By now Veena and her party had got halfway down the broad ramp, which was crowded with pilgrims, almost fifty abreast. They were all being pushed forward continuously by the pressure of the pilgrims behind them who were coming from the town or countryside around, or continuing to arrive on the special Pul Mela shuttle-trains. Since there were deep ditches to either side of the ramp, there was nowhere to go but forward. Unfortunately, the current procession of sadhus that blocked their path was advancing more sluggishly than before, probably owing to some obstruction ahead — or possibly in order to prolong their own enjoyment of their popularity with the spectators. People began to get alarmed. Old Mrs Tandon suggested that they try to go back, but this was clearly impossible. Finally the procession moved on, a welcome gap appeared before the next procession, and the crowds on the ramp surged and stumbled forward across the main route into the mass of spectators who lined the other side of the route. The police managed to restore order, and in a few minutes Bhaskar, from Ram Vilas’s shoulders, was able to watch the next procession: several hundred naga ascetics, completely nude, led by six and followed by six huge gold-caparisoned elephants.
Bhaskar and his family were still on the ramp, though now only about twenty feet from its base. They had a closer view of things, and with the release of the people in front of them the crush had eased a little. Bhaskar viewed with absolute astonishment the ash-smeared naked men, decrepit or sturdy, their hair matted, marigold flowers hanging from their ears or around their necks. Their grey penises, flaccid or semi-flaccid, hung down and swung to and fro as they marched past, four to a row, tridents or spears held high in their right hands. He was too astonished to ask his grandmother what all this was about. But a great cheer, almost a roar, rose from the crowd, and several women, young and middle-aged, rushed forward to touch the feet of the nagas, and to gather the dust on which they had trod.
The nagas, however, would not have their formation disturbed. They turned on them fiercely, brandishing their tridents. The police tried to reason with the women, but to no effect. This went on for a while, some women managing to elude the few policemen posted at the foot of the ramp and succeeding in prostrating themselves for an instant before the holy men. Then, suddenly, the procession stopped.
No one knew why. Everyone expected it to start up again in a minute or two. But it did not. The nagas began to get impatient. Once more the pressure on the ramp began to build, as the arriving crowds were pushed forward, and pushed forward others in their turn. The people who were at the base of the ramp now found themselves crushed by the weight of numbers behind them. A man pressed himself into Veena and, indignant, she tried to turn around. But there was no room. It was becoming difficult to breathe. People all around her were beginning to shout. Some yelled at the police to let them through, others shouted up the ramp to find out what was going on. But though the view was wider, the situation was not much clearer to people higher up on the ramp. They could see that the elephants that led the nagas had stopped because the procession in front of them had halted. But why that earlier procession had stopped was impossible to tell. At that distance, processions and spectators merged into one, and nothing was clear. Replies were shouted down the ramp, but in the shouts of the crowd, the sounds of the drums, and the continuous announcements on the loudspeakers, even these were lost.
Completely bewildered, the crowd on the lower reaches of the ramp began to panic. And when in a few minutes those above them saw that the next procession of sadhus had arrived and now formed a continuous barrier below the ramp, with no gap to come, they began to panic as well. The heat, terrible before, was now stifling. The police themselves got swallowed up in the crowd that they were trying to control. And still the tired, heat-battered, but enthusiastic pilgrims kept arriving at the station, and — ignorant of what was happening below — pushed eagerly forward towards the pipal tree and the ramp in order to get to the holy Ganga.
Veena saw Priya clutch the necklace round her neck. Her mouth was open and she was gasping. Bhaskar looked at his mother and grandmother. He could not grasp what was happening, but he was terribly frightened. Ram Vilas, seeing that Priya was being crushed, tried to move towards her, and Bhaskar toppled off his back. Veena managed to get hold of the boy. But old Mrs Tandon was nowhere to be seen — the crowd had swallowed her up in its helpless and irresistible movement. People were screaming now, clutching at each other and stepping on each other, trying to find their husbands and wives, their parents and children, or flailing around for their own survival, desperate to breathe and to avoid being crushed. Some pressed forward into the nagas, who, fearing to be crushed between them and the spectators on the other side, laid into them with their tridents, roaring with anger. People fell, blood pouring from their wounds, on to the ground. At the sight of blood, the crowd reacted with terror, and tried to turn back. But there was nowhere to go.
Some people at the edges of the ramp tried to slip through the bamboo barricades and scramble down to the ditches on either side. But last night’s storm had made these steep slopes slippery, and the ditches themselves were filled with water. About a hundred beggars were sheltering by the side of one of the ditches. Many of them were cripples, some were blind. The injured pilgrims, gasping for breath and clawing for a foothold on the slope, now came tumbling down on to them. Some of the beggars were crushed to death, and some tried to flee into the water, which soon turned into a bloodied slush as more of those who were trapped on the ramp sought this, their only route of escape, and fell or slid on to the screaming people below.
At the foot of the ramp, where Veena and her family were trapped, people were maimed or dying. Many of the old and infirm fell to the ground. Some of them, exhausted by the long journey, had little strength to withstand the shock or the pressure of the crowd. A student, unable to move, watched helplessly nearby as his mother was trampled to death and his father’s ribs crushed. Many people were literally squeezed to death against each other. Some were suffocated, some succumbed to injuries. Veena saw one old woman, blood pouring out of her mouth, suddenly collapse near her.
There was complete and dreadful chaos.
‘Bhaskar — Bhaskar — don’t let go of my hand,’ cried Veena, clutching him tightly. She had to gasp out every word. But they were thrust to and fro by the great terrified injured mass all around them, and she could feel the weight of someone’s body force itself between her hand and his.
‘No — no—’ she screamed, sobbing with dread. But she felt the small hand slip, palm first, and then digit by digit, out of her own.
11.19
Within fifteen minutes more than a thousand people were dead.
Finally the police managed to communicate with the railway authorities and stop the trains. They set up barriers on the approach routes to the ramp, and cleared the area below and around the ramp. The loudspeakers started telling people to go back, not to enter the Mela grounds, not to watch the processions. They announced that the remaining processions themselves had been cancelled.