My Tryst With Hope And Hindutva - Maha Kumbh

My Tryst With Hope And Hindutva - Maha Kumbh, a photo by firoze shakir photographerno1 on Flickr.

After visiting the Kumbh Mela of 1895, Mark Twain wrote:
“It is wonderful, the power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys and endure the resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination, marvelous to our kind of people, the cold whites. Irrespective of all worldly barriers of caste, creed, region, the Kumbh Mela has wielded a mesmeric influence over the minds and the imagination of millions…”
**************
“The tale is great, one may say enormous. Every twelfth year is held to be a year of peculiar grace; a greatly augmented volume of pilgrims results then. The twelfth year has held this distinction since the remotest of times, it is said.”


Tolerance of Hardship
Irrespective“At the Kumbh Mela, I was struck by the enormous tolerance of the Indian people,” Tully said. “This is something which has consistently struck me ever since I have lived in this country. The tolerance of hardship of the pilgrims who went there, many of them walking barefoot, carrying their luggage on their heads, having nowhere to sleep at night, except on straw out in the open. But it is not just their tolerance of harsh conditions, it is also their tolerance of each other, because at the Kumbh Mela there are heaven knows how many different forms of Hinduism being preached.”
Mark Tully

1989: Guinness Book of World Records proclaims the crowd of 15-million crowd at the February 6 Allahabad mela "the largest-ever gathering of human beings for a single purpose."