Mela

The new surge coincides with an acute shortage of vaccines in some Indian states, along with the annual Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival, on the Ganges River, where millions of Hindu devotees bathe to seek absolution, raising fears it could evolve into a superspreader event.

Kalua was a man of unusual height and powerful build: in any fair, festival or mela, he could always be spotted towering above the crowd—even the jugglers on stilts were usually not so tall as he.

Every year there was a mela in the small village where Jutimala lived and Khitish would send three workers to set up a stall there.