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Lost and Found at the Kumbh Mela, India Ink NYT |
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 Courtesy of Derek BrownAn elderly couple were reunited after being separated for several hours at the Kumbh Mela on Sunday.
ALLAHABAD, Uttar Pradesh— Most people know the heart-sinking feeling of losing someone in a crowded place. Imagine the feeling of being lost at the largest gathering of humanity in the world, the Kumbh Mela.
It’s a scene so dramatic, and so common, that it’s a theme in many Bollywood movies — families who attend the Kumbh are separated and then reunited decades later.
Pranmati Pandey, a middle-aged woman from Bihar, knows the experience well. The mother of four was separated from her family on Sunday morning in the tide of an estimated 30 million people who gathered for the auspicious bathing day. Late on Sunday night she sat huddled with hundreds of other people, mostly women, who had also been separated from their friends and family.
“I just looked away from my family to give rice to the poor people on the road,” Mrs. Panday said, too exhausted from the day to cry. “When I turned around they were gone.” She wandered around for a few hours before a benevolent stranger took her to the police.
Every 12 years, an enormous pop-up city is erected on a flood plain, where the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati Rivers merge. Organizers say up to 80 million people are likely to attend the six-week event. Though there is not an official estimate of the crowds yet, the police and organizers say that on Sunday, the largest bathing day, the number of people separated from their family and friends at the mela rose above 20,000.
Read More India Ink, NYT
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Baba Ramdev: Can a yogi turn Indian politics on its head? |
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Baba Ramdev is a Hindu yoga guru-turned-anticorruption campaigner. He's the latest incarnation of the spiritual political reformer, an archetype running throughout Indian history.
By Rebecca Byerly, Correspondent / October 17, 2012
HARIDWAR, INDIA
It’s not yet 5 a.m, but hundreds of Indians are quietly shuffling into a football-field-sized yoga hall.
A sea of people in white and saffron organge-gangling aging men in loincloths, young agelic-looking women in pajamas, and wide-eyed children - sit cross-legged on yoga mats. On the stage before them sits their full-bearded and bare-chested guru, Baba Ramdev.
A sea of people in white and saffron orange – gangling aging men in loincloths, young angelic-looking women in pajamas, and wide-eyed children – sit cross-legged on yoga mats. On the stage before them sits their full-bearded and bare-chested guru, Baba Ramdev.
Through the windows behind him the sun rises, a deep red. His followers wait for him to begin what will be a four-hour session: He’ll move through a series of acrobatic postures that range from walking upside down on his hands to blowing hard, hissing breaths out his nose. But Ramdev’s yoga is not just about the body, the breath, or the mind.
It is also about politics.
Read more at the Christian Science Monitor |
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New law puts spotlight on India child abuse |
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Activists say cultural attitudes and red tape have allowed child abuse to run rife in India. But a new law seeks to change that by bringing abuse to light.
By Rebecca Byerly, Correspondent / December 9, 2012
New Delhi, India
The abuse started when Jyoti was 9-years-old. Her sister's husband would take her on car rides promising ice cream. But the trips always ended with him fondling her, demanding kisses, and more. By the time she was 18, he was abusing her weekly and threatened to kidnap her if she told anyone.
She eventually told her parents, but, as she expected, they did nothing. Going to the police was unthinkable for a middle-class Indian family worried about public ridicule and preserving the honor of its women.
Then, years later, she saw bite marks on her 4-year-old daughter’s armpits, cheeks, and genitals. Jyoti learned her husband was molesting their child. This time, she says, “I did not keep quiet.”
Read More Christian Science Monitor
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