WHERE AI MEETS ANCIENT INDIA

The air hums with an uncanny energy as dawn's first light touches the banks of the Triveni Sangam.

- By AVANEESH MISHRA

Workers move with clockwork precision, hammering poles into the earth to raise a metropolis of tents. The aroma of freshly cooked food mingles with the chants of early pilgrims, while tethered drones hover above the bustling grounds like silent sentinels. This grand tableau is the arena of the Mahakumbh, just before the curtains go up. With rituals as ancient as faith itself, in its latest iteration it's also as modern as the algorithms that now help shape it. For centuries, seekers of salvation have converged on the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the myth-borne Saraswati-transacting only with the transcendental. It was the 2001 edition, the first big Kumbh since the advent of the satellite era, that brought the entire world's eyes on this moment of communion.

Fast forward to 2025, and you see that audacious blend of the sacred and the digital fully nativised-a wireless data cocoon in which is enwrapped this mini-cosmos that's expanding to a never-before scale.