The Pontoon Bridges That Carry Millions at Kumbh Mela

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/11/the-pontoon-bridges-that-carry-millions-at-kumbh-mela/576823/

by smollett • 8 years ago

91 22 8 years ago

saiya-jin2• 8 years ago

Anybody experienced this festival first hand? It had been my dream to witness this as an outsider, having very special memories of few days spent in Varanasi hanging around burning ghats.

But maybe I am romanticizing the event and actually its much less pleasant for foreigner.

RileyJames2• 8 years ago

I was at the 2012 Kumbh Mela, in Allahabad. (some of the pictures are from that event).

It was the craziest event I’ve ever seen, and after 3 months in India I thought I’d seen some stuff.

Nope.

Naga baba’s, doing their tricks and proving their holiness (beating their penis and using them to pick up boulders).

Sat with the guy who’s been holding his arm up to god for, I don’t know 20+ years.

Anything extreme and devoted is considered holy. So this festival brings all those people together, to show in their own way, their devotion.

It’s so loud and chaotic, 24x7. It’s like Times Square meets a music festival, but in every direction, for as far as you can see.

It’s a whole temporary city constructed on the banks of the river, for this festival. Each guru / sect has their own campsite.

Any camp site will feed you, get you stoned, put you up for the night and send you on your way in the morning. (Or you can stay for the rest of your life).

I would recommend it for anyone. But if you get tired of a 3 day music festival... this is going to test you.

It’s everything I loved so much about India.

saiya-jin2• 8 years ago

Thank you, you motivated me even more :) (spent 6 months in India backpacking around and in the Himalayas, it is an universe on its own)

mistrial9• 8 years ago

"Anything extreme and devoted is considered holy" .. this statement seems unwise - there are many considerations here

sn41• 8 years ago

I'm Indian - I plan to visit this time around. The traffic jams to get to Allahabad are horrendous. But the atmosphere at the Sangam (the confluence) itself is unbelievable. About 100 million pilgrims converge in about 50 days. Last time around, even though I did not go to the Sangam, I saw hordes of yogis, sanyasis and sadhus - including Naga sadhus, who are fully nude, save for a small clay pot with coals. The most auspicious dip is during Mauni Amavasya (New Moon day in which people fast and keep a vow of silence) - that is Feb 4 2019. The crowds are the most insane that day.

Arnt• 8 years ago

I've driven through one on the day it ended, going to Delhi. This route IIRC: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Haridwar,+Uttarakhand,+India...

The roadside was packed with pilgrims all the way. We drove for more than four hours past a continuous stream of pilgrims going home The article says 100m people. That's not a joke. If you want to visit one of these things you had better be the kind of person who enjoys company.

metahikari• 8 years ago

I attended the kumbh in Nasik back in 2015. It was my first time visiting India (spent two weeks in Bangalore for work) and I decided to take a train from Mumbai to Nasik. The whole excursion was something I'll never forget, from the bewildering experience of catching a train in Mumbai, to arriving in Nasik and quickly getting lost, to all of the commotion and crowds in the center of the festival. I was only able to spend 1.5 days there, but it had been on my bucket list for years and I'm glad I made the effort.

msravi4• 8 years ago

Trivia:

- The Kumbh Mela's periodicity of 12 years is based on Jupiter's period of revolution around the sun

- It's called Kumbha mela, because Kumbha is the name for Aquarius. Jupiter spends an Earth year in each Zodiac, and the year in which it is in Aquarius is the year of the Kumbh in Haridwar

- Apart from Haridwar, the Kumbh is also celebrated in Prayag (which is the festival this article is talking about), Ujjain, and Nasik. The years of these Kumbhs are offset from the one at Haridwar. In particular, the Kumbh at Prayag occurs when Jupiter is in Taurus (rather than Aquarius). So it should actually be called Vrishabha Mela...

- The Kumbh that's happening in 2019 at Prayag is actually called an Ardh Kumbha Mela, or Half-Kumbh. It occurs half-way between two full Kumbhs, i.e., 6 years after (or before) a Full-Kumbh.

- Prayag also hosts the Maha Kumbha mela, which occurs once in 12*12=144 years. The last Maha Kumbh happened in 2013.

- The article erroneously mentions that Prayag is the meeting point of 3 rivers - the Ganga, the Yamuna, and the (mythical) Saraswati. This is incorrect. The Saraswati was not mythical - there is evidence for a Sub-Himalayan Saraswati-like river flowing into the Arabian Sea until 10000 years ago through the Rann of Kutch (see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-05745-8). Also, the Saraswati is not described as having a confluence with the Ganga/Yamuna at Prayag in the Rig Veda - this is a later legend which does not seem to have any basis.

jaldhar• 8 years ago

You are right that Kumbha is Aquarius but the kumbha in kumbha mela is from its’ primary meaning of pot. Specifically the pot of amrta (the nectar of immortality) that the Devas and Asuras got together to churn and then fought over. In the ensuing tussle, four drops fell at the various places on Earth where the kumbha mela is celebrated.

