{"id":70195,"date":"2025-03-17T17:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T08:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/mar\/17\/india-megacity-hindu-festival-ganges-maha-kumbh-mela-sangam-660million-pilgrims-waste-pollution-water"},"modified":"2025-03-17T17:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T08:00:41","slug":"the-pop-up-megacity-how-the-kumbh-mela-prepared-for-660m-hindu-devotees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=70195","title":{"rendered":"The pop-up megacity: how the Kumbh Mela prepared for 660m Hindu devotees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of millions of pilgrims flocked to the Ganges for this year\u2019s festival, housed in a sprawling temporary metropolis stretching across 4,000 hectares of the floodplains of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh <\/p>\n<p>For 45 days the floodplains of Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh known as Allahabad until 2018, were a churning sea of humanity. Millions waded into the freezing waters of the <em>sangam<\/em> \u2013 the sacred confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, plus a mythical one, the Saraswati \u2013 believing that a single dip could wash away a lifetime of sin.<\/p>\n<p>From dawn until well past midnight, the riverbanks teemed with saffron-clad sadhus, bare-chested pilgrims and families clutching brass urns, garlands and clay lamps, an unceasing tide of pilgrims.<\/p>\n<p>Pilgrims performing one of the rituals associated with the \u2018holy water\u2019 of the rivers at this year\u2019s Kumbh Mela<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2025\/mar\/17\/india-megacity-hindu-festival-ganges-maha-kumbh-mela-sangam-660million-pilgrims-waste-pollution-water\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of millions of pilgrims flocked to the Ganges for this year\u2019s festival, housed in a sprawling temporary metropolis stretching across 4,000 hectares of the floodplains of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh For 45 days the floodplains of Prayagraj, a ci&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4648,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,462,59,516,62,3229,371,79,61,463,304,827,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-environmental-sustainability","category-global-development","category-hinduism","category-india","category-kumbh-mela","category-religion","category-society","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sustainable-development","category-waste","category-water","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4648"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70220,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70195\/revisions\/70220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}