Offering to Pilgrims and Beggers. Makersankranti Festival

Yesterday we had a great day. The first day of Kumba Mella thousands of people came to take a morning bath in the Ganga. At 4am they started to arrive in droves. Rajesh and his band of merry men club together every year and make kejery to offer to the pilgrims and beggars. They also often invite stray foreigners to join in the fun. Apparently eating kejeri is also part of the days celebrations. They had two hugs pots on bricks with a wood fire underneath. The pots contained water, rice, dal, potatoes, cauliflower, peas, chillies and tomatoes, boiled together until mushy. Then masla, salt, mustard oil, ghee, coriander and more chille  were added. Yummy, mushy and spicy. The kejeri was then loaded into metal buckets and about 6 of us carried these buckets down the line of beggars that had gathered on the road side over the past few days. We ladeled this tasty mush out onto the beggars metal plates and they all seems either shocked or curious that a foreigner was doing this job.  It was a very humbling but fun way to celebrate Kumba Mella.

cutting chillies

smokey

child beggars with kejary

pots of kejery

line of begars