Akharas. Politicians. Endless lines of lay pilgrims. Commercial stalls. Administrative offices. Pandas. Boatmen. Conmen. Numerous police personnel, spilling like khakhi diarrhoea all over the place. The Kumbh Mela is all this, but none of these is the Kumbh Mela.

The beating, throbbing heart of the Kumbh lies on the sandy banks of the Ganga. Where, between the river and the structured camps of the Akharas, lies a forest of shabby tents far too numerous to count.

Official estimates put it at around 5,000 -- and the number of its inmates at around four, five times that number. Numbers that, the evidence of your eyes tell you, err on the side of caution. Extreme caution.

This tent forest is the abode of the Kalpavasis. A group of people who have no common denominator of age, sex, class or occupation. People who have nothing in common except an incredible, unshakeable belief in the philosophy underlying the Kumbh.

These are the people who come, with a minimal bundle of clothing on their heads, on the first day of the Kumbh and are the very last to leave. For the period of just under a month, they stay in ragged tents that provide an illusion of shelter, spending their time in prayer.

Their routine is simple, unchanging. In the pre-dawn mist, they leave their tents and wander over to the Ganga for a ritual dip. Which is easily said -- it takes a brave man, though, to dip so much as a toe into the waters at that time of day. Bath over, they sip Ganga water, then return to their tents for a morning of meditation and prayer.

Next step -- an aimless meandering through the tents and Akharas of the sadhus, stopping wherever there is a religious discourse going on, to form part of the audience. In the afternoon, they find some Akhara or high-profile ashram giving free food and eat their only meal of the day. And then get back to wandering over the Mela grounds, looking out for some yagna, discourse, whatever, to imbibe. Late at night, they wander back to the Ganga for a quick wash and the few sips of Gangajal that forms their meal for the night.

It is an incredibly arduous life -- and yet, Kalpavasi after Kalpavasi tells you that they are blessed to be there, to be able to spend the month in prayer and penance.

Gauri Bai, of Nashik, is an example. Aged all of 80, she is spry, sprightly and shows no signs of fatigue and exhaustion. It is, she says, her first Kumbh -- and the fulfilment of a lifelong desire. "I have always wanted to come here, to be with Ganga Mata. But first, there was my husband and my children. Then my husband died -- but, by then, my children were grown-up and had children of their own and I had to look after them. Now I am free of all burdens and can come here in peace."

I ask her if her children (three sons, five daughters) sponsored her visit to the Kumbh -- a question that makes her bridle in anger. "I have been saving up for this for so many years," she says, squatting in the sands outside a tent she shares with four other people, all strangers to her but all united by that one common bond. "I saved Rs 2,200," she adds, eyes round in wonder at her own thrift, "and with that I have come here."

Is that amount enough to survive? "I am old, what do I want?" she asks rhetorically. "I came by train and bus. I have kept enough money for my fare back home, see?" She illustrates by pulling out, from the recesses of her clothing, a little plastic packet with a few soiled notes in it. "The rest, I will spend here."

Doing what? "Giving alms to the poor," she says, surprisingly. "What greater blessing can there be, than being able to do that here, at the Kumbh?" She then tells you that Maharaj Harshavardhan -- perhaps the first Kalpavasi on record -- used to come to Prayag every five years, stay on the banks of the Ganga and give away all the wealth he had accumulated during that period.

While on the subject, take a tip -- don't ever, ever, offer alms to a Kalpavasi. Or if you do, preface it with some small statement to the effect that you are giving it to him or her so that he or she may in turn give it to the really needy -- the average Kalpavasi may, by city-slicker standards, be poor, but they are NOT beggars, they do NOT require your charity, they DO believe that, while they are here, at the Kumbh, the only benevolence they require is that of the Gods.

The Kalpavasi is steeped in the lore and legend of the place. Ask Gauri Bai what the significance of this Kumbh is and the relevant astrological configurations trip blithely off her tongue. Ask her why Prayag, why not Hardwar or Varanasi or one of the other holy spots dotting the course of the Ganga, and she responds with a shloka:

Anyakshetre kritam paap punyakshetre vinashyati
Punyakshetre kritam paap Praayage theerthanayake.

"Samjhe, beta (did you understand, son)?" she asks, then tells you the sins you commit in the course of your day-to-day life are washed away the minute you set foot on consecrated soil -- any temple, anywhere, coming under that definition. But the sins you commit on consecrated soil, she says, can only be washed away by coming to Prayag. "That is why Prayag is called Teertharaj, the king of holy places," she explains.

