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.

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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........

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