Welcome to ‘Lost & Found’, a regular section of the Kumbh Mela Chronicle. Here we’ll be offering an ongoing update on what’s been handed in and what’s been claimed from the world’s busiest lost property office. Just to give you a flavour of what’s to come, our correspondent went down to check the activity, in what is still early days for the Kumbh…

Ratna Mala Devi arrived today from Bihar – seven hundred kilometres from Allahabad – to take the holy dip at the Kumbh Mela with her five-year-old granddaughter. This aftern oon she went to the Ghat – riverbank – to take her first bathe in the holy waters of river Ganges. She asked a fellow bather to take care of her granddaughter Asha. But when she came back – Asha was not to be found. She had lost her.

‘She’s a tiny little thing. What am I going to tell my son? Where am I going to find her? O mighty God! Please get her back. O God! She is wearing a blue frock, red sweater and a yellow ribbon. Please somebody look for her,’ Ratna babbled. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. A fellow pilgrim tried to console her.

In a place like Kumbh, people get lost all the time. In two days more than two hundred people have already been separated, and less than a 20th of the expected numbers have arrived. ‘People get separated all the time. We announce their name and description on the public address system but more people and things are lost than found,’ said Nantal Tripathi, co-ordinators at the Kumbh Mela Lost Property Office.

Tripathi is working under difficult conditions. ‘We need more bedding, a phone and a dedicated communication system. The phone might get installed in a day or two and we have already ordered for the beds but the main problem is with the public address system. We have to share it with the police and the administration,’ said Tripathi.

It can be quite unnerving to have hundreds of people around you – especially when they are hysterical. ‘It’s a tough job but it gives me immense satisfaction and happiness when these people get their lost ones,’ said Tripathi with a smile. He also knows that he is going to be the most heard voice in the Kumbh Mela for the next month and he cherishes that thought.

And in that very moment another pilgrim arrives with a little girl in tow - he found her crying and alone by the Ganges. Nandlal Tripathi, leads her towards the huddled figure of Ratna Mala Devi. ‘Is this your granddaughter?’ asks Tripathi.

Ratna leaps towards the little girl, crying ‘ Thank God! A million thanks, o my baby…’

A happy ending for one claimant at least....

Ratna Mala Devi

Nandlal Tripathi

Re-united!