This is the Kumbha, the soccer World Cup of religion. In that temporal analogy for India's grand spiritual show, millions of devotees are the thrilled spectators who watch from the sidelines as ash-laden, dreadlocked, naked Naga sadhus charge down the ghats. As it happened on April 5 at Ujjain. Art in their pretended anger, sculpture in their bodies, primal rhythm in the rush to the river and "Jai Mahakaal" in the full-throated hoary cry. It is mesmeric.

NIRVANA SEEKERS: (Left) Pilgrims at the ghat; Naga sadhus take a dip

It is an ancient ritual played out in modern times and the calculations are astronomical: the Simhastha Kumbha at Ujjain takes place every 12 years when the Sun is in Aries and Jupiter moves through the Simha rashi (Leo). The mela's origins are mythical: after the Gods and the demons churned the oceans and produced amrit, the ambrosia of life, a few drops spilled from the pitcher and dropped on the Shipra in Ujjain, now a shallow river. The dip in Shipra during the Kumbha Mela is believed to be the quickest route to nirvana. The spectacle of millions congregating without invitation on a given date and bathing in muddied waters is beyond the comprehension of most foreigners who flock to the place.

It is all about faith, you tell them. It is about everything but bathing. This year's Ujjain Kumbha, in the context of a Government headed by a sadhvi, is also about sadhus being the only VIPs. "Suspend the SP,'' roars Naga swami Parmananda as he sees black identification bands being distributed to mediapersons. He doesn't like the sight of black arm bands. Madhya Pradesh PWD Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is in charge of the Simhastha, can only look suitably admonished.

Ever since the Uma Bharati Government came to power, the Simhastha Kumbha has been its priority No. 1 to 10. Vijayvargiya has followed Bharati's cue with aplomb, spending more than Rs 250 crore in a record 100 days to put in place one of the best arrangements for a religious congregation. During the festival (April 5-May 4), more than one crore people will flow in and out of Ujjain where new toilets, bridges, roads, pipelines and power stations have been constructed. "Now it is all about crowd management and safe passage,'' says Rajesh Rajora, district magistrate.

It is a designer event for the new millennium. The crowd control system withstood the first wave of 10 lakh devotees on the opening day. A monitoring system of close-circuit television over an area of 5 sq km, with 20 remote-controlled cameras, is the first of its kind in the country. The pilgrims' progress through roads and bylanes is controlled by erecting barricades. The roads are opened and closed according to the orders of IG Sarabjeet Singh and sp Upendra Jain who watch the crowd movement on 20 TV screens. The messages are promptly relayed via headsets to policemen stationed across the place. "In case of any mishap, we will immediately seal the area to prevent more people from moving in,'' says Singh. "We will also be able to ascertain the cause of the accident through video replays."

Overbridges for pedestrians are constructed along with new ghats and roads leading up to them. The crowd movement is in concentric circles to ease the pressure on the ghats. If the pilgrimage goes off peacefully Vijayvargiya, Rajora, Singh and Jain can claim to be experts at Kumbha coordination.

The Simhastha has also been a revelation-not of anything particularly spiritual but of the hold media, marketing and money have over the purveyors of spirituality. There are any number of swamis, acharyas, paramacharyas and Ram kathavachaks heavily advertising for attention and half-a-dozen television channels carrying their paid messages. There was never a shortage of gurus in this land but one has not seen them in such great numbers nor of such young vintage, and not so fiercely marketed. The newly built air-conditioned halls in Ujjain invite devotees to listen to a "maharaj". Elaborately decorated tents with all conceivable five-star amenities pronounce the power of a guru and his authority in the material world.

A half-naked sadhu reportedly produced a cheque of Rs 5 crore in a local bank, sending the staff into a tizzy. Enquiries from Ujjain to Bhopal to Delhi revealed that there was a balance of Rs 76 crore in his account. It is estimated that the sadhus alone have pumped in Rs 100 crore into the economy of the town as they relax in their designer tents. In a month's time the Kumbha Mela will disperse and life will return to normal in Ujjain but with the anticipation of a spiritual hoopla 12 years later-when the planets conjunct and announce the dates.