Magh Mela-2023: Sangam’s smart sellers of puja essentials

These children can be spotted running to every devotee with a handful of these ‘Puja items’, carefully placed in the bowl made of dry leaf to make a quick sale.

The ingenuity and enterprise of those – mostly children – trying to make an extra buck by selling various items needed for offering prayers at the Sangam during the mela, is indeed admirable.

Vendors selling puja items near Sangam during the Magh mela-2023. (HT Photo)

Right from selling these items on the sides of the main roads leading to the ghats of Sangam, these eager sellers have even made it a habit walking right up to pilgrims on river banks and even in waist deep waters, offering milk, coconuts, garlands, vermilion, coins, camphor, diyas (earthen lamps)—anything that they are lacking or have missed but need urgently to complete the rituals.

“The trick is to anticipate the item that they need but are missing and promptly offer that right at the time they need it,” shared Ravi, the 10-year-old son of a boatman, selling these puja items on the banks of Sangam for the past five years now

The devotees, reaching the ghats in hundreds at a time, are being offered a complete pack of items needed for Puja, ranging from what they would need for praying to the Sun God to what they would be needing to distribute alms on major bathing festivals.

So, these children can be spotted running to every devotee with a handful of these ‘Puja items’, carefully placed in the bowl made of dry leaf to make a quick sale.

And the devotees are only too happy to get these missing items needed for their Puja as all items come at nominal rates, ranging from ₹10 to ₹50 per piece. “Coming here after covering long distances and then reaching the mela area by trekking for many kilometres often results in us missing out some or the other important puja item which we can get from these children,” said Mahendra Mishra, a resident of Balia, visiting Sangam with his wife and two sons.

Equally happy were those who are in the wholesale business of supplying flowers as they too are well aware that the demand of flowers witnesses a multifold increase during the mela. “As our commodity cannot be stored for long durations, we need to assess the demand on regular and main bathing festivals and only then invest in the flowers,” said Nalini, a flower seller at Sangam.