Oh Fuck…Its Royal Bathing day:)

So I could not think of a better way to title this post for  today since the past few days have been really filled with unbelievable happenings and today was surely going to lead up to some kind of intensity. As the crowds have gone thicker, I have grown stinkier Haa 5 days now no shower…WOA. But, its all in good spirit. The rest of the camp got up very early like 2am and went down to Hari Ki pouri. I’m pretty sure they are not actually going to get there because at 10 the army had blocked the majority of the place off. I was invited to go, but I said fuck it and decided to sleep. So Glad I did! I am getting exhausted from all the excitement and not sleeping much already. SO I get up an have a slow morning. Its cold outside and its hard to get out of the bed roll. there is no chance of showering, but there is a faucet with mystery water supply. I dipped my head into it because i just needed to do something. Shampoo, rinse and ready for the day ahhh!
One thing I have not mentioned yet is that food is extremely limited here. there are not many choices: Dal, Dal and more Dal. Or Chapattis and dal, dal and rice, or more Dal rice and chapattis. Good thing i like all that stuff. There would be an occasional vege thrown into the mix here or there. Did i mention that breakfast was also the same as lunch dinner and breakfast. Huh?:) Any how I had to walk all the way into town to get to the main area of town which was about 5 miles. All the auto traffic was being blocked so there was no chance of getting a ride in.
Some how I ran into my friend the superintendent of the army for the Mela right on the street. I was going to go to her house and watch the procession. It was exciting to see her in action…beating some people with the crowd control stick. I could tell she was hardcore! Good to have a friend like her. She told me to wait there for a sec and then said go follow the public and take pictures. Now there's like 5 or 6 millions people jammed into thi small town called haridwar which is the size of Bellevue. And the street are not so big, which means that you can and will get crushed.
Somehow I ended up at the back of the procession and was able to walk forward to the front. So what i found out was that this procession is all the swamiis and Baba’s wither their devotees riding on chariots to the main bathing ghat. They take a dip and ultra bless the ganga. Then later at night the public can go in . there are 3 separate processions. As I walked into the crowd it was really manageable, but about 20 minutes later ad I got closer to the front, I found myself saying “Oh Fuck”. The crowds were insane pushing, pulling, shouting, fighting, screaming, praying to get a glimpse of their baba’s. And I was in the middle of it. I’ll say its pretty scary, but I would do it again. Well I started to get tired so I ducked out for lunch on a less busy street. This restaurant seemed ok because it was busy and there were not a lot of options. Well it took forever to get food and I was really being treated like a foreigner. omce the food came it was fine but I needed a spoon. So I asked the waiter for one and her grabbed a used spoon off and used plate from a customer who just left and wiped it on his colar and threw it into my Dal. “OH Fuck” And looked at me like I was doing something stupid. I just had to laugh. And downed some garlic pills after that meal.
Well I made my way over to the rivers least popular bathing ghat and felt kind of wiped out. So I decided to sit and meditate on the side the water. I closed my eyes and Internally Omm Omm Omm for about 20 minutes. Then I opened my eyes and there were about 50 Indians standing around me taking pictures. “OH Fuck”  What to do? I decided to focus my dristi way inward and keep the eyes open. Many people sat net to me and took pictures. not sure how many, but I sat without moving much for about 2 hours.
Then something really nice happened. One Indian guy came over and asked me if i was afraid because of all the attention and being a foreigner. I said to him no because the only protection I needed was that of god and I have that. He noticed how focused I was with my eyes open and how even they stopped moving. Beautiful! We talked for about 2-3 hours and went to the Aarti. What a truly blessed way to end the evening and my last night at the Kumb Mela. For tomorrow I am going to
Rishikesh to take a shower and recoup.