The religious rites of Sraadha, Pindadaan etc. in Prayag, Kasi and Gaya.

Allahabad (original Hindu name is Prayag) This is one of the places that we did the rituals for the departed souls. Rao and Umamaheswaran went to the banks of the river Ganga with the local priest to do this. Nirmala and I stayed back. I was able to help the other staff in the Mutt in organizing the area for the procedures after their return from the River. The reason for doing these here is to make sure all the departed souls in the family and immediate relatives did not miss the proper 'send off' after death. I still cannot understand why we had to do it again and again. Interestingly, we did it for ourselves too, just in case no one does it for us after our death. Kaashi/Varanasi/Benares This link below may be useful for you all of us: http://wikitravel.org/en/Varanasi In Kasi, we started off the rites the previous day itself under the guidance of the priest Sivakumar. He was very thorough, knowledgeable. Spoke Tamil and the local Hindi dialect. But was fluent in English and hence it was of great help to my husband who knew only Telugu. Even though Uma was trying his best to maintain the Tamil communication, the priest was very thoughtful. After the rites, we had clean, simple home cooked meals prepared by their staff in each place. The surroundings are very clean here. Ganga waters are also cleaner in Kasi than in Allahabad. Gaya We did 64 pindas here. The ladies of the Mutt cooked and I prepared the pandas for the daan. I have written in my older post a few years ago about this and also posted some photos then. No Bathing in the river here. Not much water around.

About 2013 and dates (years) of other Future Kumbh Melas

In 2013, Allahabad Kumbh Mela happened when Sun entered Aries and Jupiter was in Aquarius.

Not all are Maha Kumbh Melas. Maha Kumbh Melas come once in 12 years. The one in 2013 was extra special because it was 12 times 12 equal to 144 years occurance. Once in a life time event for us. I am extremely grateful to God for giving us this opportunity to have a dip in Triveni .

The future Kumbh Melas are hosted by:

2015 Nashik
2016 Ujjain - Kumbh Mela, Haridwar - Ardh Kumbh , Kumbakonam (Tamil Nadu) for Mahamaham Kumbh.
2019 Allahabad Ardh Kumbh
2022 Haridwar

The 2013 one was from Jan 14th (Makara Sankranti) to March 10th (Maha Shivaratri). A total of 55 days. Most visited place in the whole world, they claim. But I have no idea whether there are any other events in the world that are attended by millions like this one.

Hope the dip in converged location of the three holy rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati  had washed off all my sins thus far!!!!

Each day of bathing had a special significance. But, we chose to go on Feb 6th as I mentioned in my previous post.

The special days for this year were:

Makar Sankranti Jan 14, 2013
Paush Poornima Jan 27, 2013
Ekadasi snanam Feb 6, 2013
Mauni Amavasya Feb 10, 2013 (most crowded)
Basant Panchami Feb 15, 2013
Ratha Sapthami Feb 17, 2013
Bhishma Ekadasi Feb 21, 2013
Magha Poornima Feb 25, 2013
Maha Shivaratri March 10, 2013

Around Varanasi, before we went to Kumbh Mela

There are many Temples and a Mosque in this area. The Hanuman Temple also is famous and very blissful.
Since so much time had lapsed between the actual travel and this post of mine, some details are lost in time. I trusted my memory and did not make notes. Still, I need to write whatever I can recall.

Rao and Umamaheswaran were very much engrossed in performing the sraadha rituals for all those relatives that left this Earth. We went to the Gaya area for that. Rao did perform all this during our previous visit. But now one of his maternal uncles, who was very close to all of us passed away. As we were doing it for him anyway, he wanted to repeat it for all others, including Nirmala's family. The priest Sivakumar in Varanasi handed the contract and the cost was 20,000 rupees for Rao and another 20,000 for Uma. I thought that the amount included the three locations that they performed. But, we had to 'tip' the local priests again. Approximately three to five thousand rupees in each place. I wasn't prepared for that. Fortunately, Nirmala brought her ATM card and we could withdraw our money sitting in her account. We had the Taxi with us all the time. So, that was additional expense. My point is that we should be prepared with extra cash always.

Oops!!! I deviated myself into money matters. Whole idea of this passage being, be prepared for such surprises. Sanjeev was with me all along, great support and adopted me as his mother :):):).

