"The river runs cold, but not as cold today."
An estimated one crores people will take the holy dip in Ganges today, the holiest of rivers considered in India. It will help them attain salvation, wash away their sins, and can help them border the distance between here and heaven. In a country that always finds new forms and beliefs to display its belief towards God, Kumbh Mela comes as a Woodstock of an act that can be truly described as an achievement of universal faith for as one decides to take a dip in the tormented yet holy waters of Ganga,one could feel the wonderful energy of power of a faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and new take without hesitation or complaint upon such incredible journeys of endurance for a dip without any second thoughts.
The major event of this festival is a ritual bath at the banks of the rivers in each town. Other activities include religious discussions, devotional singing, mass feeding of holy men and women and the poor, and religious assemblies where doctrines are debated and standardized. Kumbh Mela (especially the Maha Kumbh Mela) is the most sacred of all the Hindu pilgrimages. Thousands of holy men and women (monks, saints and sadhus) attend, and the auspiciousness of the festival is in part attributable to this.
Ganges is not supposed to be the longest or the most majestic of rivers in the world, neither is deep enough but surely has an impact that cradles through the Indian hinterland for time enough. Bernini, in 1651, visualised in his famous sculpture of four of the world's great rivers (the Ganges, the Nile, the Danube and the Plata), representing the four continents known at the time. The Kumbh Mela cemented its place in the history forever.
The people do not shy away from displaying their faith to the god in any number of ways, be it seers, sadhus, spiritual gurus, pundits, and average man, who make it a point to be here at this particular place, on this particular time, and date. Such and such it might be the only way of display of their selves that can be deemed as moral and way ahead of its time for a society which still is closed, and a bit hesitant.
Maybe it’s the belief or the love of God.
Maybe it’s the faith and the colours of India that flows on ever.
In portraying these images in colour I had no doubt in my mind of depiction of colour , for an event of such sort is an extension of faith and belief, rebirth after death, the recycle of life, in which colour is an essential element into subcontinents ‘s long and rich past. It is this sparkle of optimism, this illusion, and concept of mortality that colour becomes intrinsic, that it pervades black and white, which I cannot ignore.
