.
. . My piligrimage to the Maha Kumbha at Prayag was a soul-stirring
experience.
The Sangam at which the mighty Ganga and Yamuna joins is the epicenter
of this great religious concourse. The vast river bed of the Ganga has
been converted into a mythical land where different religious sects
have set up their temporary abodes. Seen against the fort supposedly
built by the legendary mughal emperor Akbar the vista of the blue Jumna
and the silvery Ganga presented a spectacle of cosmic union.
The Maha Kumbha happens only once in twelve years and this is a continuation
of the Aryan Brahmanical tradition of religious gatherings where great
scholars and saints and householders from various regions of India met
and exchanged their experiences and thoughts.
And Indians have always worshipped rivers and the bath in a river is
considered a holy ritual.
While the higher strata of society mingle to exchange profound thoughts
the lower strata
of people gathered to take bath in the holy Ganga. It rejuvenated, reorgainsed
and
recreatred the spirit of India for another twelve years which is considered
to be
the life span of a creative idea. And the sheer beauty of the place,
the sunrise and the sunset, the contrast of colors and the
epic scope of the gathering, transport the
faithful to higher dimensions of existence.
For
me all these were words gathered from books till yesterday. And today
as I go
through these experiences, memories from what I have read and what I
have gone
through several lives--all surface to my conscious mind giving me
the thrill of a sort of Virat Rupa Darsana.
I
invite you viewers to go through this picture piligrimage
as a retour to your own past, into your own unconscious,
into the vast dimension of your spirit, into the land
of the unknown, where every experience
become meaningful and ecstatic.
From Prayaga my companions and me motored all the way (120km) to Kasi/Banares/
Varanasi, the abode of Lord Visvanath. The Ghats of Kasi on the banks
of Mother Ganga where she truns towards the north and then to the east
brought up all the 4000 years of history into my mind. Here we could
see the universe in miniature with all its complexity. The young and
the old , the rich and the poor, the healthy and the sickly, filth and
splendour, stench and aroma, eternity and effervascence. . .
I
can go on and on, on the contradictions that goes on in this ancient
city of Varanasi. . .