militant and not-so-militant sadhus: a naga baba carrying a mace during his akshara’s procession, and a naga baba smoking a chilam, a clay pipe filled with tobacco and hashish.
while the pilgrims’ bath in the ganges is the biggest draw for the pilgrims, the sadhus’ bath in the ganges is the biggest draw for the tourists. specifically, the first two bathing days are when the sadhus go down to the water en masse, in processions organized by their various orders or sects. the most dramatic sadhu sects are composed of naga babas, the warrior ascetics. the naga babas were originally established to defend other shavaite (shiva-worshipping) sects: naked, covered in ash, hairless except for their wild hair, and armed with various weapons, they must have looked terrifying. the naga babas are organized into aksharas, or battalions, but they are relatively peaceful now – and they are often stoned, as shiva is the lord of hashish – but they still have a militant streak.
more on that in a moment.
on the 15th, our group assembled at 3.00 am and went down to the main bathing area, where the sadhus were going to march down to bathe starting at 5.00 am. the police had cordoned off an area for photographers without press credentials (the ones with credentials could go wherever they wanted). because the spot where a sadhu bathes is considered holy, the public had filled the banks and were taking their own dips in the water before the sadhus arrived. the area was packed with bodies until the police heard that the first akshara was on the march; then they quickly cleared the area.
after about 20 minutes, we saw the head of the procession and the first group of sadhus, followed by the first akshara of naga babas.
i was in one of the tourist-photographers’ corrals where i realized i wouldn’t be able to get any good shots, so when i saw our trip leader running with the sadhus even though he didn’t have credentials, i slipped through the fence and pushed my way into the crowd. i was too far back to get to see the naga babas go into the ganges, but i was able to photograph them celebrating when they got out. and then things got interesting.
“akshara” is probably the best word to describe a grouping of baba nagas, because there isn’t another one that’s as appropriate. a bunch of nagas? a pride of nagas? a gang of nagas? perhaps a melee of nagas.
next: marching with the sadhus, or, things get even more interesting
for many people, their children’s first dip into the ganges is a major life event. the ceremony might begin with tonsuring – i.e., shaving the baby’s head – and then the parent or grandparent carries the baby into the river. for some, a splash on the legs is enough; for others, only full immersion will do. either way, the baby isn’t going to be happy about it.
see how much fun this is?
i guess not.
and again, not so much fun.
the legs are okay …
… but not in the face!
some babies don’t handle head-shaving as well as others.
fortunately, by the time they get older, bath time isn’t so traumatic.
the kumbh mela is a hindu pilgrimage during which tens of millions of hindus come to the banks of the ganges to bathe in the holy waters. the kumbh mela is held every three years on a rotating basis at one of four sites – hardiwar, allahabad, nasik and ujjain – where, according to legend, drops fell when the gods and demons fought over a pitcher of the nectar of immortality. this year’s kumbh mela was held at allahabad, which is especially significant because it is the point where three rivers – the ganges, the yamuna, and the mythical saraswati – converge, and it is estimated that 100 million pilgrims came for it.
they came by truck, they came by foot, they even came by bicycle.
during the kumbh mela, the pilgrims stay on the banks of the river, so one can imagine that the logistics would be a nightmare. however, the authorities handled the arrangements really well: tents and camps were well-laid out, there was running water and electricity, pit latrines and trailers with toilets, roads, and pontoon bridges crossing the yamuna river at various points. the bridges were organized so that you could cross only in one direction on the odd numbered bridges and only in the other direction on the even numbered bridges, and the police actually enforced this.
some ashrams had fairly large and festive camps, while other folks lived in more basic conditions that weren’t so well-situated when the rains came. the roads were dirt, but with metal plates laid down for cars. the organizers even had clean-up crews for the river banks. all in all, the logistics were impressively done.
the highlight, of course, is the bathing. the current was strong enough that the organizers built fences as close as 20 feet away from the bank, at some points, to keep people from being swept away; and they also lined the more crowded parts of the river bank with sandbags to keep it intact. these arrangements gave the river a less than organic feel, but with 100 million people trampling along the river banks, the damage would have been significant otherwise.
the next day, we went back to the golden temple to tour it properly.
that same first view in the daylight.
more people walking around the tank.
more views of the temple from across the tank.
