SHORT CUT TO NIRVANA: KUMBH MELA
CAPSULE: Probably the biggest human event in the world is the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela in India. This is a pilgrimage of somewhere between 20 and 70 million people attend on immense get- together and form many, many temporary communities with tens of millions of people each doing their own thing. Filmmakers Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day cannot hope to give the viewer an understanding of the event. There are probably thousands of different interpretations of what is happening. But the film gives an amazing feel for the complexity and diversity of such a massive event. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
The story is told that thousands of years ago there was a truce between the gods and demons so that both could cooperate to make Amritha Manthanam, a nectar that would give both the gods and the demons immortality. But gods and demons do not cooperate for long. They fought in Heaven each wanting the urn of Amritha. And fighting over the urn it spilled four drops on the ground below. The drops fell on four places in India: Prayag, Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik. If humans go to these sites and bathe in the waters they can partake of some of the magic of the Amritha. So pilgrimages are made to these places, first one, then another in a cycle. The pilgrimage this time is to Allahabad (a.k.a. Prayag) at the convergence of the Ganges and the Jamuna rivers. Legend has it that the river Saraswati also converges here. It is referred to in literature and myth, but nobody has ever seen it. Even for a country with a billion people an event that attracts a minimum of 20 million people would be a major affair, yet it is one that we hear of very little in the West. For comparison the Pope's funeral brought one million people in Rome. And this convergence of people is pure confusion. Pilgrimages like the Haj of Islam are much more coordinated. Kumbh Mela is much more like an immense street fair.
Perhaps one reason that this event is so unknown in the West is that it obviously would be nearly impossible to explain to Americans in one or a million sound bytes. You have the chaos of people chanting, mystics sermonizing, and theatrical plays in the street and in theater. Fakirs lie of beds of spear points. One man wraps his genitals around a horizontal bar and invites people to balance and stand on it. It is claimed that he can pull cars with it. One man offers to put his free medicine in people's eyes to stop tearing and to cure cataracts. India is apparently not a land that is rich in skepticism. Dozens take him up on it and go away rubbing their smarting eyes. One man has held his arm up in the air for twenty years. The arm has become withered and thin. He says, "God has given me a degree in willpower." Elsewhere in the crowd, kids type on computer keyboards. One person says that of course they have Yahoo and Hotmail. It is as if not just centuries but millennia have come crashing together. Everywhere there are sights, noise, music, and smells.
Filmmakers Maurizio Benazzo and Nick Day travel around the pandemonium, documenting what they see. They interview western visitors, Indian visitors, mystics, and gurus. They tell him that Japan specializes in electronics, the US is expert in being rich, and Indians are the world specialists of spirituality. Our guide though all of this is usually Swami Krishnanand, a guru in eyeglasses who explains as far as it is possible what is happening to two western women and to the filmmakers. The two women are not part of the crew but are Americans who have come independently to see the huge celebration. We are told that 80% of the self-proclaimed gurus are really fakes, but how does one decide who is in the other 20%? As the various experts and holy people explain themselves the viewer is shown many different aspects of Hindu philosophy. Generally the feeling is that they have found a truth that the West is only seeking. One guru named Ramanant Puri tells us that in America nobody has the time to sit in one posture for three hours, so they miss enlightenment. Pilot Baba tells the camera, "The West is missing the inner journey. They know so much about science and inventions, but they are missing discovery--self." Elsewhere the camera shows us the visit and speech of the Dalai Lama.
The viewer is given a heady overload of ideas, images, and sounds. The film reaches its climax as the Naga Baba, lifelong nudists for Shiva, go running into the Ganges. Their presence purifies the water for all to come into the river.
The documentary is nearly as bewildering as attending the festivities would be. This is a film for people who are attracted rather than repelled by culture shock. This world is like an alien planet and its people show that even if it is a small world after all, in this world there are people very different from us and even very different from each other. And what they believe is even further different. Benazzo and Day can not hope to convey understanding of the event. They probably do not understand it themselves. They can only give a feel for the incredible mélange of humanity that comes together for the Kumbh Mela and convey a little of the sensual overload they must be feeling. I rate SHORT CUT TO NIRVANA: KUMBH MELA a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Mark R. Leeper mleeper@optonline.net Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper
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