The Mahakumbha has attracted mammoth crowds of devotees. Most surprising is that couples are heading for the Mahakumbha to celebrate Valentine’s Day there, reveals SHASHI DIP
It’s been a month since our glorious country has been witnessing people’s love for faith and religion, symbolised by millions of people bathing in the sacred Sangam of the Mahakumbha at the holy city Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
This is one love which has manifested in the form of devotion where the devotees have immense reverence for the Mahakumbha festival, no matter what. They don’t bother about any adversities. They condition their mind with positivity — all to ensure that they don’t miss this golden opportunity.
In the midst of Mahakumbha, the International Love Festival — Valentine’s Day — has arrived.
And one of the most surprising things I saw was that some love birds and married couples are going to Kumbha to celebrate their sacred bond in a devotional way. They have merged their romantic love with faith and religion.
Whereas many people think being at home and doing their normal life activities or duties make them feel blissful, others don’t want to miss the holy bath at Prayagraj. After all, this occasion doesn’t come every year.
We are a multifaceted nation with respect for all beliefs and forms of worship. Here in our Bharat, there are worshipers of their work, who don’t criticise other worship, including idol worship, and pilgrimages.
Love, faith, and devotion are deep emotions and very personal. These feelings can manifest in many different ways; and what this looks and feels like can be unique to each individual.
For some, love might be a romantic partnership. But love is not just a relationship between two people. Love might be the bond between family members, friends, or even a deep connection with oneself.
Faith could mean observing multiple fasting and elaborate rituals all through the year. For some, faith might be just living with soulful prayers of gratitude in daily life.
In this season of love and faith, India is immersed in religious faith. Romantic love is not much trending as it used to be in the previous years. Millions of people continue their devotion with great fervour, even though a heart wrenching stampede shook the country when it took away so many lives.
Local people of the holy city are facing great hardships due to the mammoth crowds and big traffic jams. Still, no one is scared and no one is complaining. Some may call it obsession, when all the advice is ignored and the devotees just focus on one single matter and love to go for the holy dip, no matter what the odds are.
This is the rarest phase of human emotions, and faith, just like this unique Mahakumbha. So let us make the best out of this rare phase.
Ultimately, love, faith and devotion are complex and multifaceted emotions that can be experienced in countless ways.
Shashi Dip is a thinker, bilingual writer, poet, columnist, social activist and an author of the book ‘Waves Within (Horizon and Beyond)’. She is associated with various literary associations and has written more than 200 blogs, 500 quotes in Hindi/Urdu and English and 100 poems in both Hindi and English.
One of the guarded secret of Nature lies in the fact that “in confluence lies the greatest affluence”. Be it the confluence of faiths and beliefs or confluence of cultures and civilisations, in such occasions only humanity has scaled its greatest of heights and made its greatest celebrations.
No doubt Kumbh Mela is such a confluence of humanity on the bank of the confluence of three rivers: Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati where entire humanity celebrates the ineffable experience of spiritual delight forgetting the divisions of caste, creed, faiths and beliefs. How enigmatic is the magic of it that Kumbh Mela has drawn people from every corner of the world since antiquity!
Those who have gone for a dip in the sangam in spite of all the odds know that a strong bout of love fills one to the full to such an extent that it becomes an experience of a lifetime. You have rightly observed Shashi that “love, faith and devotion are complex and multifaceted emotions that can be experienced in countless ways”.
Kumbh Mela is such a great occasion indeed when one can explore the height and depth of human relationships on the backdrop of a sea of humanity.
Brimming-up-to-the-full is its greatest dividend, as is a fulfilled pot of nectar…so every Mela returnee, whom at least I personally talked to this time say! May love and devotion for one another eternally prevail.