Protesters at the Kumbh Mela marching to draw attention to the state of the Ganges. Photo: Ravinder Bawa.

Upper respiratory tract infections and asthma still dominate the list, due to the cold and high levels of particulate matter in the air. The flow of gastro-intestinal infections remains steady but low, and the incidence of more serious waterborne diseases such as typhoid negligible. One of the more persistent problems has been holy men presenting with urinary infections due to enlarged prostate glands (four or five a day), and slightly less frequently, with fatty livers or cirrhosis—a reflection of their relatively advanced average age, penchant for smoking ganja and general lifestyle. Two people have suffered heart attacks while bathing in the icy Ganges, there have been two fires—one of which injured 20 people, some of them badly—and two babies have been born, that the doctors know of.

So the health profile of the world’s largest crowd is surprisingly ordinary. A handful of people wrote in response to an earlier post of mine that pilgrims don’t drink Ganges water, they only use it to perform puja, ritual offerings to the gods. Puja is definitely an important use of the river water, but they also drink it—as confirmed by the head of medicine and sanitation for the Kumbh Mela, Suresh Dwivedi, the inspector general of police for Allahabad Alok Sharma, and a sample of holy men and pilgrims themselves.

The skyline is getting higher at the Kumbh Mela. Photo: Laura Spinney.

The Kumbh still has two thirds left to run, but I leave it here, so here are a few last observations. The skyline is rising, as akharas or sects of holy men compete to outdo each other in the size of their portals. It’s still relatively litter-free, and 40 to 50 tonnes of solid waste are being removed from the grounds each day. Today saw an initiation ceremony of hundreds of novices into sadhu or holy man status. Having reported that there were no snake charmers at the fair, we came across a pair today. The police wouldn’t let them put on a show, they told us, so they were reduced to surreptitiously offering peeks at their snakes to anyone who asked, since seeing a snake is good luck. Finally, for those who have been paying attention, Shiv Kumari has left the Tiwaris’ lost and found camp and been reunited with her family.

Anything could happen between now and the end of the festival on March 10, but the authorities’ preparations have so far proved more than equal to the task.

Two surreptitious snake charmers at the Kumbh Mela. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Sulking in Kapari and Lohagra, two villages about an hour’s drive from Allahabad, is the answer. If they try to come close to the Kumbh Mela, they complain, police drive them back. They get picked up in vans, ordered to pay fines, even thrown in prison for a week. To add insult to injury, the police have been known to shave off their distinctively long hair. So the world’s largest crowd remains a glittering mirage to them. They’re forced to skirt it and ply their trade on the backroads and in the small villages of India.

The village of Kapari. Photo: Laura Spinney.

If you were in any doubt that snake charming was a dying art, you’d just have to visit these villages. Made of mud and thatch, they have no electricity. Lohagra has no source of clean water. The women stay at home while the men take their snakes out on the road, often staying away for a month at a time. Accused of cruelty, because they remove the fangs of the venomous snakes they catch, the snake charmers’ status has declined until, today, they’re regarded by many as little more than beggars.

At some point, animal rights activists realised that the best way to protect the snakes was to provide the charmers with alternative sources of income, and some now work as snake-catchers, or snake caretakers at tourist attractions. The snake charmers themselves realised that they needed to diversify to survive, and the current generation of young adults is the first to have received an education, and taken on paid jobs.

In Lohagra, children have no choice but to be comfortable around snakes. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Maybe when the children of those teachers and shopworkers are the village elders, snake charming will die. For now, though, it still defines these two communities, and respect for the sacred serpent remains deeply rooted in their psyche. After all, Lord Shiva, the Hindu god, is often depicted with a cobra coiled round his neck. And when two young people in Lohagra marry, the dowry for the girl is still two cobras.

The garlanded body of a small boy arrives at the funeral ghats near Allahabad. Photo: Laura Spinney.

