the Islamic terrorists
who, though uninvited, had
RSVP’d through the papers
anyway, but never showed. So
unmannerly, these terrorists.
If I’d had money, if I’d had
back up equipment, I’d have said
fuck all and went into full
photo-commando mode right then
and there, shooting everything
in sight. But I didn’t, and
having just removed myself from
nightmare, decided to quit
before I got further behind, a
decision I was regretting even
as I made it. I was the only
non-Indian in the sangam
or even on the bank, as far as I
could tell anyway. I did get
some decent shots but they were
hurried and not near all that I
wanted. Only twelve years until
my next chance.
At this point my opprobrium had
largely gone, but I was only
slightly less exceedingly pissed
and fantastically miserable than
before.
But a funny thing happened on
the way from the sangam…
I stopped. Dead. Suddenly it had
struck me. I was standing in the
middle of a dream I’d had for
exactly twelve years, standing
right in the heart of myth and
mythology in the making, and I
hadn’t taken a single moment to
stop and smell the marigolds.
Good God man!
And so I stopped right in the
middle of what it was all about
and took it all in. I am not a
Hindu obviously, but nor am I
attached to any religion, not
even one that teaches
non-attachment to the legions
attached to its teachings. But I
am, first and foremost I like to
think, a spiritual man. Dogma
poisons all belief systems, but
it cannot touch that which is
deepest inside and connected
purely to the infinite, that
which is without thought and
beyond belief, that which was
stirred inside me as I opened to
the incredible vastness of the
moment.
My own karma wash was beckoning.
Spontaneously dropping to my
knees in some ankle deep water,
I cupped my hands together and
sunk them into the seemingly
effervescent Saraswati.
I raised the goddess waters a
foot or two and let them pour
slowly back. I did this
repeatedly, my whispering mind
gradually merging with Her and
drifting away. Among the
whisperings that passed, was how
gloriously natural it was, how
utterly normal it was to be here
in benediction on my never
before so public knees. I
raised my hands higher the last
time, above my head, allowing
Her baptism to pour over me. It
was as if my head had turned to
pumice and a million blissfully
cold and infinitesimal tingles
of watery light went rushing in,
percolating, illuminating,
softening the pain and anger
still clinging to the dusky
edges of a spirit too long at
war.
"If your heart is open, you will
know the myth of the Kumbh was
born of truth."
I had heard numerous variations
on this since I’d arrived in
Allahabad three weeks earlier. I
hadn’t believed it for a
second. And now, lowering my
arms and raising my face to the
hazy morning sun, I basked the
bask of the blissful, and I
knew. The myth was true.
This timeless place in time was
indeed suffused with the
supernal, and it had been
brought down, not by the dubious
Rolex gurus or the duplicitous
Naga Babas, but by the millions
of simple pilgrims who, through
their long enduring faith and
sweet devotion, invited God to a
party in His honor. He didn’t
RSVP but showed up anyway,
rejoicing in His children as His
children rejoiced in Him.
In this state of being, even the
resumed shouts from ‘The Asshole
in Every Crowd’ that blew by
couldn’t bother me. When I
opened my smiling eyes and there
he was, the great pop-eyed
Coelacanth flopping up to the
same soldier grandma and I had
passed earlier, finning in my
direction with the fat folds of
his neck gasping like gills in
all his agitation. Didn’t he
know where he was? Didn’t he
know he was standing in the
watery lap of God on earth? I
smiled inwardly, chuckled softly
at all that had befallen me, and
high tailed it the hell out of
the holy water.
And back up the slippery slope.
~Bennett Stevens
Bangkok, Thailand 2001 |
