Parades are always an attraction for the common man and I am sure many would have come across them in instances more than one. The latest one I was in was when the Phillies had won the World Series. Rivers of red - caps, sweatshirts, jerseys, and jackets - lined Broad Street as a caravan of trucks carrying players, coaches, executives, ball girls, and broadcasters led the champions around the city
Rowdies on rooftops. Tangles of truants. Gawkers at office windows. Gridlocked groups on side streets. Media helicopters. And lots of police. They all joined a human-sardine production line that stretched for miles. "The streets were so crowded, it was unbelievable," was what almost everyone had to say.
What's unbelievable is the oft-quoted estimate that two million people turned out. No one will ever know for sure, but even half that might still be too high. The time has come to rein in such outlandish estimates. And look deep.
Experts explain that the exaggeration results due to the fact that nobody wants the truth in circumstances like this and is accentuated by the “hometown boosterism effect”. Even Obama's sprawling inaugural extravaganza fell short of two million, though it did set a record with 1.8 million people, according to the official city council services.
Some experts also call the untoward projections of attendance as SWAG - "stupid, wild-ass guesses”. The most precise yardstick is to find an actual count, like ticket sales or entry passes etc..
Two million is a considerable stretch beyond anyone’s imagination. But what crowd dynamic experts agree without dispute is that it is possible in India during the period of the Kumbha Mela when hordes of pilgrims, holy-men, sages, tourists and common men confluence at the banks of the river Ganges. The pilgrimage occurs four times every twelve years, once at each of the four locations. Each twelve-year cycle includes the Maha (great) Kumbha Mela at Prayag, attended by millions of people, making it the largest holy gathering in the world.
A ritual bath at a predetermined time and place is the major event of this festival. Other activities include religious discussions, devotional singing, mass feeding of holy men/women and the poor, and religious assemblies where doctrines are debated and standardized. Kumbha Mela (especially the Maha Kumbha Mela) is the most sacred of all the Hindu pilgrimages. Thousands of holy men/women (monks, saints, sadhus) grace the occasion by their presence. The auspiciousness of Kumbha Mela is in part attributed to the gathering of thousands of holy men/women at one place on earth.
It is estimated that almost 5 Million people are likely to land up in the upcoming 2010 Kumbha Mela at Haridwar, Uttarkhand, India. I don’t think there is any better place to see and understand mass crowd dynamism than the Kumbha Mela. I do intend to be there with the experts. www.kalpavasi.com – who understand and explore Kumbha Mela not only from a religions and spiritual standpoint but also from a scientific fact based knowledge standpoint. A once in a lifetime opportunity for crowd enthusiasts to explore the largest confluence of people with the undisputed experts in the field.
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