This morning, two funerals were already going on at the water’s edge when an all-male procession approached across the sand carrying a small bundle garlanded with marigolds on a bamboo stretcher—an eight-year-old boy who died yesterday from an electric shock. According to Hindu ritual, the body is laid on a pile of wood beside the river and set fire to. Once the fire has gone out, the mourners return to collect the charred fragments of bone—in Hindi it’s referred to as “picking flowers”—which are then thrown from a clay pot into the river. Women are not allowed to attend funerals at the ghats.

Cremations are a minor source of pollution in the Ganges compared to untreated sewage and toxic chemicals, but partially cremated bodies are a gruesome sight and add to the river’s already high bacterial count. So in 1977 the World Bank provided funds for the construction of an electric crematorium in Allahabad, in the hope that people could be weaned away from the traditional pyre to a cleaner, more efficient method. Sixteen years later, a second one was built.

Gherao works at one of two electric crematoria in Allahabad. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Gherao works at the older of the two crematoria, which is on the west bank of the Ganges—the Allahabad side—and also within the Mela grounds. His ID badge has the word Dom or Untouchable printed on it, and by lunchtime today he had cremated two bodies. When he started working there 12 years ago, he says, they cremated about 60 people a month. Now the figure is close to five times that. People are converting, in his view, because electric cremations are cheaper—450 rupees (USD10) compared to around 3000 (USD55) for the traditional method—and quicker. Most importantly, perhaps, the last part of the ritual remains the same: the flowers are still picked and thrown into the river.

LED signs in Hindi tell the pilgrims to take no more than three minutes in the water. Three quick immersions should be enough to wash away their sins. Then they must make their way out, get dressed and move on to make way for others. Given that five million are expected at the ghats today, and they all have to come out of the water the same way they came in, the operation is surprisingly smooth. Men in yellow uniforms patrol the water’s edge, making sure nobody strays beyond the shallows into the fast-flowing current of the Ganges.

Police and military keep the crowd in line. Photo: Laura Spinney.

The PA system broadcasts instructions on a loop, and these are enforced by police and military who brandish guns and sticks and blow whistles at anyone who stops or strays off the designated route. There are entry and exit roads, and some of the narrow pontoon bridges spanning the river are one-way today. Should beggars dare to leave the road and approach the mass of bathers, the police raise their sticks to warn them off. Their time will come when the retreating pilgrims drop alms into their laps—another part of the ritual.

The pontoon bridges are designated one-way on important bathing days. Photo: Laura Spinney.

When the bathers emerge trembling and jubilant from the water, the word they use most often to describe how they feel is “rejuvenated”. What about the cold? “Your body goes numb, and after that you don’t feel it,” one man explains. The cold helps keep the crowd moving, as does the infrastructure—the road system and the four extra ghats. But the third factor that makes this mass gathering work is that people are considerate to one another. Cooperation oils the machine.

In fact, this crowd is so well-behaved that it’s hard to imagine it could ever produce a disaster like the one that happened in 1954, at the first Kumbh Mela held after India gained independence. That year, hundreds of people were crushed to death on the most important bathing day, Mauni Amavasya. But then crushes can come out of nowhere, as the Kumbh organisers know only too well. There’s no room for complacency, and their plans won’t be properly tested until February 10, the date on which Mauni Amavasya falls this year.

There are two lost and found camps on site, one of which is run by 86-year-old Raja Ram Tiwari, who took the initiative after seeing an old woman weeping uncontrollably at the Mela once she had become separated from her family. That was in 1946, he was in his teens, and he and his friends helped reunite her with her people. He’s been doing the same ever since, and his son Umesh is gradually taking over from him.

Raja Ram Tiwari runs a lost and found camp at the Kumbh Mela. Photo: Ravinder Bawa.

Shiv Kumari, a 70-year-old widow who has been at the camp for going on 24 hours, is distraught. She came to Allahabad on a bus with a group of relatives from her village, and lost sight of them while the baggage was being unloaded. She made her way to the Mela and the Tiwaris’ camp, from where she broadcast a tearful plea to her family to come and collect her.

