A journey to the Mahakumbh became a revelation beyond ritual
Sohani Mayekar
When I first heard of the Kumbh, I was around 13. My cousin showed me a documentary and I sat there, wide-eyed, watching a world so distant from my own. Somewhere in the corners of my mind, the desire to witness this spectacle took root—dormant but persistent.
Even in the midst of my final-year exam preparations, the whispers of a Mahakumbh—one that comes only once in 144 years—grew into an unshakable pull. I am not particularly religious. It wasn’t faith in the traditional sense that drove me, nor the promise of spiritual transcendence. It was the sheer enormity of the event—the awareness that neither my ancestors nor my descendants would stand where I was about to stand.
So, my friends and I booked our tickets. But they got cancelled. Twice. We hesitated. Maybe we weren’t meant to go. But something kept gnawing at me. After another friend urged me to reconsider, we booked new flights. I wasn’t sure if I was ready or what I was about to experience. But I left everything to Mahadev.
Three days later, we were on our way.
People later asked, “How was it?” “What did you feel?” I struggled to answer. The easy things came first: “It was crowded. The logistics were problematic and overwhelming. It’s not for the faint-hearted.” But that didn’t explain what sat heavy in my chest. I questioned myself: What did I actually feel?
I knew one thing—it was never about washing away sins, emerging transformed, bathed in some mystical light, or receiving divine revelation.
The early morning boat ride to the Triveni Sangam was cold, biting. The air hummed with voices, chants, movement—a chaotic symphony of devotion.
As I stepped into the sangam waters, the cold gripped me. And then, I let go.
With each dip, I remembered them all—my parents, my sister, my grandparents, my pitrus. I took their names one by one. I had come here alone, but I was not alone. I was a vessel, standing at the confluence of time, of lineage, of all that came before me. In that moment, I felt something I struggle to express—a quiet gratitude, a belonging, the humbling realisation that I had been chosen to be there, to represent them, to carry them into those waters.
When I stepped out, I knew with certainty—Mahadev had taken care of me. He had conspired for this, stitched it together in ways beyond my knowing.
Something had shifted. Not in some grand mystical way, but like the weight of an old thought finally lifting. Like taking the first cool breath after leaving a crowded room. Like the quiet stillness before a wave crashes to shore.
It wasn’t cleansing. It was awakening.
Not of the body, but of the mind. Not of the past, but of the self.
As I changed into dry clothes and gathered my thoughts, I realised—the river had not left me. It lingered, like an echo, like a question.
Because in the end, the Mahakumbh is not about sins or salvation. It is not a transaction, not the annihilation of the past.
It is a mirror—one that does not judge, only reveals. And when the chants fade, when the last embers of the sacred fires die down, you are left with nothing but yourself.
The question is no longer what you came to wash away.
The question is—what will you carry forward?
(The writer is a final-year MD student in Ayurveda Psychiatry from Anjuna.)
