While students are busy performing experiments, the river and the old woman's tale has everyone in a tizzy. "Our forefathers used to say that during the time of the Britishers, a river of petrol used to flow here. So it's not really an unusual phenomenon,'' claims a man. A small distance away, another old man is muttering incoherently about ``kalyug, Mahabharat and the end of the world''.

A bunch of school kids claim they made tea over the flame in the night after the police officials guarding the area went off duty. They are willing to give a repeat performance, if anyonelets them near the spot.

However, scientists who have visited the area say there is very little probability of finding natural gas or petroleum reserves in this terrain.

The long stretch of the bank is like any other ghat. Stalls of prasad, pictures of gods, bangles and sindoor, toys and knick-knacks, chaat-papri, bottles to carry holy water and pandits dot the stretch. There are also a few pilgrims who have come from as far as Mathura, Hathras and Aligarh to take a dip in the holy river.

In the middle of the bank, a five-feet stretch has been cordoned-off with ropes and two policemen from the local police station have been asked to keep visitors at bay. However, the enthusiasm of the visitors and the locals usually gets the better of them and they do allow people to go close enough to the spot from where the rising bubbles can be seen clearly.

Curiously enough, though there are tales of magic and God, most locals do believe that there is a scientific explanation to it. Sinceofficials of the neighbouring Tata Chemicals and Fertilisers company have already inspected the area and announced that this is not due to any leakage from their HBJ pipeline carrying gas to their plant at Babrola from Bombay High, there is an air of anticipation and most locals are already taking about plants and employment opportunities for Rajghat. A cautious few, however, point out that the phenonmenon has to be inspected by scientists before they can be sure of anything.

Though a team of two Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) scientists from Dehradun accompanied by the SDM visited the area on November 10, they did not have any instant answers.

After snifing and collecting gas samples in five bottles and consulting the maps, ONGC geologist Ravi Mishra said: ``It is too early to predict anything. We shall do a series of tests for the next two days before we can say anything conclusively. We shall first analyse the chemical composition and identify the source, only then can we say whether there isa gas field or even an oil field here.''

Mishra says that though they had discovered gas in eastern Uttar Pradesh and some places in Madhya Pradesh, there have been no such instances in western UP. ``The Ujhani wells that we dug near Badauin yielded nothing despite the fact that we went upto three kilometres below the ground. Most probably the gas was formed due to decay of a body in the absence of oxygen. However, we cannot make any predictions without analysing the contents of the gas.''