It is midnight Saturday is turning Sunday and Assi Ghat in Varanasi is jam-packed with hundreds of couples from all across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.

They wish to take a dip in the sacred Lolark Kund on the Bhadrapad chhath that starts early Sunday morning as per the Hindu calendar. People believe this dip in the reportedly ancient pond will please Lolark Baba and he will bless them with a son.

The couples who have to undergo this ritual have to observed a fast the entire day and take five dips together and follow other rituals such as immersing a white pumpkin or dhatura and pay appropriate dakshina to pandits, who recite mantras for “putra prapti”. “Otherwise come and bathe every year, don’t complain to us,” caution the priests, who posit themselves at crucial points and use time-tested tactics to exploit maximum money from the vulnerable.

This belief, that bathing in the Kund will result in the birth of a male child, has made Lolark Baba and the mela much more popular over the last decade. Although, the mela is centuries-old as the pond is traditionally known to cure skin diseases and leprosy, say locals.

“I already have three lovely daughters and my husband has no complaints. Still, my husband’s parents want me to give a son who can propagate family’s name. Being a post-graduate, I know nothing except that nature decides the sex of a child. But they have forced me to come here,” says Sunita Patel (35, name changed) from Ballia, who eventually succumbed to family and societal pressure.

Her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law have come with the couple to ensure they follow the order and “prescribed rules” under their vigil.

Manisha Sharma (25, name changed), an M Sc gold medallist from Banaras Hindu University, is with a Jabalpur boy who is the sub-divisional magistrate. They have been married two years and her anxious parents-in-law have forced her to visit her maternal home and take a bath here so that her first child is a son. “We were happy to give our daughter to a highly educated and placed man but he is not only a coward but superstitious as well. We are from the girl’s side and are in no position to disregard them,” said her mother, who was with the couple.

Manisha and Sunita are among scores of women, who take a dip forced on them by their families on Lolark Chhath. At the same time, they opened their anchal to immerse the fruit, flowers and money kept there in good faith, desirous of a good result. They stood in queues with their husbands since the morning in the narrow congested roads and lanes, for which Varanasi is infamous for.

Over a lakh couples are supposed to take a bath in the pond by Sunday evening. All the couples would eat only after worshiping the Sun God in the morning.

“Keep sankalp (resolution) of having a son in mind and take five dips. On Sundays, don’t eat salt and milk and don’t shave. Pray to the Sun God with the red flower every Sunday. You will get a son soon,” priest Vijay Kumar Mishra and Ramesh Pandey tell devotees after charging their fee.

Most of them are parents of one, two or three daughters. There are many who are infertile or have suffered miscarriages.

The scorching heat, intermittent rains and the high humidity, nothing bothers them. Neither the fact that the Kund is fed water from the nearby Ganga by pipes visible to the naked eye.

“Some of them look too young, weak and fragile perhaps due to early marriage and previous deliveries. They are forcibly taken to the pond by family members who want a son at any cost,” says Dr Vijay Nath Mishra, a neurologist, and a social worker.

“We already have two daughters but elders in the family tease that having a son is very important,” says Renu Yadav and her husband Harvinder Singh Yadav, who is with the Reserve Police Force. It is the same case with Maya Singh of Ghazipur and Pratima Patel of Varanasi, who has three daughters each and many others who thronged here.

Many of them admitted they had been forced to other quack practices such as black magic also.

There were several women whose husbands didn’t join them. “I didn’t know that the blessings come when husband and wife do snan together. Now, I will have to wait for another year,” said a visibly-distressed Krishna Rajbhar (name changed), who had come all the way from Mumbai two days ago. She claimed her TB was cured here when she bathed three years ago.

Despite such an open perpetuation of gender discrimination, the district administration’s ignorance is appalling. Not a single board or banner on Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao could be seen anywhere near the mela venue or bylanes around it.

Most families insist they know people who were blessed with a male child after taking a dip here which has strengthened their belief. Anyway, 50 per cent of the children born are male only.

The clout is growing every year. Most of them come from lower middle-class and uneducated families, though several educated and upper middle-class couples have also started coming here over the last couple of years. Many women admitted they had been coming here for four or five years but hadn’t lost hope of a son yet.

“Such is the marketing that now the chhath mela which used to be a six-hour affair from sunrise to noon has expanded to three days and goes till late night,” says Harendra Shukla, a senior journalist. Shukla and Dr Mishra say such open gender discriminatory practice must be stopped by social and administrative means.

