Kumbh: Mother of all melting pots

NASIK: A tiny shack near the old Godavari temple calls itself Vaishnav hotel. Inside, Chandrakant, the shabbily-dressed waiter serves visitors. ''Have the alu bhaji with the puri. It goes well,'' he says in clear English characteristic of a city-bred. Chandrakant works in an export firm in Mumbai. He is a regular to the Kumbh Mela and the only way he can afford his pilgrimage is by doing odd jobs in small eateries and shops.''The hotels are so expensive that I cannot afford them,'' he says. Chandrakant is just one face in the staggering human mosaic called Kumbh Mela, which provides a confluence of millions of people and their diverse karma. In what is a sociologist's giant laboratory, saints rub shoulders with street-urchins, film-makers pan their cameras across body-piercers, junkies and freelance stewards like Chandrakant. ''It is the coming together of the most ridiculously diverse people. The media can pick holes and point out negative aspects, but it misses the celebration, the faith. One can talk about problems but only India can pull off such a huge human roadshow,'' marvels Denise Johnson, an Afro-American film-maker making a six-episode TV series on the Kumbh. ''Just as people have different ways of making and appreciating a cup of tea, Kumbh represents a very different thing to each one who comes here,'' she notes. Johnson has been coming to India since 1991 and is among those who consider the mela a visual feast. On the road from Nasik to Trimbakeshwar, one spots the parade of the extraordinary. Fierce-looking sadhus marching on with their tribe, embellished elephants and bullock carts adding a timeless grandeur to the procession, horn-blaring jeeps jammed with families whizzing past with saffron flags.