The MahaKumbha Mela 2010 began in Haridwar with the "Makara Sankranti" festival (when the sun enters Capricorn), when millions of pilgrims and sadhus started arriving in the city and ended on the most sacred bathing day of April 14, 2010. It was this day that saw the biggest crowds. It marked the biggest outreach project of Bibek Anander Satsang in North India to date - the distribution of 2000 Hindi and English books on Sri Sri Gour Baba to pilgrims from across the world.
The MahaKumbha Mela is an event that compares with nothing else on earth. If you want to see the simple faith and sheer reality of India's masses, this is where you have to be. Spontaneously they come, millions of villagers from every district of the land, speaking diverse tongues, camping under trees and cooking their meagre fare over wood fires, creating a festival city of light and dust and colour and devotion, waiting for the auspicious time. And then they converge in massive streams of humanity, slowly wending their way to the swift, icy Ganges at Brahma Kund, risking stampede and death for the sacred bath that will cleanse them of the impurities of many lives. There is nothing else in the world anything like it.
After the experience of mass contact work in England in 2009, we had gained more confidence that something on a larger scale could be done in the Indian context. Since we cannot, being a small organisation, yet reach out with Gour Baba's message to different parts of India, why not reach out to India when it converges at one place? Hence the week of 14th April, the day of the most auspicious snaana, when the Maha Kumbha Mela is at its peak, was selected by the workers of Bibek Anander Satsang's Calcutta Centre as an opportunity for prachaar work. The free distribution of books on Gour Baba's life, Yugavani and ideas was chosen as the fitting vehicle of the prachaar abhiyaan.
It was not an easy task to put together both a Hindi book and and an English book ideal for new readers in a short time. But the Satsang's young brigade came to the fore to help. Anand Deb donated the entire amount required for printing and publishing. Subhasree-di tirelessly worked with Gourdasi in translating, composing, and then editing and proofreading the books, often sitting for ten hours at a stretch with the Hindi DTP work. The boys and girls of Vivek Vani Shiksha Kendra, such as Bubai, Prasanta, Anjali and Sajahan helped to transfer, pack and label the books neatly into packages that would be easy to transport to Haridwar. May Sri Sri Gour Baba always shower His love and blessings on all these young people who so selflessly have served his cause! The sheer bulk of the book packages was such that we had to hire a minibus from Haridwar to Delhi, as no Tata Sumo driver was willing to take on so much weight!
The Kumbha team from Calcutta Centre comprised Gopa Didimoni, Tapati-di (Sr.), Gourdasi, Mahua-di, Jayanta-da, Tapati-di (Jr.)and Ranjit-da. At Delhi, Smt. Pratima Gupta's home was the hospitable venue where we held a prarthana sabha for the Delhi and Kolkata devotees. This was the same place where Sri Sri Gour Baba would always stay in Delhi (Gopa Didimoni's mother's home), where Didimoni's father had seen Gour Thakur in samadhi , seated in the air three feet above his asana one night. We were also able to hand over a hundred Hindi books to the Delhi unit devotees so that they can distribute 'Gour Literature' to new people in Delhi.
After a night-long bus journey from Delhi, we reached Haridwar at the crack of dawn. Accommodation, food and a spiritually convivial environment was graciously provided to our team at the RKM Shivir at Kankhal - a massive settlement of tents. Angana-di joined us at the Haridwar Shivir and actively helped distribute books along with Mahua-di. Here, our team lived a disciplined life - after we bathed in the icy river at Vivekananda Ghat, Gopa-Ma conducted yoga classes at the amtala or mango grove, which became the place where our team would gather for regular dhuni ceremonies and other spiritual austerities. Days were spent in keertan and prayer.
Each day, we would wend our way - more than an hour's walk each way - through the crowded main streets of Haridwar to the Brahma Kund, distributing books to all with a smile. Youth from big cities, foreigners from various countries, and press people were given the English book "The Life Divine - The Life of Acharya Shree Gour Ganguly," and the vast majority of Hindi-speaking people were given the book "Divya Jeevan - Acharya Sri Sri Gour Baba ka Mahajeevan." The cover of both books had a large picture of Sri Sri Gour Baba, and smaller pictures of Sri Ramakrishna, Ma Sarada and Swami Vivekananda. More often than not, people would crowd around to take the book from us!
You have to see the Kumbha Mela to believe it. Not only do crores of ordinary pilgrims attend, but also many of India's mystics, sages, and yogis, some hundreds of years old. There are giant shivirs giving food and shelter to pilgrims as well as providing forums for devotional talks, songs and dances that are run by the sages of the major akharas of India's sadhu community - the Juna, Mahanirvani, Niranjani, Udasi, Vaishnava and so on. The crowds move in curiosity from one tent to the other, taking in the full experience of a transformed Haridwar - including a myriad hatha yogis in startling garb demonstrating their skills by the wayside, and the little shops selling Kumbha souvenirs, street food and articles of worship, beads, and assorted knick-knacks.
Help came from unexpected quarters - a senior sadhu also helped us tirelessly in distributing the books to sannyasis, sadhus and parivrajakas who were present in Haridwar. We made sure that we stood at strategic points through which the crowd was moving. For example, we distributed books at the major pilgrim attractions like the Daksheswar Mahadev Temple - a must-visit for pilgrims to Haridwar. Despite the almost unbearable heat, the sun beating down on our heads, the ill health of some team members, we soldiered on happily as a team, and achieved the goal - distributing 500 books per day for 4 days. The multitude of reactions of strangers on receiving the books are a story in themselves.
On 14th April, we marched towards Brahma Kund for the main snaana under the flag of Bibek Anander Satsang, which we had taken with us from from Kolkata. Lo and behold, we found a large number of people from many other big religious organisations marching behind our flag, because in the stampede-like situation of crores of people pushing their way to the ghaat, our saffron 'Om' flag flying high above us was like a beacon that saved many people from getting lost in the crowd! We led the way with shouts of Jaya-dhvani, and singing keertans endlessly, and all joined in with a spirit of ecstasy. After the sacred bath, we spent the whole day distributing more Gour Sahitya books to pilgrims who were thronging to see the colourful processions of the sadhus which were now moving towards the Brahma Kund. Since these crowds were patiently sitting for hours by the roadside waiting for a glimpse of the sadhus, every person that we gave books to read it carefully, once, even twice, since they had no other distraction!
Two thousand people have received books on Sri Sri Gour's Baba's life and ideas at MahaKumbha Mela 2010. They will take these home to different parts of India and the world, and God willing, their families or friends may also read the book. India's sadhu-samaaj were also given many copies of the book on Sri Sri Gour Baba, and thus many sadhus from different parts of India came to know of His life and work. Thus the impact of our prachaar abhiyaan will extend far beyond the Kumbha Mela to new homes where the names and pictures of Sri Sri Gour Baba, and even Thakur-Ma-Swamiji had hitherto not reached. God willing, the tiny ripples of the Calcutta Centre's work at MahaKumbha 2010 will spread far and wide. Our aim, as Sri Sri Gour Baba said, is to raise man to divinity, and what better time to begin this work than the MahaKumbha - the time when Man is reminded that he is the child of Immortality, 'Amritasya Putrah'...
NEXT TASK: DISTRIBUTING THE NEW ENGLISH BOOKS IN LONDON, UK...
