A dip in the Ganges. Did I die? Eh.

Let me tell you a secret about the Sangam. When you bathe there, you're not really bathing in the Sangam. Well, that's what my friend told me anyway. But I didn't mind.

It was 2am. I stripped down. And took my place among the thousands.

Note: This is the first blog post with my actual photo in it. Read to the bottom.

2am. India. The last day of the Kumba Mela, the largest gathering of humanity.

Last weekend, my friends and I finally took that trip to the Sangam, where three holy rivers converge in India. OK, basically we're talking about two rivers (the Ganges and Yamuna), since the third is apparently mythical. So when my friend told me that the actual convergence area was blocked off to the public, I wasn't too disappointed, since the "three" rivers are basically conceptual, so goes the Sangam.

The rivers converge in the city of Allahabad; a three-hour train ride from Banaras. (General class, remember?) The plan was:

• Arrive in Allahabad at 9pm. 
• Sleep at a hotel. 
• Take a dip in the Sangam at 4am. 
• Tour the city during the day.
• Go home in the evening.
• Throw away this list.

Ha ha ha. Actually, the last thing wasn't part the plan, but it might as well have been, since we ended up not doing anything according to the plan.

First of all, we arrived closer to 11pm. Since special examinations were going on, and oh since it was Shivratri (huge Hindu festival for river dipping), and oh since we arrived closer to 11pm (did I already mention that?), everyone and their mother wanted to stay in Allahabad, filling every single hotel. We walked around and around until beyond midnight, looking for a place to stay. After eating at a hole in the wall, we plopped down by the side of the road, observing the other fine saps looking for hotel rooms. We watched as cycle rickshaw drivers would tell these poor souls that they'd find them a room, fully knowing that every hotel was booked. They'd get to a hotel and say, "Booked? What to do? Ten rupees for the ride."

No hotel? No problem. We went to the Sangam early. 2am. Beat the crowd.

Beat the crowd? Sure. If "beat the crowd" means being accompanied by thousands of people.

Us. Beating the crowd.

We took a shared tempo (think of an auto rickshaw on steroids) to the Sangam. OK, I mean the "Sangam," since the drop off is 2 kilometers away from the Sangam and, as I said, you don't actually go to the Sangam. So we took the 2K midnight walk-a-thon accompanied by the throngs from nearby villages: Cohorts of sari-clad women, deftly balancing duffle bags on their heads. Families with babies. Some of the seemingly oldest people in the world, barefoot, who started walking toward the Sangam since the day before. For them, this 2K was but a hop, skip and where are my dentures?. We passed by large screens, projecting the history of the Kumbh Mela and the achievements of the government.

Wide-eyed tourists and dizzy hippies would imagine the walk to be like a trail of peace and chanting with the scent of vanilla incense wafting in the air.

Sorry.

The whole area was highly policed. Since it was the last official day of the Kumbh Mela and millions had thronged to the area for the past two months, oh and no port-a-potties, you can imagine what at times was wafting in the air.

As we got closer to the Sangam, you could hear something over the sound system. What? Om Jai Jagadish? Or the Gayatri Mantra? Nope. It was the constant blare of announcements. A woman in a loud, desperate, hardly discernible voice, shouting, "Anshu Tiwari's mother!! Anshu Tiwari's mother!! Come to the tower!! Your child is here!! Anshu Tiwari's mother!! Anshu Tiw..."

I would have almost preferred a dozen tone-deaf old guys, chanting the Hanuman chalisa... I emphasize almost.

Ah, finally. The river and our Sangam uh... proxy.

I said in the first post of this blog that I would someday get to the Sangam and I would die. Conceptually, of course. What I really meant by that I would only discover when I got there. OK actually, I'm still trying to discover it, and hopefully I will find it by the end of this blog post. Trust me, I'll find it.

So there we were. Me and my two Brahmin friends—one fish-eating, one non-fish-eating. (More about that in another post.) On the train, the non-fish-eating one asked me, "So what is your wish? If you take a bath in the Sangam on Shivratri, you will definitely get what you wish for."

I looked at him thick with skepticism.

I was about to ask him, "So if I wish for a million girlfriends, will I get that? How about a million dollars?" But I didn't. And I was too tired to be clever, so I just said, "I just want peace for everyone."

He looked at me knowingly. "You're like that [Bollywood] film, 'Oh My God!' You don't believe you have to go to temples and rivers. You believe that God is everywhere. That's okay."

He knew me too well. However, these days I'm not always sure if God is everywhere. That's another thought bubble for later.

OK, this story is getting lengthy, and I haven't even touched the water.

We meandered through the crowd (which was apparently not the crowd since thousands more would be added by 4am). Two of us stripped down among the wet saris, broken flower petals, women singing folk songs and soggy old people. The government had laid down hay on the banks and layers of sandbags. Actually, it was sandbags all the way until the fenced off area in the middle of the river. We never touched the actual river bed, so the water was never higher than chest level. This was a good thing, since one of my friends (fish-eating) can't swim.

Our feet scrunched on hay as we approached the water. I carefully guided my bare feet around smoking sticks of incense, poking out of the muddy edges of the river. Massive wobbly women and the elderly grabbed at me, trying to balance their way up or down the banks.

