IN INDIA AT THE MAHA KHUMB MELA
Recently my husband Vikram and I were privileged to join Harvard University and a group of Harvard students at the Khumb. With Prof Eck’s kind permission, I am delighted to reprint her Harvard Newsletter report.
Professor Diana Eck of Harvard, along with a group of Harvard students, and Meera and Vikram Gandhi, arrived in Varanasi recently to witness the Makar Sankranti, the first royal bathing day of the Kumbh, and one of the most auspicious Hindu festivals. Professor Eck writes, “By dawn, pilgrims were coming in a steady stream along the walkway in front of our guesthouse in Asi Ghat, headed toward the clay bank of the river and a dip in Mother Ganga.
They bathed in the chilly waters, made offerings at the small shrines of Hanuman beneath the great tree on Asi Ghat, circling the tree and offering water, flowers, and bilva leaves to Shiva, represented by the dozen or so Shiva lings there at the base of the tree.
Having bathed and worshiped, they offered a handful of rice grains to each one of the multitude of beggars lining the pathways and the walkways of the ghats. The crowds were festive and full, all along the river at all the major bathing ghats.
Logan Plaster, managing editor of Emergency Physicians Monthly, featured Harvard’s university wide multi-disciplinary project Mapping the Kumbh Mela in his article for the Atlantic’s Quartz blog this week. Logan will be joining the Harvard School of Public Health team at the Kumbh in early February.
He writes, “The hope is that by studying a pop-up mega-city, researchers would learn lessons applicable to a wide range of mass gathering events, from refugee camps to festivals like Burning Man. How do people move en mass? How can the spread of disease be kept in check by using minimal technology? The questions aren’t new, but by bringing four major disciplines under one tent – literally – Harvard is creating a new strain of dialogue, one which just might be able to keep up with the crush of the crowd.
