Crowds throng Kamakhya mandir as it opened after annual closure

Guwahati, June 26 (UNI) Francis Baba and 30,000 other pilgrims waited whole night in front of the Kamakhya temple, atop the Nilachal hills, which opened at the crack of dawn today after its annual closure.

It was an emotional scene as thousands of people danced, cried, prayed and jostled to enter the sanctum sanctorum to seek blessings of the Goddess, mother of fertility.

Francis baba came all the way from France. Actually nobody knows his name, but everybody knows that he is the Sadhu from France and so he has become Francis Baba.

He is not alone. There are at least half a dozen such Sadhus from Eastern Europe mingling with about 1200 other sadhus for the past one week camping on top of the Kamakhya dham.

All of them had bathed at night and waited with folded hands till the crack of the dawn amidst prayers and devotional music for this annual Ambubachi Mela which draws around six lakh people every year to Guwahati.

It is a festival of female fertility. Considered to be a centre of tantrik practice, thousands visit the temple everyday, but during the festival, it is teeming with lakhs of devotees. Actual celebrations mark the 'mensturation' period of the deity and devotees are given red water as prasad, said Jayanti Athporia, whose family belongs to the core groups of sevaks who have the right over the temple management.

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