March 14, 2013

after the adventures described in the previous post, the rest of the event went fairly smoothly. i didn’t get down to the river bank in time to see the sadhus bathing (and in fact was kept from pursuing them by the police who were stationed at the entries to the bathing area), but once they came back out of the water, i moved in. a few times i was pushed on by police or by sadhu-minders, but for the most part no one was bothered by my camera – in fact, quite the opposite.


the fancy sadhus (the “god-men”) were coming in on their trucks as the naga babas were leaving.	coming out of the water.	later, they put ash on the dog.

didn’t mind the photography.	definitely didn’t mind the photography.	celebrating with a very fancy chilam.

on the way back to the camp.	a group of pilgrims.	traffic jam on the procession route.

again, didn’t mind the photography.	some sadhus get initiated at a very young age.	a group of us looked at this photo and think that the crawling sadhu is unable to walk, and the others are keeping his hair out of the dirt. either that, or he’s a pledge.

women get in on the act as well. a group of female sadhus.	one of the god-men, with advertising.	the line of god-men vehicles was pretty long, and the traffic backed up considerably.