Faith. As we pondered
what we sought to learn by embarking on extensive global travel a few years
back, we surprised ourselves. We knew we
wanted to see the natural and cultural wonders of the world: gaze at Mt. Everest, wander the jungle
temples at Angkor Wat, watch lions prowl at sunset in the Serengeti, bathe in
the sea with whale sharks, and taste the sweet burn of street food in
Thailand. What was a mystery to us each
is that we also wanted to participate with and observe how people worshipped
throughout the world. Neither of us
would consider ourselves religious at this point in our lives, but would
believe we are, at times, spiritual.
Raised like so many in our nation as one type or another of the vast
branches of Christianity, we had long since left the formal religions that
constrained us as women and lesbians.
While things have progressed, so much of what we believed was good about
our identities was often at odds with the practices and expectations of the
religions of our youth.
So why was watching others practice their own religions
something we wanted to explore and understand?
Perhaps it is the beauty and terrible danger that we see in those with
deep faith. Whether it is the vision of
planes flying into buildings or bombs going off in crowded spaces or simply a
few minutes of evening news anywhere in the world, we see the terror of
extremists transform and inhibit people’s lives across the globe. Recently during our travels in Hindu dominated India, Muslim extremists from
Pakistan bombed a military convoy, killing 40 soldiers and tipping these two
nuclear nations into a conflict wrought with danger. As we scrambled to get away from an area in
which jets were now firing on each other near the border, we learned that the
deep root of this conflict was… faith.
In the late 1940s, when the country finally cast the colonial cape of England
from its shoulders, a majority of leaders at the time (not Gandhi) felt there
must be two nations where there once was one.
Muslim Pakistan and Hindu dominated India emerged from the agreements and
a great forced migration occurred. Tens
of thousands were attacked and murdered as they lost land on one side or the
other of a hastily drawn border and fled from those who were once neighbors. The deep division of one nation under many
gods led to uncertainty of which nation controls Kashmir to the north. This is the ground that three wars have
contested and where religious extremists strike out in guerrilla attacks.
Yet India is also the same nation where the world’s largest
peaceful gathering emerges every 12 years.
The Kumbh Mela is one of the most amazing experiences of our travels. Over 100 million Hindu pilgrims make their way
to the waters of the holy Ganga River where three rivers merge. The Ganga and the Yamuna meet with another,
unseen and of the spirit world, as they collide in a place where drops of
immortal nectar were purported to have fallen from the sky as gods battled. Here, the pilgrims take “the dip,” submerging
themselves multiple times below the polluted waters to cleanse themselves of
their sins much, like the Catholics do in confession booths. We were graced by the gift of living for four
days with a local family who had eight giant private wall tents right alongside
the Ganga. There were hundreds of
thousands of tents placed on the sands and metal plating built to hold an
impromptu city. There we experienced the
modern wonder of an organized infrastructure built on a sandbar the size of
Manhattan that would, once again, be under water in a dozen weeks when monsoons
drove the rain rich river to rise.
Water, electricity, sewage, cell service, and even free WiFi were
present, as well as a dozen temporary bridges all built to carry and support
the pilgrims and their Sadhus (Hindu holy men) into a small area on the banks
of the Ganga where they would walk in, fully clothed if women, and immerse
themselves alongside tens of thousands doing so at the same time. All patiently waited hours for a turn on the
three most auspicious days of the month long festival. The government shuts down the freeways and
streets to vehicle travel on those days, and we marveled at the steady, continuous
flow of humanity of all colors and classes walking toward us and to the
river. After three days, we could only
utter in wonder “And still they come…” There was no fighting, no stealing, no
pickpockets in this crowd of millions, rather a sense of faith in a sea of
saffron colored Sadhus and naked Naga holy men.
While many pilgrims had resources, most did not. They simply slept where
they could find a place to lie down and those with food or wealth fed those who
had nothing to share with others but their faith. Tears streamed from our eyes as we watched
three elderly sisters, who, for each morning for 28 days, had walked slowly
together to the shores of the Ganga, supported by grandchildren and loved ones,
to hold each other’s hands in a triangle of matriarchal strength and dignity, and
immerse themselves 11 times under the gray waters of the Ganga. Why did we cry? Like the sight of our first glimpse of
Everest or the improbable breaching of a blue whale, we glimpsed something
beyond our abilities to comprehend, but we saw in it beauty.
“It is wonderful, the
power of faith like that, that can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old
and weak and the young and the frail enter without hesitation or complaint upon
such incredible journeys and endure resultant miseries without repining. It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I
do not know which. No matter what the
impulse is, the act is born beyond imagination, marvelous to our kind of
people, the cold whites.” (Mark
Twain an the Kumbh Mela, 1895)
Written in Majkali,
India
Images are from the 2019
Khumbh Mela near Allahabad, India
