"I would have loved to be here on August 27 for the shahi snan, but there are other things for me to do at home," says Ramdas Surve, a technician at a Mumbai MNC. Having driven for four hours in a jeep from Dadar in Central Mumbai, Surve and family will be back late at night. A first-time visitor to event, there were no opportunities for Surve to attend the earlier melas.

In keeping with tradition, the Kumbh Mela here was kicked off simultaneously at Nashik and Trimbakeshwar. Saffron flags with a golden border and featuring the face of a lion were hoisted at both places on the dot at 11.51 am to coincide with Jupiter's entrance into the zodiac sign, Leo.

The simultaneous Kumbh at Nashik and Trimbakeshwar is a relatively recent tradition. Till 1770, the Kumbh was held at Kawnai, 58 km away. And it was an important enough event to find mention in the travels of Hieun Tsang who is believed to have gifted the temple with its Chinese gong. According to historians, the twin venues of the Nashik Kumbh were a compromise formula, effected in 1770 by local ruler Sawai Madhavrao after members of the rival Shaiviite and the Vaishnaviite sects warred with each other over who would bathe first. The battle left scores of sadhus dead and injured.

As a peace-keeping measure, Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao made Kanwai off-limits to both the sects. As per the ruler's decree effective to this day, the Shaiviites bathe at Trimbakeshwar, the Vaishnaviites make use of the facilities at Ramkund in the lower reaches of the Godavari at Nashik.

The ruler's edict, etched on copper plates, is found at these spots to this day. In subsequent years, road and rail networks connecting the two spots to the rest of the world ensured that Kawnai continued to remain on the fringes of collective memory.

With the promise of a grand spectacle, television crews have staked out vantage spots all over Nashik and Trimbakeshwar. Some of the bigger television stations have ferried in as many as eight television crews and promise to bring in more over the next fortnight so as not to miss out on the action. Security concerns are already high in Maharashtra following the series of bomb blasts in Mumbai. Security at the Kumbh sites is on high alert, following warnings from intelligence agencies about a fidayeen suicide squad from the Lashkar-e-Toiba infiltrating Nashik. Police officials here say, a number of suspected sympathisers of the Students' Islamic Movement of India have been picked up from areas neighboring Nashik as a precautionary measure. Security has been tight at all religious places in Maharashtra in the wake of the terrorist attack at the Akshardham temple in Gujarat last September. In all 10,000 policemen and paramilitary personnel have been posted at the Kumbh Mela venues.

Mumbai itself has suffered six bombings in trains and buses since December last. In the latest incident, a bomb was set off in the central suburb of Ghatkopar on July 28. The blast killed six persons and injured more than 50 people. The sheer spectacle overshadows the enormous development works undertaken by the central and state governments at the Kumbh sites. A sum of Rs 448 crore has already been spent on providing civic amenities to Nashik and Trimbakeshwar. Of this, Rs 34 crore have been spent only on enlarging the Ram Kund bathing ghat so that 12,000 sadhus and 1.2 lakh devotees can bathe there every hour. But in just under a year, all the sheen wears off and Nashik returns to its former state of semi-hibernation, barely aware of the pilgrims trickling in day after day.