PRAYAGRAJ: Faith and fate entwined in ways no one had foreseen on Mauni Amavasya at Maha Kumbh. The mela grounds became a labyrinth of hope and despair after a stampede, with people searching for their missing loved ones. Some were reunited, others were left to wander through uncertainty.
For Leena Sahoo, thousands of miles away in the US, desperation weighed heavily with every unanswered call, every message that carried no news of her 70-year-old mother Chinmoy, who had vanished in the sea of pilgrims.
Chinmoy was among five family members on the pilgrimage. “My aunt from Bhubaneswar had accompanied us. We boarded a train in Cuttack on Jan 26 and reached our hotel in Prayagraj at midnight on Jan 28 (hours before the Amrit Snan). After resting awhile, we left for Sangam around 2am. Midway, we discovered there was a stampede. To our horror, I realised that my bua was nowhere to be found,” her nephew Gaurav Sahoo said.
Then, on Thursday noon, hope flickered back to life. A call, a frantic rush, and finally – relief. Chinmoy was found at Lost and Found Centre 21, one of many set up by the administration. “It was as if we found life again,” Gaurav said.
In a different corner, Mukesh Chauhan from Bengal wandered with a heart burdened by fear. His father Ashish Chauhan had disappeared during the chaos. “I kept looking, calling his name, searching every face in the crowd… but he was nowhere,” he said.
When Mukesh finally found his father – tired, shaken, but safe in a camp in Sector 18 – relief came in a flood of tears. “We will never take these moments for granted again,” he said, now an advocate for carrying identification and emergency contacts to such gatherings.
Not everyone was as fortunate. Jitendra Sahu roamed the vast grounds, eyes scanning the crowd for any trace of his aunt Shakuntala Devi.
A woman of 70, she had travelled from Gwalior with a group. “She has an identity card around her neck,” Jitendra said, as if saying it aloud would summon her back. “Her phone is unreachable. We don’t know what to do.”
For Rajesh Nishad from Hamirpur in UP, hope was slipping through his fingers like the waters of Sangam. His mother Phooli Nishad had taken the dip alongside her family Wednesday evening, but in the shifting tides of pilgrims, she had disappeared. “One moment, she was there,” he said. “And then she was gone.”