Col DPK Pillay
THE morning sun streamed through the large windows of the South Delhi café, casting a warm glow on the polished tables and the lingering aroma of freshly brewed coffee. I sat across from Aman, a steaming cup of South Indian filter coffee warming my hands. He, my hardcore left liberal colleague, was, as always, a picture of intellectual detachment, though a subtle shift in his demeanor hinted at something deeper. “Sixty-five crore!” I mused, breaking the silence. “Can you imagine? More than the population of most countries.”
The newspaper lay open between us, the headline proclaiming the end of the Maha Kumbh and its staggering attendance figures. Aman, the atheist who proudly wore his badge of non-belief as a mark of superiority, stirred his cappuccino with a slight frown. “Just a spectacle,” he dismissed, though his voice lacked its usual conviction. “All that wasted money and effort; all that blind faith…”
A paradoxical man
He paused, his gaze flickering towards me. Aman, despite his outward pronouncements, was a devout practitioner and defender of his own faith, albeit one cloaked in a veneer of secularism. He commanded a large following, drawn to his suave sophistication and his ability to quote Shakespeare and Marx in the same breath as Tennyson and Latin classics. He was a paradox, a man who allegedly claimed foreign lineage to assert superiority while simultaneously deriding the “superstitions” of the land he inhabited.
“Wasted?” I countered, taking a sip of my coffee. “Or a testament to something enduring? Think about it, Aman. Eight crore in a single day on Mauni Amavasya. Three and a half crore on Makar Sankranti. A logistical marvel on a scale unlike anything else on earth.” I pulled out my phone and started scrolling. “Look, the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca draws around 2.5 million people annually. The Vatican City might see around 5 million visitors in a year. Even massive music festivals like Coachella or Glastonbury barely touch a few hundred thousand attendees. And this year’s Kumbh Mela, at 650 million, surpasses the population of very large countries.”
I recounted the sheer magnitude of the event: 68 lakh wooden poles, 100 kilometers of fabric, 250 tonnes of CGI sheets, 3,000 labourers working for months to erect a temporary city. The security apparatus: 50,000 police personnel, 2,700 AI cameras, underwater drones. All to manage a vast, transient population driven by faith.
Worldview challenged
Aman remained silent, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his usually composed features. Perhaps the scale of the Kumbh, the sheer devotion it inspired, was challenging his carefully constructed worldview. “You speak of faith,” he finally said, his voice low, “but what of reason? What of the potential for exploitation?” “Exploitation exists everywhere,” I replied. “But here, amidst the seeming chaos, I see something else. I see a nation that endures, a culture that thrives. I see a people who, despite their differences, come together in a shared experience.”
“And what of caste?” Aman countered, his voice sharp. “Surely, you can’t deny the deep-rooted divisions that still plague our society.”
“Indeed,” I conceded, “but even caste seems to fade here. Look around you, Aman. Did you see any separate bathing areas for Brahmins and Dalits? Any segregation based on birth or background? Everyone came together, immersed themselves in the same sacred waters, and left spiritually cleansed, connected to a ritual tens of thousands of years old, a ritual that predates recorded history, a cornerstone of the ancient Indian faith.”
Overwhelming
“Perhaps,” Aman mused, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. “Perhaps there’s more to this than meets the eye.” I paused, my gaze meeting his. “You call yourself an atheist, Aman, wear it as a badge of superiority over my ‘superstition,’ my ‘blind faith.'” A faint flush crept up his neck. “I believed that then,” he murmured, averting his eyes. “But now…” “Now?” I prompted, intrigued by the shift in his demeanor. He met my gaze, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. “Perhaps there’s more to it than I thought. This…this scale, this devotion…it’s…”
“Overwhelming?” I offered.
