Mahakumbh 2025| It's a beautiful feeling of unity in diversity: Adah Sharma
Adah Sharma talks about her recent Mahakumbh visit, her first, and how the confluence of people and their faith showcases the cultural richness of our country
For her first experience of Mahakumbh, actor Adah Sharma went without her phone. "As actors, we are always having our pictures clicked and then sharing them with the world. This time, I thought let's do it differently and though I did allow people to take selfies with me, I decided to not have my phone on me. I wanted to be present in the moment and felt phone would distract me. When we have a phone on us, we start seeing things through the phone camera," she explains.

While her mother was at the previous Kumbh and she stayed for 40 days, this was Sharma's first time. She recited the Shiv Tandav Stotram live on a stage at an events in Pragyaraj (Uttar Pradesh). "There were so many people... maybe lakhs. My connection to Lord Shiva, is something that cannot be expressed in words. Words, adjectives and sentences describing certain feelings don't do justice. But if I had to describe my connection with Lord Shiva it is an intuitive one, unplanned, unmotivated, without any agenda," she says.
What struck her the most about this confluence of people and their faith is the diversity. "It's wonderful to see people from our country and from foreign countries also come to the Kumbh. It's a beautiful feeling of unity in diversity and spiritual and cultural richness of our country. I have friends from Germany and Russia who will visit the Kumbh and stay for 20 days. I met young girls prepping for a performance at the the Ganga aarti. I also met cultural dancers from Assam, who were rehearsing diligently for their performance. I attended a satsang and ate yummy food at one of the akhadas as well with my team. I met artisans from Kolkatta who had come to carve out structures."
Talking about her experience, Sharma says, "The scale is so huge at Mahakumbh and everything is carried out so meticulously and peacefully. So many policemen, karyakataas, volunteers from NGOs participating to make everything systematic. These are the people behind the scenes ensuring crores of people are fed, getting accomodation and essentials as bathrooms. There are so many structures made out of cloth, thermocol and differnet materials that will be dismantled after the kumbh is over. It's beautiful. This teaches us how temporary life is and how grateful we should be to be alive and experience all of it."
