In 2013 I attended an event so exclusive, so unique, it wouldn't happen again for another 144 years.
It was the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, where, over a six-week period, an estimated 120 million Hindu pilgrims converged on the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Sarasweti Rivers in order to perform puja, or the cleansing of their sins.
While kumbh melas occur with relative frequency — alternating every three years between the cities of Allahabad, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain (the 2016 kumbh mela has just finished at Ujjain) — the big daddy of the melas, the Maha (or great) Kumbh Mela, occurs just once every 144 years.
This particular mela coincided with a rare planetary alignment. I was lucky enough to be there when the planets aligned.
Those who have visited India will know it as a country which, from the minute you step out of the safe confines of the airport, will slap you in the face and grip you by the shoulders and force you to take notice of the messy, joyous unfurling of humanity that is happening everywhere you look.
Why had I chosen, on my first visit to India, to attend a festival that would surely challenge my cultural sensibilities at a level no ordinary visit to India (if there's such a thing) would do, and which, given this country's reputation as an unsafe destination for women, would quite possibly threaten my security?
Well, I could hardly change the date of the Maha Kumb Mela. It wouldn't be coming around for another 144 years.
I'd always longed to explore places on the map that were remote from my own experience, and over the years images of those swarms of bathing pilgrims had infiltrated my consciousness through newspapers and television. They'd ignited in me a curiosity, a desperation to immerse myself in those people's celebration as it happened.
"It was this confluence of the alien and the familiar, the sense that I was separated from this culture yet simultaneously embraced by it, that still resonates today."
As for my security, I believe that, for the vigilant traveller, there's no greater threat to one's security in Srinagar or Pushkar than there is in Nairobi, for example, or Naples. To travel is to take risks; the best we can do is to be prepared, forearmed, and to cultivate in ourselves an attitude that is at once sceptical and sociable. Always be friendly, but keep