Before she flew into the water so that she would be holy immersed among the covered crowd at the biggest religious gathering in the world, Draupada Devi reached into the blouse and handed her a small protection bag.
Inside he was a slider of paper with his phone number cut on it, so he would have to be separated in the plot of limbs and luggage, which is the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival held every three years in one of four cities in India.
This year’s version of the event is called the Kumbh Machi, or the Great Kumbh, because it coincides with a heavenly alignment that takes place only every 144 years. So, many pilgrims, devotes, vidars and ascents are even greater than usual – and even easier to lose.
After the bath, as they went through the crowds, Mrs. Devi lost her husband Umesh Singha from sight. She went, with him, she was a bag.
Confused and frightened, Mrs. Devi, 65, ended up at the Festival Center for Lost and Passed, Part of the Huge Temporary Infrastructure participating in the earthly needs of believers as they perform rituals intended for the purification of the soul.
During the six weeks, from mid -January to the end of February, more than 400 million people are expected to attend KUBH Maha, according to government estimates. Yes stay in Moyagrajin the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet. Hindus believes that the third, mythical Rijeka called Saraswati joins the other two there in the holy mouth.
The stroked metropolis built for the event is located on 10,000 hectares of land temporarily arranged from Ganges, whose leads are withdrawn at this time of year. AND “Epirmer Megacity”, As Harvard researchers called him, there are hospitals, pontoon bridges, nearly 70,000 street lamps, thousands of rinse toilets, 250 miles of steel panels resting on Silty River bed and tents that run from modest to luxury.
While swimmers can go without sin, I can still go wrong. This could explain how Mrs. Devi found herself in search of help from lost and well -founded volunteers.
They had little information to work. Her husband was taller than her and two years older, Mrs. Devi said. He had skin and was dressed in a sweater in the same Mint green shade as the head scarf.
She didn’t know his phone number – which was why she wrote him on paper waste, the one she did not reach after the bath.
“They said she would come,” Mrs. Devi said that her volunteers had told her. “What else will he say?”
The state and central government consume hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure the safety of Kumbh Mela pilgrims, a venture whose huge challenges have become clear last month when 30 pilgrims died in Stamped as they rushed to bathe in the river.
The key to the security effort is lost and swollen the center and its 10 field offices. They are a place of hope and despair, because bhaktians show thousands every day to report missing persons and, sometimes, lost items.
Participants can use a public address system to publish their announcements in their own languages. One evening near a swimming place, it was a non -stop anger – people looking for lost brothers and sisters, parents, relatives, children and spouses. One person was looking for their discharged military ID.
Mani JHA, the project manager at the Center, said that the largest number of reported cases came from a place where people perform their bathing rituals.
“When bhakta go to his holy insulting, of course, there is so much rush,” Mr. Jha said. “When they come out, they run into fresh devotees, so they have to move out.” In an instant, people can separate. Others fall and remain back in the middle of the riot of an orphanage and discarded shirts.
Many pilgrims are from rural areas and are not used to large crowds. Some are poor and do not have their own phones. Sometimes they “start panic and cry” as they try to understand “where to go, who to ask, what to do,” said Mr. Jha. Police officers and volunteers from non -profit organizations are comforted and brought to the nearest office lost and based.
Once someone reports that a person is missing, workers feed on as many details as possible into a computer system that uses facial recognition technology. The information is shared with police and other offices, and they have also been announced in the public address system. Those found are placed in a hall lined with beds made of cardboard boxes. They were donated this year by Amazon and highlighted their logo.
In 2019, when a smaller event was known as the “half” Kumbh held in Moyagraj, the center lost and back was driven by 39,000 cases, said Mr. Jha. Most were solved, he added.
“The gatherings are very emotional moments,” Mr. Jha said. “You yourself become emotional when such a situation happens.”
One recent morning, Tara Chand Bhat and his wife Shatii Devi Bhat sought her mother. They split as they watched religious parades.
He went through all day. Bhats slept on the ground while waiting for the news. The next afternoon, the lost workers informed the couple that Mrs. Bhat’s mother was in the area of posture. She was there all morning, waiting for her family to take her home.
A few days later, Sudesh Sharma, 58, walked around a swim platform four hours before he was pointing to the lost and imposed center with his wife. They lost the trace of her two sisters after her holy dipping. The sisters of Mrs. Sharma had nothing but their bathroom – without money, without a phone – and they did not know her phone number.
Mrs. Sharma was impatient to merge with them again. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, adding, “The government spends so much money, can’t I help people?”
When Sant Ram, 56, arrived at the lost center, he was dressed only in underwear. And after the holy bath he lost his family. The rest of his story was also known: his wife had a bag and contained a phone and money.
However, he knew his son’s phone number. The police officer borrowed his phone and his family was soon on his way to meet him. The cop also gave him a lower shirt.
Mrs. Devi, a pilgrim who left her bag with her husband Mr. Singh, gathered again after about five hours.
She gave the lost and swollen name of her village and his former chief. They followed him down. He accidentally had a phone number of her husband’s nephew, whom he called. The nephew then called Mr. Singha and sent him to the center.
Mr Singh said his re -merging with his wife was delayed. Although he gave her official name announced in the public address system, she only gave the nickname lost volunteers, and they could not reconcile with the two.
“I complained to her that you put me in difficulty,” Mr. Singh said. “But whatever happened, it happened.”