Kasi Viswanath, Durgakund, Sankat Mochan Hanuman and Tilbhandeswar, Visalakshi, Vyasa, Tulsimanas, Annapoorna, Kalabhairava, Mrithyunjaya, Bharata MathaTemples to name a few.

Sri Viswanatha Temple
Varanasi is mostly remembered for Sri Viswanath Temple, which is also called Golden Temple. It is a Jyotirlinga of Lord Shiva and is located on the outskirts of the sacred Ganga river. It was built in 1780 by Maharani Ahilabai Holkar of Indore. As recently as 1983, the Temple was taken over by the government of Uttar Pradesh.

Durga Temple was built in the 18th century. It is a Swayambhu Idol meaning self manifested
and that no human being had sculptured it. In India, many Temples we visited claimed this concept. Thousands of devotees visit the Durga temple during Navratri .

This Temple has a rectangular tank of water called the Durga Kund meaning a pond or pool of Durga. The Kund was initially connected directly to the river thus the water was automatically replenished. This channel was later closed, locking off the water supply, which is replenished only by rain or drainage from the Temple. During this trip, I also took dip in many holy waters (rivers and ponds).

We had wonderful darsans in each Temple. The procedure for touching the Siva lingam in Sri Visweswara Temple changed a little bit since our previous trip. Since we went to the Temple with Sivakumar's family, we had special darsan.

For some reason, Uma decided to separate from us and do his own local tour. He was conversing in Tamil with the staff in the choultry and was getting some special attention. He was very happy with the new friends he made. This was his first visit to this area. I was happy that he was managing his life so well.

Kumbh Mela yatra continues - actually a summary

In one of his previous yatras, Rao fell sick on the train and Vikas (Pawar) from Parli area and his friend Amar Pawar, both helped him a lot. We communicated with them before this yatra. Actually they used to call us in USA to check to see how his health was!!! They introduced another young man Sanjeev Kumar of Lucknow whom they met on a train also during one of their travels to Tirupati and became friends. It is all Bhagawan's leela. That Sanjeev Kumar was really God sent for us in our Allahabad trip. I will go into the details later.
We left Tirupati Feb 2nd morning and met Umamaheswaran at the Central station. We all packed dinner from our respective origins and ate on the train. I don't know who is responsible for the maintenance of the train - it was very unclean. We were told that the Chennai Railways are not incharge of that train. Anyway, I don't understand the Indian railways of this Era. When I was in India, even in the 60s, I commuted mostly between Nellore and Tirupati and only by bus.
We reached Varanasi almost on time, took a Taxi to the known Choultry near Hanuman Ghat where the Priest cum owner of the choultry had two rooms ready for us.
About this choultry - I must have written in my older posts. If you tell the Auto rickshaw fellows that you need to go to Krishnamurthy Ghanapatigal's place, they know. But the rate varies and if you want, you can negotiate with them. It is usually much higher than the actual going rate. It all depends on your skill and patience in India.:):):)
We rested, visited the local Temples, had meals which were freshly prepared, simple and healthy. By afternoon, Sanjeev Kumar called from the train he was on and arrived at our choultry with a happy face. He showed me the Police permit he brought with him to post in on the windshield of our Taxi for the local police to see when we reached the Triveni Ghat. This was on Feb 6th, 2013. It was supposed to be a busy, crowded day also. But we missed all that. I was sooooo happy to be there that day. As it was my daughter's birthday, I had special prayers for her. Of course I prayed  for my son, his family, my s-i-l and all my nieces, nephews (all the nieces and nephews I acquired in the USA also) and anyone that touched my life.
After a lot of discussion, we left for the Triveni area quite early in the morning. Took towels, change of clothes etc. The Taxi driver (oops! I forgot his name) and Sanjeev became close friends instantly. The drive was very comfortable. All the warnings we received about the traffic jam on the way to Allahabad from Varanasi did not come true. Personally, I wanted to experience the Kumbhmela crowd, which I did not and that was disappointing. The other three were happy about the smooth travel. But I wanted to see all the yogis, sages, Babas of all kinds. Most of all, I strongly believed that the great Babaji mentioned by Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda would appear to me in some form. May be he did, but, I don't recall any.