A Hindu pilgrim takes a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on February 5, 2025. (Photo by Idrees Mohammed/AFP Photo)

This photograph taken on January 30, 2025 shows a labourer looking into a Hindustan Ambassador yellow taxi, transporting fish at a wholesale market in Kolkata. Kolkata cherishes its past, which is why the one-time Indian capital is mourning a vanishing emblem of its faded grandeur: a hulking and noisy fleet of stately yellow taxis. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

An elephant tries to eat leaves during a religious procession called Jal Yatra, ahead of the annual Rath Yatra, or chariot procession of Hindu god Lord Jagannath, in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (Photo by Ajit Solanki/AP Photo)

A mahout splashes water on his elephant in the river Sabarmati on a hot summer day in Ahmedabad, India, May 20, 2015. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

A Hindu woman gives money to an elephant outside the Lord Jagannath temple ahead of the annual Rath Yatra, or chariot procession, in Ahmedabad, India, July 16, 2015. The annual religious procession commemorates a journey by Hindu god Jagannath, his brother Balabhadra and sister Subhadra, in specially made chariots. The annual Rath Yatra is celebrated on July 18. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

A man dressed as Hindu Lord Shiva looks into the mirror as he gets ready to take part in a religious procession on the eve of Janmashtami festival in Amritsar, India, September 4, 2015. The festival, which marks the birth anniversary of Lord Krishna, will be celebrated across India on Saturday. (Photo by Munish Sharma/Reuters)

A girl plays on a pile of discarded flowers outside a market, the day after the Diwali celebrations in Mumbai, India October 31, 2016. (Photo by Shailesh Andrade/Reuters)

28 year old Rupa has her hair shaven to donate to the Gods at the Thiruthani Murugan Temple November 10, 2016 in Thiruttani, India. Rupa donated her hair with the wish that her daughter's illness is cured. The process of shaving ones hair and donating it to the Gods is known as tonsuring. It is common for Hindu believers to tonsure their hair at a temple as a young child, and also to celebrate a wish coming true, such as the birth of a baby or the curing of an illness. The “temple hair”, as it's known, is then auctioned off to a processing plant and then sold as pricey wigs and weaves in the US, Europe and Africa. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)