Shiv Kumari is lost. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Since January 13, Raja Ram Tiwari says, over 10,000 people have passed through his camp, most of whom were eventually “found” with the help of the festival-wide PA system (in the past, volunteers roamed around shouting information about the lost person through tin cans). Only two elderly men and six elderly women could not be placed to date, he says, and they have been sent home to their villages by train. When asked if they might have been abandoned by their families, he laughs and dismisses the idea. Vinita Bahuguna, who runs the other lost and found camp next door, reacts similarly.

But Delhi-based women’s rights activist Mohini Giri, who used to chair India’s National Commission for Women, says that abandonment of widows of all ages, and of female children, is a problem countrywide—though it has decreased a lot over the last 10 years. One reason it’s not spoken about, she says, is that many people consider it a holy deed and a family’s personal choice.

A particular hotspot is Benares, Giri says, because Hindus believe that anyone who dies in that holy city goes straight to heaven. She estimates that there are 10,000 abandoned women on the streets of Benares. It happens at the Kumbh Mela too, she says, for a similar reason, and some women are left to beg in Allahabad or nearby cities long after the pilgrims have departed.

Naga Baba Jai Giri Ji and his long, long hair. Photo: Ravinder Bawa.

Naga Baba Jai Giri Ji has long, long hair. He hasn’t cut it for 15 years, and when he dances in the processions that the holy men lead to the sangam on bathing days, he loops it over his arms so that it doesn’t trip him up.

Lakshman Giri's headgear. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Lakshman Giri is also famous for his headgear, but in his case it’s a crown of rudraksh seeds that he says he’s worn for 16 years. Nearby is another sadhu, or holy man, who claims to have stood on one leg for 10 years. The naga sadhus, including these three, are naked—or more poetically, digambara: “wearing the sky”. Pilgrims gather to stare at their impressive feats, and the holy men beckon them into their tent, to sit around the fire, hear their wise words, and perhaps, join their cult.

This sadhu has stood on one leg for 10 years. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Like any city, the Kumbh Mela serves many functions. It’s a site of pilgrimage, but it’s also a market, a party and a religious trade fair. The holy men come to recruit disciples. Their prestige and their livelihood depend on it, since disciples bring donations. Some sadhus are lone operators, but there are also 13 akharas—groups or sects of holy men—that advertise their existence via billboards and the palatial gates to their camps, which are lit up like Disneyland attractions.

Gateway to the compound of an akhara or sect. Photo: Laura Spinney.

One of the most elaborate camps belongs to Bhaishri Rameshbhai Oza. He’s known as a great orator, but also for his message that one can achieve peace without renouncing wealth. There are a lot of smart cars parked outside his camp, but bizarrely, the temporarily discarded shoes are all old and worn. A security guard explains that rich people leave their good shoes there on entering, and poorer pilgrims stop by to upgrade their footwear.

The decor at Bhaishri Rameshbhai Oza's camp. Photo: Laura Spinney.

Pilgrims come to the Kumbh searching for moksha, or Nirvana, which they obtain through penance or tapas. The ones who take this most literally are the kalpwasis, who are arriving in the city now in large numbers. They will stay for a month in the most spartan conditions, bathing in the Ganges before dawn, eating one frugal meal a day, and renouncing all worldly temptations—notably gossip.

Kalwasis arriving at the Kumbh Mela. Photo: Laura Spinney.

The most densely inhabited area of the Kumbh Mela tent city covers 20 square kilometers, and the numbers haven't peaked yet. Photo by Laura Spinney.

The Kumbh Mela's PA system broadcasts the discourses of holy men, religious music and practical announcements, generating constant, loud noise. Photo by Laura Spinney.

The spiritual heart of the Kumbh Mela is the sangam—the place where the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers meet, and the most auspicious site for bathing. This is where five million people are expected to take a dip on Sunday, January 27, to mark the full moon, and where twice that number will head on the most important bathing day on February 10. This year, four extra ghats—entry points to the water—have been built to ease the pressure on the sangam and ensure that all those who want to can bathe safely, without fear of being trampled or drowned.

