The sloping riverside beaches were crammed with people as far as the eye could see. A stiff morning breeze, which rippled multi-colored banners atop endless rows of giant tents, was filled with the sounds of trumpeting and drum beats. Suddenly police on horseback parted the crowd, and a caravan of saffron-robed Hindu holy men, enthroned on tractors and followed by hundreds of barefoot disciples, paraded toward the waters. Thousands of naked, ash-smeared mystics, known as naga sadhus, pranced in the procession, waving swords and tridents. He was shivering violently as he stripped off his wet clothes, but he insisted he did not feel the cold.
Daily life tires the soul as well as the body.
Crammed onto the beach around him, thousands of other dripping Hindus shivered happily, oblivious to the crowd and the cold. Most had spent the night huddled in tents or rolled in blankets on sandy fields surrounding a 1,500-acre riverside campground, built especially for the Kumbh Mela on the outskirts of Allahabad, a city 350 miles southeast of New Delhi. It gets very cold, but we don't mind the hardship. She and her friends had cooked rice and lentils over a cow dung fire. When we get home, people will touch our feet because we will be sacred now.