Billed as humanity’s oldest and most spectacular spiritual gathering in the world, Kumbha Mela is still being celebrated after thousands of years by yogis, saints and sadhus. The ‘Festival of the Pot’ is held four times every 12 years and it takes place on a rotational basis in four of the holiest Hindu places in India: on the Godavari river bank in Nashik (Maharastra), the Shipra river in Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh), the Ganges river in Haridwar (Uttarakhand), and the convergence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers in Allahabad/Prayag (Uttar Pradesh).
Puducherry-based arts curator and photographer Lalit Verma captured a slice of India during this auspicious gathering, which has fascinated people for decades.