Some notes regarding this site:

Kumbh or Kumbha?
You will see two different spellings associated with the transliterated name for this festival. I have chosen to use the abbreviated form which does not use a following "a". Dev Nagri letters do have, without modification, a following "a" . I have looked in my Hindi English / English Hindi dictionary to find the correct spelling in Hindi for the event but I came up short. If some one could inform me on the correct spelling I would appreciate the help.

Photographs
The photographs accompanying these pages were made at the Ganga Sagar Mela, on Sagar Island in the Bay of Bengal south east of Calcutta. The Ganga Sagar Mela is a bathing festival that takes places yearly on Makar Sankranti (January 13th/14th on Western Calendars). In Allahabad the yearly bathing festival of Magh Mela takes place on Makar Sankranti as well. Makar Sankranti will be one of the five central bathing dates of the Kumbh Mela.

Photographer & Author
Adam was a recipient of a Thomas J. Watson fellowship where he studied the mythology and pilgrimage practices associated with Asian sacred mountains. Adam received a masters degree in cultural anthropology and a certificate in South Asian studies from Syracuse University. For the past ten years Adam has pursued documentary photography projects in South Asia and in the United States.