As far as Miracles is concern, turning salty sea water in to sweet water is quite amazing. Regardless of the scientific clarification being doled out—surplus freshwater flowing from the Mahim River into the sea—the thousand mass to Mahim Creek near the beachfront in Mumbai will pretty see the ‘transubstantiation’ as the deed of the late Haji Maqdoom Baba, whose shrine is in the area. Mass hysteria, of course, is only a term to clarify the hordes of believers filling plastic bottles and drinking the water. But the real miracle would be if those glugging the ‘miraculous’ water manage to flee succumbing to serious gastric illness.

The water of Mahim Creek, sweetened or otherwise, is dirty and would scandalize not only the likes of Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment but any right-thinking, correct-drinking person. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and officials of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai have already request to people not to drink the water. Industrial waste is not the finest ingredient for a miracle. But telling this to goggle-eyed people facing even more goggle-eyed TV cameras is as worthwhile as persuasive people that a Ganesh idol sipping milk is caused by suction and not godly lactose tolerance.

Fortunately, rumors of the sweetened water turning back to its original brackish form might stop a future surge. Now we only wait for the real miracle of no one complaining of sickness.