Kumbh Mela pilgrims are seemingly oblivious to any contamination that might be in the sacred Ganges. Photo by Laura Spinney.

A bather prepares a container for drinking water at the Kumbh Mela. Photo by Laura Spinney.

Once they’re in the water, though, devotees face a whole other set of risks. India is in a perpetual state of anxiety about the pollution of Hindus’ holiest river, and this Kumbh Mela is particularly environmentally aware. To date, the contamination of the river by raw sewage, industrial effluent and ritually burnt corpses has yet to be reined in, but the authorities have made some concessions to the world’s biggest crowd. For one, they have opened the Tehari Dam, way upstream of Allahabad, to release more water into the river and dilute the toxins. For another, they have forbidden the 1000-odd tanneries in Kanpur, an industrial hub also upstream of the sangam, from releasing arsenic- and chromium-containing waste into the river for the duration of the festival.

The water is being tested daily, and according to Devesh Chaturvedi, District Commissioner for Allahabad, is currently batheable. To his surprise, the pollution indicators spiked after the first major bathing day, on January 14, but remained within the acceptable range and receded again within four days.

The water certainly isn’t drinkable, though—something which doesn’t faze most pilgrims, who carry bottles of it home with them. They put their faith in Mother Ganga, and even the doctors seem sanguine. The central hospital has so far recorded one case of typhoid, and a constant but low-level flow of gastro-intestinal complaints—nothing it wasn’t expecting or can’t handle. For now, it’s business as usual at the Kumbh.

Two Kumbh Mela pilgrims carrying a bottle of Ganges water for drinking. Photo by Laura Spinney.

The stars are aligned. The first aiders are on standby. The latrines are dug. And the city of Allahabad is waiting to see how many tens of millions of people will descend on it between now and March 10. One thing is certain: the Kumbh Mela, a giant gathering of Hindu pilgrims that takes place every 12 years in four cities in northern India, and that is celebrated this year in Allahabad, is unique. No other religious gathering comes close to it in terms of scale. And because true pilgrims come here to stay—some for days, some for weeks, some for the 55 days of its duration—it is more than just a site of pilgrimage. It’s a city. Temporarily, it may be the world’s largest.

Allahabad is where the sacred River Ganges meets another, the Yamuna, and people come here in the cold months of January and February over which the Kumbh Mela is held to bathe in the holy water and wash away their sins. The timing is astrologically determined, but the Indian monsoon ensures that the huge river plain on which the tent city is constructed is often flooded until the previous August or September. Building can’t get underway until the waters have receded and the new river patterns have revealed themselves, which this time meant last October. So the Mela authorities have three months to build the city and another three to dismantle it. It is usually cleared away by April.

A disciple (orange turban) visits with a naga sadhu, a holy man or saint and a follower of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Photo at the 2013 Kumbh Mela by Laura Spinney.

In 2001 this half-year city welcomed between 30 and 70 million people, depending on who you ask, and this year the authorities are predicting 80 million. But numbers are notoriously hard to obtain, because nobody is counting. There is no official registration. Locals wander in and out. People from further afield find accommodation, usually cramped, with relatives in the town. Of all the four cities that host the Kumbh Mela, Allahabad boasts the largest because it has the most space. Jiwesh Nandan, who was Mela Officer and hence oversaw the last Kumbh Mela in Allahabad in 2001, said that estimates are made on the basis of aerial photographs and the dimensions of the habitable area, but these are very approximate.

The women lighting candles will set them afloat on the Ganges on a cold winter evening at the Kumbh Mela. Photo by Laura Spinney.

In the past, when most people arrived by train, ticket sales were a useful indicator. But now people have many more modes of transport at their disposal, notably the car. Allahabad’s District Commissioner, Devesh Chaturvedi, expects up to 10 million to come for the most important bathing day, Mauni Amawasya, on February 10, and he puts the “permanent” population of the temporary city at about a million.

Naga Ozo is a holy man from Nepal. He will stay for the duration of Kumbh Mela. Photo by Laura Spinney.