Word: allahabad
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When Indira Priyadarshini (the second name means Dear to Behold) was born on Nov. 19, 1917, in Allahabad in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, the Nehru family servants gathered around to pay homage to the master's elaborately swaddled infant, and one of them misguidedly congratulated Nehru on the birth of a son. Perhaps he did wish for a political heir; if so, it had to be Indira, for there were to be no other children...
Feroze had been studying in Allahabad some years earlier when the sickly Kamala collapsed while marching in an anti-British demonstration outside his college. He took her home, became slightly infatuated with her and lingered around the house as a friend of the family's. He hardly noticed Indira, who was five years younger than he. But after the two had returned home to India from blitzed and threatened London, Indira announced in 1941 that they wanted to get married. Nehru was dismayed; he needed Indira to run his household. Feroze had no money, no job. "Nobody wanted that...
...conch shells and cymbals sounded, the first flower-decked palanquin, bearing the leader of Hinduism's Maha Nirvana sect, moved toward the river bank near Allahabad where the Yamuna River meets the Ganges. Alongside marched a troop of elephants, trumpeting, their heaving bodies covered with garlands and painted symbols. Then through the police cordon flowed thousands of pilgrims from nine other ancient Hindu sects. Among them came a procession of Naga sadhus, celibate holy men who follow Shiva, the god of the forces of both life and destruction. They were all naked, except for a coating of sand...
Wash Sins. Devout Hindus bathe in the Ganges all year long to wash away their sins, but the spiritual effect of the ablutions is considered most potent during the festivals that are held at twelve-year intervals on one of four sites. The Kumbh Mela at Allahabad is the most blessed, for here the Ganges meets not only the Yamuna but the Saraswati, a legendary underground river. This spot is known as the Sangam (sacred confluence). Some holy men, moreover, deem the current configuration of the sun, moon and stars to be exactly the same as at the creation...
...Touch. In 1959 Indira made the trip to Allahabad and back by train, traveling third-class; there were only three journalists along to watch her press on indefatigably for 16 hrs. a day through the villages, drinking innumerable glasses of sweet, milky tea and, in one village, sharing a simple meal of vegetable curry with the inhabitants. This year she arrived by special air force turboprop and helicopter; she carried her water with her from New Delhi and, as she marched briskly between the mud huts, ankle-deep in dust, she was preceded by a running dogfight between reporters...