“you are there” – in line to enter the temple.
the exterior is covered in gold, with inlaid marble reminiscent of the taj mahal. you can’t photograph inside, of course, but the interior is even more splendid: gold, intricate painted designs, and a copy of the adi granth under a brilliantly embroidered canopy.
a sikh meditating on the top level of the temple. if it weren’t for the green plastic bag, this shot would have a timeless quality, but bags and water bottles are ubiquitous these days.
in addition to temple offices, the compound contains an enormous kitchen that feeds tens of thousands of people every day, around the clock, for free – sikhs and non-sikhs alike.
volunteers preparing vegetables. there were well over a hundred people peeling onions and garlic, shelling peas, and so on.
the stove.
the pots were enormous.
women rolling out chapatis. the kitchen produces 50,000 chapatis daily – 20,000 by hand and 30,000 with machines.
artisanal chapati-making, by the women …
… and by the men.
this man is doing a final quality check by hand …
… while these women checks the ones coming off the machine.
just after thanksgiving, we went up to amritsar, to visit the golden temple, sikhism’s holiest site. our visit coincided with guru nanak jayanti, the birthday of the founder of the sikh religion, guru nanak dev ji, so we were treated to the temple lit with fairy lights, and fireworks.
the exterior of the golden temple, which is under construction.
even with the lights – an unexpected decoration which gave the whole thing a las vegas feel – the exterior didn’t prepare us for this amazing view.
it was quite crowded.
visitors to the temple walk clockwise around the water tank. the temple itself sits in the middle of the tank.
worshippers were lighting candles along the water tank’s edge
a chakram, one of the symbols of sikhism
the golden temple itself. the adi granth, sikhism’s holy book, is kept in the sanctuary.
fireworks above the golden temple compound and, to the right, above the entrance to the temple itself.
(if i got any of the details wrong, please send me an e-mail!)
back to kolkata: on my last day there, i visited the indian museum, which was founded in 1814. to me, the indian museum is the quintessential old museum: the type of place you can just wander around and peer into ancient cases. if you’ve ever needed to know what a lump of quartz-magnetite-actinolite-schist or a pseudolioceras fossil looks like, the indian museum is the place for you.
the ancient stone carvings are well displayed and comprehensively labelled; once you leave the hall, things become a little more haphazard, and when you get into the natural history and geology sections, it becomes wonderfully arcane.
two versions of kali – one by raja ravi varma and a more totemic local one.
we were in kolkata this past week, just after durga puja, the holiday for the goddess durga, and two weeks before kali puja, the holiday for the goddess kali. kali is the goddess of time and change, and is pretty badass. when the goddess durga is unable to kill the demon raktabija and his minions – duplicate raktabijas that spring up whenever the demon’s blood hits the ground – she calls upon (or transforms into) kali:
out of the surface of her (durga’s) forehead, fierce with frown, issued suddenly kali of terrible countenance, armed with a sword and noose. bearing the strange khatvanga (skull-topped staff), decorated with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger’s skin, very appalling owing to her emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having deep reddish eyes, filling the regions of the sky with her roars, falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she devoured those hordes of the foes of the devas.
kali destroys raktabija by sucking the blood from his body and putting the many raktabija duplicates in her gaping mouth. pleased with her victory, kali then dances on the field of battle, stepping on the corpses of the slain. … (source: wikipedia)
in the kumartuli neighborhood, shop after shop of craftsmen are busy creating statues of kali to put around the city at various celebrations. they come in various styles, but they are fairly benign in appearance, which is surprising, considering kali’s fierce reputation.
deeper in the neighborhood, however, the craftsmen get a little more creative. photographing these was like eating potato chips …
sadly, i can’t get back to kolkata in time for the holiday, but now i have a reason to come back to india after 2013.
over labor day, we went to ooty, a hill station in the nilgiri hills of tamil nadu. james and i drove the 12+ hours each way so we could bring the dog, while our wives flew to meet us. the drive was typical for tamil nadu – fantastically smooth national highways punctuated by the occasional lorry traveling toward you head-on; state highways that wind through villages, on which you will get stuck behind two buses with no room to pass; and mountain roads that are full of switchbacks, on which you will get stuck behind two gravel trucks with no room to pass. (see my post about yercaud.) generally, if you’re traveling in india and google maps say a drive will take 6 hours, it’s wise to add another 3 hours.
lymond house. unfortunately, we had rain for much of our trip, so it was hard to make the place look cheerful in photos; and the housing that crept favela-like up the hill behind us didn’t help.
ooty historically was the place that the british, and the elite more generally, spent their summers when madras (as it was known at the time) was too hot. the colonial influence is still felt through the architecture. see, for example, lymond house, the inn we chose for our stay because they take dogs.* the people at lymond house were very nice, even when cooper jumped up on the duvet with his muddy paws and later barked at them for walking around what was now his house.
