I had visited Tapovan the abode of the Vaishnav Sadhus .. colloquially called Bairagis ,, I shot a lot of them though I was here only for a few hours ,, but I was not excited as I was shooting the Naga Sadhus at Trimbakeshwar.. I got along well with them at the Sadhugram where I stayed with my Naga Guru Shree Vijay Giri Maharaj Triveni Juna Akhara 18 Madi I had become friendly with most of the Nagas who would pose for me and I found that the Maharashtrian Naga Sadhus were more cultured polite in their humility ..and followed the dictum of Devo Atithi Bahava ,,,Most of their followers were Maharashtrian farmers their wives who had come for far off areas to pay tribute to their Gurus and lived with them in their Tents .
My Naga Guru had disciples from Hyderabad , Mumbai Rajasthan Gujrat and more are expected to come before the Kumbh ends ..
Shree Vijay Giri my Naga Guru is from Karnataka ,,Mangalore and one of his disciples a young boy deaf mute would be at my beck and call, touching my feet , and when he saw the injury on my leg.. he immediately cleaned my wound , pressed massaged my swollen legs ,, I would give him money but he would take it reluctantly ,,, his love was humanly awesome ,, almost everyone including the cook Bhandari saw that I was well taken care of while leaving for Mumbai I gave him my saffron shirt that I had bought at Trimbakeshwar ,.. he was happy beyond words ,,most of these guys are poor ,
Another disciple has a single leg and he walked from the Shahi Snan on crutches .. his name was Nandlal.
Mahesh Bhardwaj from Rishikesh principal disciple of ,my Guru took care of the new guests that came every day ,,
The Kumbh is a unique experience even as a photographer I had responsibilities of work I had to get back..I was missing my granddaughters too.
I mostly shot portraits ,, and now my next lot of pictures will be restricted from public view at Flickr..
