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Grand Pitcher Festival in India
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A TORRENT of pilgrims from far and wide poured into India's giant Hindu festival last Saturday, the eve of the most auspicious day yet in what has been billed as the largest-ever gathering of human beings.
Organizers of the Maha Kumbh Mela (Grand Pitcher Festival) said they expected some eight million people to take a sin-cleansing bath in the holy river Ganges, which meets the Yamuna and a third, mythical river at a point known as the “sangam” in the northern city of Allahabad.
The “Royal Bath” day began about one hour before dawn, with holy men, or sadhus, taking turns to immerse themselves in India's most revered river at the confluence point.
The rest jostled for positions on the bathing “ghats,” putting the authorities' elaborate crowd control plans to their most severe test yet.
The sadhus, many of them ash-smeared naked ascetics, who normally live in remote isolation existing on roots and herbs, arrived in raucous processions at the sangam carrying their leaders aloft on fabulously decorated palanquins.
More than one million sadhus, gurus and their devotees have already camped out on the broad sandy flood plains of the river in a kaleidoscopic township of pavilion tents which sprang to life as the 42-day festival got under way earlier last week.
Astrologers decide date
Allahabad, in the Hindi-speaking heartland of Uttar Pradesh, is one of four spots where Garuda, the winged steed of the Hindu god Vishnu, is believed to have rested during a titanic battle with demons over a pitcher of divine nectar of immortality.
Garuda's flight lasted 12 divine days, or 12 years of mortal time, so the Kumbh Mela is celebrated at each city, alternating between each every three years. Hindus consider the festival at Allahabad as the holiest of the four.
Astrologers calculate auspicious days for bathing at the sangam, according to the position of the stars and planets. On Sunday, the sun enters the Capricorn constellation.
More than 20,000 police personnel were deployed in the festival area, which sprawled across 1,396 hectares (3,450 acres).
Special electricity sub-stations have been built, 20,000 toilets and urinals have been installed and more than 8,000 sweepers have been put to work to deal with the debris of a crowd which, cumulatively, would total some 70 million by the time festivities end next month.
Traffic was restricted from early evening on Saturday to prevent bottlenecks in the throng of pilgrims, thousands of whom walked to the river in the dead of night and immersed themselves in the chilly water before sunrise.
D.P. Dubey, a renowned Indian history scholar, wrote in a recent book on the Kumbh Mela that the festival has had a history of tragedy dating back to 1820, when 430 people were crushed to death in a crowd of frenzied pilgrims.
About 300 were trampled to death in the muddy ground in Allahabad in 1954 and 40 were killed in a stampede at the holy city of Haridwar in 1986.
“The untold tremendous faith that attracts people for generations, without any propaganda or publicity, all at one time, to the sacred place is still the vital strength of religious belief and practice,”he wrote.
Sewage-free bath
Thousands of ghostly silhouettes milled around by the Ganges in the fog at dawn on Saturday, washing themselves despite the cold, and collecting water for cooking and drinking, unmindful of the pollution that plagues India's most sacred river.
Uttar Pradesh Minister for Urban Development Lalji Tandon told reporters the authorities had diverted city sewage that normally drains into the river to a place six km downstream to ensure that pilgrims had a pollution-free dip.
“The pollution prevention board has carried out the necessary tests and found the pollution level to be minimal,” he said. “The river is absolutely fit for bathing.”
The festival ends Feb. 21. (SD-Agencies)
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