Chaos and order of 12 million pilgrims THE dusty, humid streets of Allahabad, in Indias northern Uttar Pradesh will over the next month see a team of no less than 36 researchers from Harvard descend on the city to investigate the worlds largest gathering of people. Every 12 years, millions of Hindu pilgrims flock to the city for the Kumbh Mela, a series of religious rituals Mark Twain once called so wonderful that it can make multitudes upon multitudes of the old and weak and the young and frail enter without hesitation or complaint.