Throughout the two-month duration of the ongoing Ardh Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, city resident Pushkar Upadhyay’s routine does not waver. He reaches the mela premises early in the morning and plants himself in the announcer’s booth at the Bhoole Bhatke Shivir, a privately-run lost-and-found camp. For the next 12 hours, Pushkar announces the details of people who get lost at the mela, urging them or their relatives to come to the camp. And there is no dearth of people getting lost – it’s the Kumbh Mela after all! The festival played a pivotal role in countless Bollywood films once. The 1943-film 'Taqdeer' is probably the first instance of the lost-and-found trope being used in Hindi cinema. In the ’70s, films like 'Mela' (1971) had brothers getting separated at the fair. Even today, the mention of Kumbh is incomplete without someone making a joke about getting lost. However, much has changed since the time when Kumbh ke mele mein bichhadna meant you would only reunite as adults. Even though thousands of people get separated from their families, almost all are found within a day or two. An army of volunteers, assisted by the local administration and police – and of late, technology – makes sure that people getting lost at the Kumbh is something that remains restricted to Hindi films from the yesteryears.Apart from Bhoole Bhatke Shivir, there are two more lost-and-found centres at the Kumbh Mela. One is run by the UP Police (in pic) and the other (specifically for lost women and children) is run by a local NGOThe ongoing Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj has seen over 15 crore people take a dip at Sangam in the last one month and another five crore are expected over the next three weeks. But do people really get lost at the Kumbh? The answer is both yes and no. “Every day, about 200-300 people are separated from their families at the mela. On the auspicious days of shahi snan that see the most crowds, the number goes up to 40,000. But nobody ever gets lost never to be found. Their families eventually find them,” says Umashankar Tiwari, whose family has run the Bhoole Bhatke Shivir at the Kumbh Mela since 1954. “We have Kumbh every six years and the Magh Mela every year, but no one has got lost since 2013. Lakhs are separated, but they are all found. Sometimes it takes a day, sometimes a week,” adds Tiwari.Pushkar Upadhyay, announcer at the Bhoole Bhatke Shivir at the KumbhApart from Tiwari’s camp, there are two other lost-and-found centres in the mela. One is run by the UP Police and the other – a centre specifically for lost women and children – is run by a local NGO. Sant Prasad Pandey, the manager of the NGO-run centre, says that the bulk of the work is done by the 100 odd volunteers engaged by these two NGOs. “We have over a 100 volunteers across the mela. That network is what helps us find people.”The biggest hurdle these volunteers face is the barrier of language, given that the mela sees people from all corners of the world. Nagesh, a student from Telangana who is a volunteer, says, “I can speak Telugu, Hindi, and English, and that way, I can translate for people who can speak only one of these. We have volunteers fluent in all Indian languages and some who speak foreign languages as well. Someone who is lost or has lost someone is usually hassled. It helps to hear someone speak their own tongue at such a time. You can calm them down.”Earlier, one of the major reasons for the lost not being found was that at times, young children would be claimed by someone other than their families. This included traffickers too. The lost-and-found centres are making sure that is a thing of the past now. “Whoever comes to the camp to claim a lost person, we ask them their relationship with that person. In case of children, we ask them to prove their guardianship to the police stationed here and also ask the child. Even if the kid wants to go with them, we don’t let them unless we are satisfied that the person is genuine. We take a picture when handing over any person for our record. In the camp, everyone is our responsibility,” says Upadhyay.

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