180° mciver, a sister property. again, very classic british architecture, but with a surprise in the bathroom off the dining room. next, the church of st. stephen – you can just feel the englishness.
the hotels and architecture are not the only reasons to visit ooty. one of the main attractions is tea: the british introduced tea to the hills in 1838, and nilgiri tea is an ingredient in many of the international blends today. there are plantations all over the area, and we were fortunate enough to meet one of the owners at dinner. he invited us to his home for tea the next day, and then to the factory to see how the leaves are processed. we learned that the tea is harvested throughout the year; pickers take just a few fresh leaves off each bush every ten days, leaving the older dark leaves where they are. the fresh leaves are poured into troughs with mesh bottoms, to allow hot air to flow through; the dried leaves are then poured through holes in the floor to go through a series of shredding machines. the shredding allows the leaves to be coated with the flavors from the leaves. the leaves are then oxidized (to turn the tea black), heated and ground to one of three sizes before being packaged and shipped out to the blenders. in comparison, green tea is turned in a rotary machine to compress and roll the leaves; green tea leaves are neither shredded nor oxidized before they are packaged.
tea leaves; tea pickers.
a worker among the drying troughs. the shredder. a worker cleaning on of the machines.
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views of tea fields and the surrounding hills.
*it’s actually very difficult to travel with a dog in india, since most hotels won’t accept them, restaurants won’t let them in, and dogs aren’t allowed in parks. the guard at the botanical park told us dogs weren’t permitted in as a street dog trotted across the lawn behind him; when i met with the manager and pointed that out, he explained that if a dog is under control on a leash, then he has to keep it out, since it would bother the other 8,000 tourists who visit the park each day; whereas if the dog is a stray and not under control, there’s nothing he can do it stop it coming in (regardless of how people feel about it), so he ignores those. the tenacity with which he clung to this twisted logic was nothing short of breath-taking.
our last full day in leh coincided with al quds day, which falls on the last friday of ramadan. al quds day originated in iran in 1979, and its proponents hold demonstrations to show solidarity with the palestinians. naturally, a protest in favor of the palestinian people wouldn’t be complete without anti-israel and anti-america rhetoric and signs.
i came across the children first. they were sitting in neat lines behind a banner that read “we must all rise, destroy israel and replace it with the heroic palestinian nation.” some of them carried their signs with conviction while others looked like they were dutifully attending a school field trip. a few of the boys acted embarrassed when i raised the camera, so i decided to tease them: “if you’re going to carry the sign, be proud of what it says. don’t hide behind it.” a few of the girls sitting near me quietly called across, “yes, don’t hide, be proud.” it probably wasn’t the most politic thing i’ve ever done, but i was annoyed by my suspicion that at least 20 percent of the kids in the demonstration couldn’t have cared either way about the palestinians.
the adults – overwhelmingly men, of course – seemed committed to the cause, yelling along with the megaphones and raising their fists. a small number smiled for my camera as they passed, but the majority either ignored me or looked warily. (by contrast, when i photographed political marches in tirana, the demonstrators threw themselves in front of my lens with huge grins and thumbs up.) the women who watched from the sidewalks and balconies, on the other hand, regarded the whole thing in relative silence.
there was a significant police presence, so i felt no sense of danger, although i did get the sense that if i’d identified myself as american and jewish(ish), it wouldn’t have earned me any brownie points. there was something thrilling about the experience, although it wasn’t a fun thrill – more of a sense that this was real work in real time, and i had to move fast. in terms of the mechanism of photography itself, i used only two lenses – a 35mm and an 85mm – and there is something liberating about going old school and not worrying about how far to twist the zoom, but the accompanying challenge was to frame the shot with a fixed focal length. picking the right depth of field wasn’t always easy, either, and half the time everything was on manual. i’m not ready to go to aleppo yet, but it beat shooting conferences for usaid.
the trip was organized by travelling lens, a photography/travel company run by my friend, varun gupta. during the two weeks, we had photography lessons, culminating in an assignment. mine is here.
