One night
in Orchha, Alyse and I head out of the yellow Paryatak compound on
a foraging expedition for food and bottled water. An Indian
once joked with me that all tourists have the same four items in their
day pack: The Lonely Planet (a popular guide book), a bottle of mineral
water, toilet paper, and a camera. He had me pegged. What a
curious creature, the backpacker.
A large
bus is parked just outside the Paryatak. A group of women sits
together, and a group of men sits nearby. They are having dinner,
and the sense of community is strong. We smile, bid Namaste,
then walk on, when one of them motions to us, movements that say "Would
you like something to eat? Come sit with us!".
When
we join them, they warmly welcome us and remove a bus seat from their
bus for us to sit on. They function as a cohesive unit -- everyone
has a task. A cook and his two helpers serve up delectable dal,
sticky rice and an endless supply of chapatis, as well as a potato
mixture that makes me salivate just to think of it.
A tall
man with a strong countenance and a commanding voice speaks to us
in Hindi, and we chat as best we can ("tora tora Hindi" = "little
little Hindi"). We learn that the bus is headed for Haridwar,
on the holy Ganges River northeast of Delhi, for the Kumbh Mela, a
massive spiritual gathering that occurs once every three years in
India. It alternates between four sacred cities: Allahabad,
Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar, and so returns to the same place once
every twelve years.
Click
here for more on the Kumbh Mela.
This
year, some six million people are expected to descend on Haridwar,
to camp out for weeks in massive tent cities, to discuss spirituality
and to bathe in the Ganges River. It may be the largest gathering
of humanity ever.
I run
back to the Paryatak barracks to grab a few magic tricks to show these
spirited pilgrims. After one trick, they bring everyone out
of the bus to watch.
When
I run out of magic tricks, the strong-countenanced man grabs our attention
with some catchy-sounding syllables or words, something like "oonchie
coonchie coonch oonch". A man in a long-sleeved red flannel
shirt contributes more slick rhymes. With words and with body
language rich in meaning and humor, they try to teach us several Hindi
tongue twisters. Our twisted tongues try to mimic the sounds
that emanate from their mouths, and for the most part, we fail hilariously.
As we
tie our tongues in knots, the pilgrims are packing up their belongings,
getting ready to move on to the Kumbh Mela. Soon, the bus engine
revs to life, and they rumble off into the night towards Haridwar.