At 9.13am on 17 January 2022, I used to be in a cab in London, on my method to meet Sir Ian McKellen for my BBC sequence Amol Rajan Interviews. I acquired a name from a withheld quantity – by no means a very good signal when a liked one is in hospital. “Please come instantly,” mentioned the nurse. “He’s not responding.”
That was the day all the things modified. Looking back, aged 38, I used to be fairly an previous baby that morning. However I’ve been in a funk ever since. Grief hit me extraordinarily hard. My father’s loss of life, aged 76, after catching pneumonia, was a shock. Time is a therapeutic balm and all that, however I’m ashamed to say that I’ve actively prevented excited about him.
Grief is each common – all of us expertise it – and specific, in that each grief is completely different in line with the bond that’s damaged. But there comes a second if you suppose, “Perhaps I ought to confront this; I’m not a child any extra.” In my case, that second coincided with an out-of-the-blue e-mail from a honored govt producer, Anwar Mamon, who mentioned the BBC had been eager on making a movie in regards to the Kumbh Mela, the world’s largest spiritual gathering, and requested if I might be all in favour of fronting it.
Probably not: I didn’t need to take into consideration my expensive dad, thanks very a lot. However a dialog with my beloved mum and my sort spouse, within the presence of my 4 younger youngsters, softened the scepticism.
The sensory, religious overload will final a lifetime
The Kumbh Mela is astonishing. Each six or 12 years, Hindu pilgrims from throughout India, and the world, collect to wash on the confluence of three sacred rivers: the Ganges, Yamuna and the paranormal Saraswati. However this was greater than that. As soon as each 144 years, and by likelihood in 2025, the alignment of Jupiter, the Moon, the Solar and the Earth creates a supreme, numinous power in that confluence – a Maha Kumbh Mela. Hindus imagine that by bathing there, you possibly can emancipate not simply your self however family members from the everlasting cycle of start, loss of life and rebirth.
That appeared like simply the kind of factor a son ought to do for his expensive, departed dad. And the movie may very well be a deep dive, not simply into my previous and grief, however an historic civilisation and world religion nonetheless little understood within the West.
What resulted was – properly, you will notice for your self. Along with director Brigid McFall, sound supremo Mark Roberts, Anwar and an excellent native crew, I had probably the most intense, riveting, surreal, trippy, emotional, purposeful 4 days of my life.
Really, you might have by no means seen so many individuals in a single place. This was the largest gathering of humanity ever. And proper there in the course of it was your humble correspondent: an atheist embracing his Hindu heritage; a grieving son making an attempt to do proper by his dad; and tens of hundreds of thousands of devotees heading for these rivers.
All the things about it was each terrifying and reassuring, moments of panic and ecstasy mingling inside the similar minute. The sensory, religious overload will final a lifetime, possibly a number of. At one level, information reached us of a crush. We had been only a few hundred metres away. Studies of casualties differ, however dozens died. I’ll always remember the sensation of gratitude to have been taken care of whereas so near such struggling.
I’ll at all times bear in mind this journey. It has introduced me nearer to a practice, and a father. In enterprise the identical rituals performed by hundreds of thousands of individuals over hundreds of years, I felt a profound sense of membership. I left with a suspicion confirmed: faith solutions enduring human wants in a method that secular societies typically wrestle to. These wants embrace the consolations of belonging and participation in epic tales a lot bigger than ourselves.
I received’t let you know if I made it to the water, or to the confluence. However I believe my dad would have been pleased with the hassle.
