Having experienced a transformation, I decided to embrace the spirit of the Ujjain Kumbh Mela. At one a.m. on the auspicious day of the festival, I joined Abhimanyu and Mohan for a dip in the Shipra River.
At first, I felt silly, until I got in the mood and started to enjoy it. I thought about Abhimanyu’s words that I should concentrate on my own desire. What did I want or need? I could think of nothing. I had a feeling of deep gratitude. Oh, yes! There was something I wanted to ask. The request welled up from the deepest part of my being: “I want to experience life as it is, rather than demanding anything from it.”
I could almost hear, “So be it!”
Abhimanyu, who was the head of the Hindu priests in Ujjain, said matter-of-factly, “Let us do puja (prayers) for your sister.” Though I had been too proud to mention to him my desire to do this prayer ceremony, I was glad that he made the suggestion. He asked me to fill my cupped hands with water from the river while he said mantras in Sanskrit. Then he asked me to do the same thing again, this time for my father. Perhaps in recognition of my known antagonism to rituals, he did this without fanfare, in the simplest of ways. It seemed “the essence.”
For the first time in my life, I felt as if I were a Hindu. My philosophy and religion had blended. What I had hated turned out to be a mirage.
A few days later, when I was leaving for the airport in New Delhi to catch a flight to New York, my driver asked me, “Sahib, did you make the holy immersion (snaan) in Ujjain?”
“Yes,” I admitted sheepishly.
“Wah, Sahib, wah” he said with deep emotion. “One must fully experience the religion into which he is born in this particular life.”
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