And we were in.

I was greeted by floating flowers and coconuts. My friend threw a spiky piece of fruit at me. He immediately took twenty frantic dips into the river. We were at one end of the fenced in area so you could look toward the other end and see the whole crowd.

It was cold, but not as cold as I expected. I was not clean, but not as dirty as I expected. It was a place of worship, but also a place of water play. It was a river, and I swam in it.

Eventually, I changed places with my other friend, taking pictures from far off, while keeping watch over our stuff.

As I took photos, I noticed how happy and energetic at 2am my friends were. For my fish-eating friend, he hadn't dipped in a river like that since he was a kid. He made up for it, taking multiple dips in a row. After years of knowing him, it was the first time I noticed that he actually wears the sacred thread reserved for Brahmin boys.

I noticed the wide expanse of people on the river bank. Each small group figuring out how exactly to undress, worship, bathe, watch your stuff, dry off, change clothes, collect the holy water into containers without falling in, chant, sing, take photos on your mobile phone without the police thinking you’re just taking photos of the women, listen for important announcements over the loud speaker just in case your child is lost and you didn't notice, and sneak past the police (like we did) into the restricted VIP area closer to the real Sangam.

I’m glad we went at 2am. While it was still dark. Before an even bigger crowd entered. Before the naked sadhus (holy men), tourists and VIPs took over.  The people who came to dip in the Sangam at 2am were not there for the circus of the final day of the Kumbh Mela.

The people that went at 2am were like us. They came, did what they needed to do, and left on the next bus. Some came because of cultural obligations. Some came to help their mothers and grandmothers. And most came because they had a wish, and this was one way to make sure it came true.

And I guess what I’m realizing now is that a part of you needs to fully die to believe that any wish will come true. Perhaps a part of me is jealous of my friend who believes so much in wishes, even if they seem unlikely.

But really, the power of the Sangam, the Kumbh Mela, the Ganges is not that people’s wishes come true, but that somehow people all come to the same place and wish together.

Like the convergence of rivers, the power is in their combined journeys.  And for that expanse of time, everyone’s story is the same: I am here because I am incomplete.

And if only we could realize that what makes us complete—is not exactly the water or wishing or bathing but—has, in that very moment, converged everywhere around us.

3am. Me. At the convergence.

Tips on Life in General (Class): Living below your means

India basically has five classes for trains: A1, A2, A3, Sleeper and General. Only occasionally have I used General class. And one of those times was two days ago.

My friend and I being General.

Years ago, most of my train trips were in Sleeper class; no air conditioning (AC), but at least you can lay down, most of the time. More recently, I have been using A3 (3-tier AC) class; comforts of AC and laying down... in a narrow space.

General class is like the train rides on the movie "Gandhi." You get a ticket but there are no reserved seats, so you may not get a chance even to sit--let alone lay--down. One time in General, I sat in the luggage rack, about the size of an airplane's overhead bin. I was so tired, and it was the only place to recline.

This time I was with some friends, experts on General class. Here's what I learned:

1. If you are at least two people, have one go on the usually long ticket line, while the other checks the train to see how crowded it is. If there are seats, then call on mobiles to give the go ahead for tickets.
2. Generally, General class train cars are on either end of the train. So if one is full, the other may not be.
3. In General class bench seats take 4 people, but you can easily fit five; six if you look mean enough.
4. For a safer, more comfortable ride, don't take General. Buy a different class ticket way, way in advance.

General class is not for the faint of heart, so why do I take it? In fact, why do I many times end up taking the route that is difficult and way below my means?

I was asking myself this while scrunched in General class, and then hours later at midnight, meandering around Allahabad, looking for a place to eat, finding a hole in the wall restaurant--more like a hole, within a hole, within--yet another--hole.

Other than the questionable food and water, the thing that struck me were the workers at the restaurant. One in particular washed dishes under the steps in a space so cramped that he crouched to a squat. He wasn't exactly a dwarf, just a very small man, so he fit into the spot easily--out of the way and out of sight, mostly. But I noticed him.

A man.

And the thought that came to mind was, "I don't think anyone should work that way... ever." I know it's a job, a source of income, but it is not a way to live.

I think that's why for so long I've tried to live life in General class as much as I could handle. I want to see and experience what is going on there, among the majority; the "general." Life under the stairs.

But why would I feel compelled to experience such a thing?

Is it out of guilt? Out of some masochistic pleasure from the pain? Out of a thirst for adventure, something new, something "other"?

I think if I'm honest with myself, what I find in the place that attracts me most are people--untitled and unpretentious. Sure some are rude and even conniving. I've met many like that. But life in General means that many artificial barriers are missing, you rub shoulders, and everyone is in the raw.

Maybe it was a sense of guilt or adventure that drew me there, but now I have friends there who don't hesitate to get me a General class ticket and who will eat with me in the hole in a hole in a hole.

That's the thing. I've been around the world, and people always ask me which place is the best. I realize now that it's not so much about "where" but "who." Because the best place for me is where there are friends.

And for me, that's how life is... in General.