It’s been almost a decade since I participated in the Maha Kumbh Mela in Ujjain and I am yet to run out of stories from that experience.
Of all the stories I collected from here, one would think the most surreal would be about when an aghori ran after my friend and me with a sword in his hand (a story perhaps for another time), but, I think this story trumps them all.
To give you a context; Naga initiation is a ritual performed when all the aspirant sadhus have gone through a series of rigorous tests, this includes celibacy, living on one meal a day, performing death or last rites to symbolize the death of their former self, and the most torturous of them all… “killing” the libido by slowly crushing the penis and make its muscles weak. And now they would take Diksha and finally start living with their respective akhadas in the Himalayas, only to descend during the Kumbh Mela.
Nagas are at the lowest rung of the Akhada ecosystem and the ones who renounce all the worldly things, clothes included. An akhada is a religious sect or a spiritual lineage (so to say) . It is said that Adi Shankaracharya formed the original 7 akhadas that participate in the Kumbh Mela even today. There is a rich historical background to the nagas which goes all the way back to the Harappa civilization, and as a history buff, I can go on and on about it, and I will in a separate blog, but for now, back to the initiation.
Nagas are a secretive lot, and needless to say the sacred ritual of diksha is a completely out of bounds event for outsiders, let alone women. I didn’t know this, and my friend and I just walked into one of the cordoned off area where a bunch of tonsured men had gathered. Within about 2 mins a rather boorishly handsome, tall figure walked upto us and asked me to leave immediately… just me. This guy was adorned in ashes from head to toe, no clothes except for a tattered shawl that looked more like a trenchcoat thrown over his shoulders with a nonchalant grace, and smelled strongly of weed. I asked why I was being asked to go when my friend could stay back, and without skipping a beat he said “tum ladies ho, tumko mana hai” I reminded him that we do have female nagas/sadhvis, again came a curt response “toh udhar ja”. Before I could retort he saw a DSLR in my hand and asked “generalist ho?”. He meant journalist of course, and I said yes without an iota of guilt. He asked to see my “card” which I obviously did not have, but my friend had a very old tattered ID from his days working as an AD in one of the TV channels, but it did the trick because it was very evident that this stylish baba didn’t know how to read (lucky for us). He told us to go out from the main gate and sneak in from one of the cracks in the back wall.
I didn’t know what to expect, but all of it had been an adventure so far and I sat there behind a few large utensils waiting for something to happen. For the first 15 mins it looked like any other religious gathering, where the older ascetics were explaining about the journey each one of them had taken to reach this stage.
Then all of sudden everyone began chanting and there was a palpable charge of energy in the air. Their deep, reverberating voices, yet calm posture created a surreal atmosphere.
It is said that a person has to complete a journey from shava to shiva to attain the naga status, and in that moment I had no doubt in what that meant, without meaning to, I was shedding tears, and when I looked over at my friend, I knew I was not the only one feeling that way.
The sadhus then proceeded towards the crematorium, they would stay the night there, covering their bodies with ashes and meditating till it was time for the Shahi snaan at 4 am. (Shahi snaan or the holy bathing in the Ganges is the highlight of the kumbh mela. And that is a story for another time.)
The whole experience lasted for about 20–30 mins but has stayed with me even after 8 years.