And where did that shloka come from? "The Rig Veda," she says, promptly. Prayag, she elaborates, is the confluence of the Vedas. "Ganga Mata is the Rig, Yamunaji is Yajur, Saraswati is Atharva Ved."

But what of the Sama Ved, I ask. The question throws her for a bit, then she says, "I don't know, I must ask some learned man about this."

The day I meet her, Gauri Bai is resting -- having just completed the Panchkosi Parikrama.

What is that? "Coming to Prayag and bathing in the Ganga is not enough -- you have to perform the Panchkosi Parikrama to reap the full benefits," she explains.

As I understand it, the Parikrama begins at a pre-fixed point, the pilgrim moving in a northerly direction for a distance of five kos, then turning right, walking another distance of five kos and so on until they have completed a huge square around the Sangam.

And that is it? You just walk?

Gauri Bai looks horrified at the suggestion that a 'walk' is all there is to it. "Beta," she tells me, "there are theerth sthals (holy spots) to be worshipped, at every stage of the journey."

As she tells it, her journey begins -- after the Sangam dip and related rituals, that is -- at the Akshay Vat, the huge tree within Akbar's fort on the banks of the Yamuna that is believed to be the representation of Siva. She then walks to Shoolkanteshwar temple, crosses the Yamuna along with a boatload of other pilgrims, visits Hanuman Tirth, Sita Kund, Ram Tirth, the Chakra Madhav temple (one of the 10 Vishnu temples in Prayag) and spends the night in the precincts of Someshwarnath Temple.

Day two sees her worship at Surya Teerth, Vayu Teerth and so on, till she reaches Ramsagar, where she spends the night. And so on... and on... and on... as the list of temples and teerths that the pilgrim HAS to visit spill out faster than I can scribble them down in the gathering dusk. The Parikrama ends at the temple of Hanuman on the banks of the Yamuna, bringing her to a point a few yards from where she started off.

How long did this take? Twelve days. "You HAVE to do it in 12 days," she tells you, matter-of-fact, as though informing you of a law that may not be broken. She completed the pilgrimage the previous night and, today, she is resting. "I have grown old, I cannot walk as much as I used to before... See, my leg swells up," she says, pushing back the end of her sari to display chapped, swollen extremities.

So now, I suggest, that she has had the Sangam dip and done the Panchkosi Parikrama, she can relax, spend the remaining days of the Maha Kumbh in prayer?

"I have one more temple to visit -- the Mankameshwar Mandir, see, there?" She points in the general direction of Saraswati Ghat.

Why? "Because whoever goes there and prays will find all his wishes being fulfilled. You too should go there, beta -- clean your mind of all impure thoughts, focus on what you desire most and it will come true. And then, you should come back here and offer laddoos by way of thanksgiving," she advises.

But, Maaji (mother), you have lived a full life, you have bathed in the Sangam and been purified, what more is there for you to wish for?

"Sahi hai (that's true)," she nods. "I will go there on the last day and offer three laddoos to Mankameshwar for having given me such a long life. And I will pray to him to keep me healthy for whatever remains of my life -- I do not want to be a burden on my children," says the 80-year-old woman who, back home in Nashik, works as a domestic servant in various houses to earn her upkeep. "We have given our children life, fed them, clothed them, now they are on their feet -- why should I take anything from them? Motherhood," she says, "is not a matter of trade -- I look after you for 20 years and then you look after me till I die, no, it is not like that. I will earn my own food."

She muses a bit, then adds, "Dekho (see), it is like this, I have come away for a month and, in that time, all the houses where I used to work, they would have hired other servants.. Aisa hi hota hai, na (this is how it happens, isn't it)? So, when I go back, I have to find houses that will give me work. But God is great, he will provide for me."

And so she will live there, immersed in the kirtans and discourses that are a constant at the Kumbh, till it is time to travel back to Nashik and look for work?

"Haan, waapas ghar jaoongi (yes, I will go back home). What else is there to do, but go back and work and wait for death? But," she adds, nodding to herself, "I have come here to Prayagraj, I have bathed in the Sangam. Swargvas tho mujhe nischit hai (I will definitely go to heaven), what more do I want?"

It is, for her, a certainty -- there is a place for her in heaven and, on schedule, she will go there and claim it for the rest of Eternity. It is as much of a sure thing as the fact that she will get a bus and a train to take her back to Nashik -- the waiting room where she will bide the time that remains to her.

Illustration, page design: Dominic Xavier.

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