By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS
Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh) : They are well-heeled, hip and are essentially city slickers who like to call themselves “selfless servants of god”.
Meet the new breed of socially conscious spiritualists at Sangam – said to be the confluence of the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati – where more than 500,000 devotees have gathered for the annual Magh Mela religious fair and its Kalpvasi ritual.
Madhav Bhan, the owner of an Art House in south Delhi, has been camping here for a month with nearly 150 members of his congregation, including the likes of artists Arpana Caur and Gagan Gill.
“After spending 11 months of the year making money, people, especially the working class and businessmen, spend one month between January and March in ‘kalpvas’, dedicating themselves to the service of the lord,” Bhan said.
There is also doctor Tej Kaul from Jammu and Kashmir, businessman Anil Mittal and Vivek Paruthi from New Delhi, a host of professionals, members of the intelligentsia and commissioners of police.
They are performing their own brand of kalpvas or service to the lord, a Vedic ritual that is the essence of the Magh Mela. The month-long religious fair began Jan 14.
Bhan belongs to the Ghaziabad-based Om Wahi Guru Rishi Ashram in Uttar Pradesh bordering Delhi, which runs the Wahi Guru Anna Kshetra (free food centre) for a month during the Magh Mela.
“We take time off from our busy schedules to assemble here under the leadership of our gurudev Wahi Hansraj-ji, a Vedic scholar, to provide free meals to devotees and mystics who attend the fair. We feed around 8,000 devotees every day.”
The organisation has been running free kitchens since 1994. The food is cooked by the devotees themselves and the fare is simple – a platter of dal, roti, chawal, two kinds of sabzis and sweetmeat.
Meals are served six times a day beginning with morning tea and snacks. And the crowds at the gates are serpentine. The crowd surged on the day of Basant Panchami Feb 11 when the tally crossed 10,000 during mealtimes.
“It is tough, but we love it. While leaving, most of us end up in tears. There is so much bonding,” says Satykam, a gem and jewellery exporter, who oversees the arrangements.
The members sleep for two hours in the night and are up before dawn to prepare the morning meal, which is first offered to the sun and the deities of the Hindu pantheon before being distributed in a simple ritual, the head of the sect Wahi Guru Hansraj ji said.
Bhan said: “We save 11 percent of our annual income every year and pool in for our free kitchens at Sangam. Service is voluntary and we do not force any member to attend the kitchen camps. And neither do we accept donations.”
A couple of kilometres away, octogenarian Raja Ram Tiwari has pitched his “bhule bhatke” (lost and found) tent right in the middle of the dry bed of Ganges with his retinue of 150 voluntary workers from all over the country for his unique ‘kalpavas.
His organisation, the Bharat Seva Dal, unites lost souls with their families in the crowded fair. Tiwari has been in the lost-and-found business on the Sangam since 1947.
“We help lost visitors reunite with their kin in all the fairs at Sangam, including the Kumbh and the Ardha Kumbh fairs, two of the country’s biggest religious gatherings,” Tiwari said.
This year, the organisation has reunited 54,000 lost men, women and children with their families.
Last year, the organisation reunited 746,087 men and women, and 17,603 children with their families at various fairs on the banks of Sangam. “We started with a modest success rate of 870 lost-and-found adults in 1947,” recalls Tiwari.
Tiwari decided set up his “bhule-bhatke” camp when he visited the Magh Mela as an 18-year-old with his friends. He has received several awards for his service.
The Magh Mela logged a record crowd of 850,000 Feb 7 on the occasion of Mouni Amavasya. Nearly 650,000 lakh people bathed in the Ganges Feb 11.