The zodiacal sign is also associated with this story though probably both the Greeks and Indians got the zodiacal concept from the Babylonians and added their own interpretations afterwards.

Your point about the Saraswati is a bit nit picky. Yes there was a real Saraswati (that dried up by the end of the Vedic age) but the mystical Saraswati that flows at Prayag is not related to that

msravi4• 8 years ago

Yes, I'm aware of the pot-of-nectar legend - just didn't have the time to check primary sources for the origin of the legend, and did not want to put out something I was unsure of. If you have a primary reference for the origin of that legend, that would be helpful.

As for the Saraswati, you are mistaken. The sangam (confluence) at Prayag being referred to as "Triveni" (three rivers) is a recent invention (1860 or thereabouts) and is first referred to in written literature in 1873. And it is the same Saraswati river. See https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/The-story-of-Tri...

To quote:

"...the word Triveni was used for the first time in 1873 to convey the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati in the six-volume Sanskrit work Abhidhan Vachaspatya of Taranath Tarkvachaspati, who was associated with Government Sanskrit College, Calcutta (now Kolkata). Otherwise, according to its etymology, it meant triple-braided. Whether it is Valmiki or Kalidasa, no Sanskrit poet has used the word Triveni to denote the confluence of rivers at Prayag (Allahabad). Whenever they referred to it, it was always as a confluence of two rivers Ganga and Yamuna."

1024core• 8 years ago

there is evidence for a Sub-Himalayan Saraswati-like river flowing into the Arabian Sea

You do realize that Allahabad (or Prayag) is in the opposite direction to the Arabian Sea, don't you?

msravi4• 8 years ago

Did you read what I wrote?

Also, the Saraswati is not described as having a confluence with the Ganga/Yamuna at Prayag in the Rig Veda - this is a later legend which does not seem to have any basis.

See https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/The-story-of-Tri...

The article is wrong on two counts - (a) that the Saraswati is mythical, and (b) that Prayag is a confluence of 3 rivers - it is a confluence of 2 rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna.

ken• 8 years ago

The Saraswati was not mythical - there is evidence

According to the Wikipedia page, at least, it appears in folklore. It is literally mythical. That word doesn't (only) mean fictitious.

sigi45• 8 years ago

Aaaand it will also be the dirtiest water you will ever walk over.

hn3333• 8 years ago

Can anyone provide a Google Maps satellite link?

msravi4• 8 years ago

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Prayagraj,+Uttar+Pradesh/@...

devTen85• 8 years ago

Here is an Map from ISRO's Bhuvan website: https://bhuvan-noeda.nrsc.gov.in/events/events/kumbhmela.php

Shows you a comparison view, of just what a vast city is set up for the event.

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

Part of me says that is surprisingly good pontoon design and fabrication all things considered.

Part of me says that labor is cheap enough relative to material so why don't they dot all their T's and cross all their I's with the design and construction.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since it's just a temporary structure.

peterwwillis• 8 years ago

I was going to say that this looks like massive over-engineering, but I don't know how long they're used for or what kind of maximum loads they require. You could build pontoons out of bales of bamboo or plastic drum barrels and still drive a tank over it. But with steel pontoons, the weight of all that steel is actually countering some of the displacement. Probably part of why they have to be so big...

Edit: It looks like the pontoons are actually sitting on the river bottom in a lot of places, so I guess that's why they need to be so strong.

dsfyu404ed2• 8 years ago

I was thinking more along the lines of they should spend the extra 10min per bulkhead to build a proper "node" with the L-channel at the center of each bulkhead. That would let them use lighter (cheaper) material and have equal or greater strength. This is more important for a pontoon resting on the bottom because than one floating. When the guy cutting the channel is making $15USD/hr it's cheaper just to buy overkill material. When the guy cutting the material is making whatever they make in India it's worth it to have him spend the extra few minutes to put the proper angles on the ends.

I mean yeah, it probably is all overkill but I'm used to having to build things that have to withstand high dynamic loading so when it comes to mostly static objects I tend to over build things.

yumraj• 8 years ago

Just to put scale into perspective, since sometimes it helps to better visualize, only 14 countries (http://worldpopulationreview.com/) have a population more than 100M.

Also, 100M is almost 1/3rd the population of U.S., more than the entire population of Vietnam, almost the same at the entire population of Egypt, roughly 1/2 the population of Pakistan ...

The Pontoon Bridges That Carry Millions at Kumbh Mela

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