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Giving ‘voice’ to Kumbh, Mahakumbh since 1942
It has been decades that mela organisers, seers, religious organisations and pilgrims have been depending on loudspeakers supplied by Asha & Co.
Be it religious discourses, devotional songs or announcements during Ardh Kumbh or Kumbh – mega religious congregations on the banks of Sangam in Prayagraj – a firm has been providing ‘voice’ to these events for the last 77 years.
It has been decades that mela organisers, seers, religious organisations and pilgrims have been depending on loudspeakers supplied by Asha & Co.
According to Kumbh organisers, this year the firm has supplied over 6,700 loudspeakers for the 3200-hectare tent city which are being used for making announcements of people lost and found, traffic or crowd diversions and playing of ‘bhajans’ (devotional songs) and discourses.
Owner of Asha and Co. Praveen Malaviya said: “Our firm has been supplying loudspeakers for annual Magh Mela, 6-yearly Ardh Kumbh and 12-yearly Kumbh for the last 77 years. During the British period, we supplied four loudspeakers for Kumbh for the first time in 1942 and have been providing loudspeakers since then.”
“The quality of our service has not only earned respect for the firm in Uttar Pradesh but has also helped us expand to other states like Bihar, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra,” he said
Malaviya said his firm had started providing loudspeakers to Ujjain Kumbh too. “We have been supplying it in Haridwar since 1956,” he added.
“The feat won the firm a place in the Limca Book of Records in 2008 for installing around 6,000 loudspeakers in Kumbh-2007 in Prayagraj (then Allahabad) which involved wirings of 200km in length,” he claimed.
He said his company had qualified and experienced engineers, sound technicians and technical assistants who worked hard to install loudspeakers network covering the entire area entrusted to them.
“We also delivered our services during the 300th anniversary of Guru Granth Sahib at Nanded (Maharashtra) in 2008,” he said.
Just before his death in Nanded in October 1708, the tenth and last guru of the Sikhs Guru Gobind Singh had declared the holy Guru Granth Sahib as his successor.
The 300th anniversary of that historic occasion was celebrated in Nanded, centring around the Takhat Sachkhand Shri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib, one of the four high seats of the Sikh authority.
Additional Kumbh Mela Adhikari Dilip Kumar Trigunayat said, “Asha and Co. (loudspeakers) has been providing good service during religious fairs for past many decades. It is on the basis of its past performance, competitive pricing and adequate resources that this year’s tender was once again awarded to it.”
