As the Vande Bharat Express left New Delhi Station on the cold morning of February 9 and as I was settling in my window seat with a newspaper, hoping to gain some insight into the debacle of the AAP in the Delhi Assembly elections whose results were just declared, I was disturbed and distracted by someone seated ahead of me and playing a video on his mobile at a pitch too loud to allow any concentration.

As I rose to tap him for lowering the volume, I realised it was about the Kumbh Mela that I was going to along with a relative. The video was apparently explaining the science behind the event and I stretched my ears to listen. It said that on the Pausha Purnima, the planet Jupiter enters Aquarius (Kumbha) and the Sun enters Aries when the Kumbh begins. The combined gravitational pull of the two affects the Earth’s atmosphere and energy fields. Jupitar has an orbital period of 12 years and every 12th year, the solar cycle alters the earth’s magnetic field.

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According to Faraday’s Electromagnetic Laws, the video continued to enlighten, the flowing waters of the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati intersect these magnetic fields, generating an electric charge and a powerful positive energy field that increases the density of oxygen, making the atmosphere purer and rendering the dissolved oxygen in the waters at Triveni Sangam highly beneficial for health. All these combinations enhance the Schumann Resonance Frequency, increasing the alpha brain waves, which leads to deep mental relaxation and peace. Poor Michael Faraday must be turning in his grave and my poor head, reeling from this lethal cocktail of religion and science, completely missed the reasons for AAP’s decimation.

Instead, I started searching the net on the legends, myths and history of the Kumbh. I knew the story of Manthan, the churning of the ancient ocean that brought the pot of Amrit which triggered the fight between the gods and the demons, during the course of which four drops of Amrit fell at the four places on earth where Kumbhs take place ~ Haridwar, Ujjain, and Nashik and Prayagraj, situated respectively on the banks of the Ganga, Shipra and Godavari and at the Sangam, the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. This is mythology, but the Kumbhs are real events occurring at least since the time of Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th Century.

Was there some real event linking these four places, and what could that be? My searches drew a blank in this regard, but I learnt that the different combinations of Jupiter and Sun are associated with the Kumbhs at these four places, like Jupitar in Aquarius and Sun in Aries for Haridwar; both in Leo for Nashik; Jupitar in Leo and Sun in Aries for Ujjain and finally, when Jupitar is in Aries and the Moon and the Sun are in Capricorn, the Kumbh takes place at Prayagraj. I thought I would gain more enlightenment at the Mela itself, from the many seers and sadhus who are there and was keen to proceed directly after reaching Prayagraj.

But a friend who had very kindly sent a vehicle dissuaded me, saying that it would take no less than eight hours then to cover the 12-kilometre distance to the Kumbh site, and that the best time to start would be after dinner at night. We accordingly started at 10.30 PM, hoping for a beautiful journey under a starry sky on a not-so-crowded road. For the first five minutes it was almost like that, but the moment we entered the Sangam Road, we found there were thousands of cars jostling for space, slowing traffic to a snail’s pace, giving me enough time to read their number plates.

There were all kinds of them including buses, lorries and trucks, from all the states, from Assam to Gujarat and from Himachal Pradesh to Kerala, each packed with people. There were countless bikes ferrying four passengers each, their luggage balanced precariously upon their heads. Though the journey seemed never-ending, I marvelled at the scene. People were in good humour, with the cursing and yelling so commonly witnessed on every crowded Indian road being absent. The 12 kms took over 3 hours ~ besides the traffic, we also had to negotiate countless barricades set up by the police. When, finally, we reached the camp to spend the night, it was almost 2 AM, but it looked as if day and night had mingled into one and time had ceased flowing.

We saw traders doing brisk business even at that hour, people going for dips and singing bhajans. It was a surreal feeling. Families, unable to find a place, were sleeping by the roadside, the poor next to the well-to-do ones. This is real, incredible India, my companion remarked. We got ready by 7 the next morning and went to take the boat ride to the Sangam, but found no boat. President Murmu was visiting that day and police had stopped all boats from plying for her security, and not only that, they were also clearing the ghats and blo – cking all roads, lest somebody harmed her.

Incredible India again. But the exercise of clearing the throngs of people was taking time, allowing us to move through the crowds to a ghat nearest the Sangam, known by the name of VIP ghat, where thousands of people ~ men and women, young and old, had become an indivisible mass of humanity united by a single purpose ~ to take a holy dip that would cleanse them of the accumulated sins of all their past lives and the present lives lived so far. Police had cordoned the bathing area, not allowing anyone to move beyond and neither allowing anyone to stay too long in the water. One couldn’t take a dip unless the next person rose and that was how we also had our dips.

The water was cold and it felt good on the body. My companion assured me that since all our sins were now gone, we could start afresh with a clean slate ~ there won’t be enough time left in our lives to fill it. Police had by now set up barricades all over, effectively halting all vehicular traffic and we had to return to the city, which was less problematic. The next morning, we started at 6, and found the drive remarkably smooth. The driver informed that since the next day, 12th, was the day for Shahi Snan, police, wiser from the stampede, had stopped all vehicles outside the city, which was why the traffic was thinner. Police were stricter at the barricades and pleading our way past the sentries took us some time, but somehow we got on to a pontoon bridge to cross the Ganga and proceed to the other side where the 13 Akhadas had set up their camps.

We had just enough time to visit two of these, where we found Naga Sadhus clad in nothing but ashes and flower garlands, carrying impressive headgears composed of Rudrakshas and other stuff, weighing, I was told, more than 30 kilograms. They sat in their respective tents, surrounded by devotees, among them many foreigners, showering blessings upon them by thumping their backs and collecting money in turn. There were long queues of blessing-seekers before them and no scope to ask questions seeking divine enlightenment. They were graceful enough to allow selfies with them and didn’t object to people taking photographs. As we started back, we found that the crowd had swelled and police were diverting traffic randomly, setting up barricades all over. It took us a long time to cross the pontoon bridge again and then we were at the crowd’s mercy.

There were toddlers, octogenarians and nonagenarians, wheelchair-bound people, women walking with loads of luggage on their heads, saffron-clad sadhus riding motorcycles, entire villages or communities moving together as a single body, encircled by a nylon rope to ensure no one gets lost. Inquiry revealed that many had walked 15-20 kilometres, carrying luggage, to come to the site. The crowd was remarkably well-behaved, disciplined and accommodating, a very un-Indian trait. It was a spectacle one has never seen, truly a once-in a-lifetime experience. Watching all these, I realised the power of faith in uniting the country, or maybe humanity itself, since the Kumbh is humanity’s largest gathering. Nothing of this magnitude has ever happened anywhere else.

Some 45 crore people were estimated to have visited the Kum bh till then, and the total footfall may well exceed 50 crore by the 26th when it ends. The scale of the event almost touches the cosmic, and it feels eerie to have become a part of this. What do people get from it, why have they come ~ I asked again and again. It was a spiritual and emotional journey, but also a journey in companionship and empathy ~ vindication not only of one’s faith but also of overcoming the extreme limits of physical hardship and endurance. It gives people a sense of achievement, imparting a meaning and purpose to their otherwise mundane and un – eventful existence. I don’t know if the waters of the Sangam indeed transform to Amrit as religion claims, but it unites millions of souls, and in that perhaps divine bliss manifests itself.

(The writer is a commentator, author and academic. Opinions expressed are persona)