Swiss cottage, hot-water bath, massages -- Kumbh enters New Age
NANDINI RAMNATH

ALLAHABAD, JANUARY 12: There's actually a way of experiencing the Kumbh Mela without being in the thick of things: book a Swiss cottage with an attached bathroom, expensive furnishing and an e-mail connection in the vicinity. Cox & Kings may still be trying to buy peace with the sadhus, but spirituality and star comforts blend easily at the Mela.

At the Mela, Swiss Cottages and EP (European Plan) tents are whole newways of seeing this mega event. A clutch of promoters -- one of whom is the Uttar Pradesh government -- is targeting a pilgrim who's very different from those who travel to the camp in sleeper class and battered state transport buses, who sleep in tents on cold, bare sand by the riverside, who have very little to offer but their faith.

The New Age traveller has some old-fashioned hang-ups. He wants the Kumbh Mela with only half the crowds and noise, he wants his hot-water morning bath, the dip in splendid isolation. He wants the sadhus but from safe distance. For the discerning, money-conscious yuppie, all excuses to avoid the Kumbh run out at these luxury camps.

At the Uttar Pradesh government's camp, one tent's for Rs 500, another with a phone facility for 1,500. Then there's ISCKON, whose Europe Plan tents is the ``perfect family-size,'' with ward double lining on all sides (for 12 persons). Its Swiss Cottage costs Rs 12,500 for 3 days ``with bedding, attached bath hot water and full prasadam.'' There's the Millennium Village. And at Cox and Kings, the deal is the steepest: $481 for 2 nights/3 days for single occupancy. For local Indians, it's Rs 11,825. What is being paid for is deluxe tents with attached bathrooms, fancy furnishing and morning bed tea. Added charms include Ayurvedic treatment and massages, spiritual discourses, laundry, an in-house astrologer.

To be sure, there are many choices for the pilgrim at the Kumbh: the akharas, where you can stay among the sadhus for a fee, the hotels that are a good 30 minutes away from the Mela site, or, for the really poor, the cold white sand along the river-bed. But for the discerning traveller with high comfort levels who's avoided the Kumbh, the camps are catching on.

The camp run by Cox and Kings and the Kumbh Villge, run by Anil Agrawal, an Allahabad-based businessman boast of 70-80 pent cent occupancy. ``We've been getting queries from our clients abroad, asking about facilities available at the Kumbh since last year itself,'' says L. Prithviraj Singh, chief operating officer (leisure) at Cox and Kings. The company was sold the idea by the Delhi-based Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Laxmi Singh. ``I have been going to the Kumbh since 1974, and I had the idea of a camp for people who would backpack when they were younger, but who are now used to a certain standard of living,'' says Bhattacharya, who's also a TV producer.

Now, of course, Cox and Kings has been elevated to expletive status among one section of the sadhus. Harried staffers of the tour operators even instruct potential visitors, it's not the Cox and Kings camp, it's the Mahakumbhmela Adhyatmik Shibir. But it's not that the sadhus' camps are less luxurious -- one Mahammandaleshwar's (high priest) camp costs Rs 50,000 to make.

Cox and Kings and other promoters argue that they're simply tapping a market that already exists. ``Around 20 years ago, there weren't even basic facilities being offered at the Kumbh,'' says Anil Agrawal. His Kumbh Village, just two camps away from the Cox & Kings camp, is a similar attempt at wooing the well-heeled choosy traveller.

To prove his point, Agrawal brandishes a letter from a client he received on e-mail: ``I have been visiting the Kumbh before... This year, we look forward to visiting the mega event and moreover, because the tent we have booked with yourselves should make it more enjoyable for my children who are two and four...''

Predicts Bhattacharya: ``The young Anglophile fears the Kumbh for the muck that's going around. but chances are, in another 12 years, the so-called social elite will have a greater curiosity about the Kumbh and more and more of such camps will come up.''

Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.