Aggrieved locals call it a recent phenomenon which is, unfortunately, growing gradually. Clearly, despite pan-India campaigns of gender equality and the Modi government’s flagship scheme Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao to promote the girl child, the desire for a male child refuses to die down.

Dr Mishra says, “We had conducted a survey among 1,000 devotees three years ago which revealed that 100 per cent of them has taken dip for want of son. This was shocking and exposed the true colour of our society.”

For the locals, the mela is business

“Take this bhatua konhada (white pumpkin used to make sweet petha and badis) if you want to have a son. Alternatively, you can take ramphal or bel fruit (cheaper) as per your reverence. This has to be immersed along with flowers as you take five dips in the sacred Lolark pond keeping your sankalp to have a son in mind,” the woman selling the ingredients tells the crowd of customers with a smile.

She advises the women to properly select the fruit (giving more emphasis on pumpkin for a better chance at a male child) as they are not supposed to eat it again in any form, nor would their husbands. The women customers, mostly in their 30s, discuss with their spouses the pro and cons of leaving a fruit for life. The couples then zero in on a fruit, mostly pumpkin and buy it with other puja items that cost them around Rs 200-400.

There are several shops and their total sale touches Rs 3-4 crore at a conservative estimate of one lakh couples. After this, couples go to take a dip where the pandits demand money Rs 100 or Rs1,000 for the “sankalp mantra” to get a male child. The amount depends upon the spending power of the couple and their attire. Here the total revenue goes up to Rs 1 crore.

As per custom, couples are to leave their clothes, jewellery and all other items which they wore at the time of the dip and then proceed for further puja at the Bhadreshwar Shiv temple. Gold earrings, nose rings, silver anklets, sarees, bangles, footwear are then collected and sold in the market. The entire collection on this account touches nearly Rs 5 crore, which is distributed among the people involved in the game and as per hierarchy.

The powerful oppose the tradition but feel helpless

While devotees and money makers hail the mela and its power, some locals and rationalists call it a marketing gimmick. “Such fake tradition was started by local pandits and is a blot on the holy city which is incidentally Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency,” says Dr Mishra.

Dr Mishra calls this fake tradition a “blot on Kashi”. Such is the marketing gimmick of this event by the pandits, that scores of women are being forced to attend this annual mela so that the god of the pond can work the miracle. “We don’t know how a local custom gradually modified into this condemnable form. No pond can help you to choose the gender of your offspring. Moreover, daughters are and must be equally respected. I myself have two daughters and a son. My younger brother has three daughters and they are all dear to us,” says Vishambhar Nath Mishra, Professor of Electronics, IIT-BHU and Mahant of Akhada Goswami Tulsidas, which also includes the Sankatmochan Temple.

Expressing his helplessness in taking the lead to curb this practice, Prof Mishra says, “This is a matter of faith. This faith is an artificially created one. We want this to end but this should come from society. If we say something, a big controversy will erupt but nothing will change.”

“The people, who come here are either unaware of the natural phenomenon of the sex selection, or they fall for marketing gimmicks which exploit their greed for male child. This must end at the earliest. Such regressive practices harm women more by putting pressure to bear a male child,” says Dr Shraddha Mishra, principal of Sakaldeeh PG College, Varanasi.

Incidentally, she was at the Kund with her niece who was forced to take a dip by her mother-in-law so that she can conceive soon. “I am ashamed that I come here even as I preach against gender discrimination. My niece is educated and is dead against this. She is hardly 24 and married only for three years. But her in-laws have forcibly sent her to Varanasi and asked us to ensure everything goes smooth. What to do, we are from girl’s side.”

Will PMO intervene?

Every rational voice in Varanasi is asking this million-dollar question. A group of youngsters under the leadership of Roshan Pandey has submitted a petition to the PM’s local office in Varanasi on Friday seeking his intervention in this matter. The group also held a rally in the city to sensitise people about gender equality. “So far, we haven’t heard anything from his office in Varanasi or Delhi,” says Pandey, who belongs to a right-wing party.

Pandey says, “When civic authorities and district magistrate are involved in the preparation and management of the mela, it’s their responsibility to keep people informed about such tricks and bad practices. They could have simply put posters of gender equality.”