A friend put up pictures of Banares on Facebook last week. Of ghats. Of river Ganga. Of people.
It stirred something in me. I went straight back to the pilgrimage with my family, in 1990. That was a year after my maternal grandfather died.
After an adventurous trip to Allahabad sangam, we were overwhelmed to see Ganga in spate at Varanasi. It was August, and the water mud-red. Disappointment - no trademark umbrellas, unending steps into the river, Our regular stop was Hanuman ghat, a walk from Sankar Mutt where my family - my grandparents (paternal), maternal granny, an aunt with her family and children, all went for bath nearly every day of our stay in the city.
I do not remember how much it costed us for a boat-ride to all those important ghats, for that ceremonial bath. At most places, we would just spring our hands out of the boat, get some water into our cupped palms, and sprinkle it on our heads. That ride stays fresh in my memory, nearly 22 years on, for many reasons.
The pictures that this friend put up replayed a conversation with the pan-chewing boatmen though. They were two of them. One, an older guy who I cannot remember how he looked, and the younger guy. Rowing against the water-in-spate, is no mean feat. Yet they did it. On the wall of a ghat building that looked more like it emerged from water, there was a sign that said 232 feet. We gasped.
All through, we heard those along the ghats and boatmen address Ganga as maiyya or mother. She was the source of their livelihood.
The boatman's effort at rowing drew our silent appreciation, not long. We were used to seeing paan spitting people outside of the river. But here, this guy chewed paan, and spit it into the river.
My mom asked him why he was spitting into the river.
``Yeh Ganga maiyya hai, kuch bhi ho, le legi. Maa hai,'' that was his logic!
(She is mother Ganga. She will take anything. She is a mother.)
The older boatman talked in a similar tone. No apology. No respect. Yet, it was the same river that got them their daily bread.
Rivers are worshipped more in their feminine form in India. Does it then give humans the right to throw dirt at them. Rivers who they worship as their mothers?
Ganga is considered the most sacred of all Indian rivers. And abused the most. What gives any human the right to spit at his/her mother? I cannot understand the philosophy behind throwing half burnt dead bodies into the river. I cannot accept throwing industrial waste (however polite that sounds) into rivers. Why do we commit such crimes on those that we worship?
Perhaps, it is this lop-sided thinking that costs us our own rivers.
Rivers are a culture. They nurture all that's around them. We humans repay them, by killing them.
Needless to say, over two decades on, it saddens me all the more to see Ganga crying for help. Varanasi is probably keeping pace with the other cities. It was a city I fell in love with as a child. It is a city that continues to fascinate me. Only wish I could see a cleaner Ganga.
Pics courtesy: Mihir Srivastava
It stirred something in me. I went straight back to the pilgrimage with my family, in 1990. That was a year after my maternal grandfather died.
After an adventurous trip to Allahabad sangam, we were overwhelmed to see Ganga in spate at Varanasi. It was August, and the water mud-red. Disappointment - no trademark umbrellas, unending steps into the river, Our regular stop was Hanuman ghat, a walk from Sankar Mutt where my family - my grandparents (paternal), maternal granny, an aunt with her family and children, all went for bath nearly every day of our stay in the city.
I do not remember how much it costed us for a boat-ride to all those important ghats, for that ceremonial bath. At most places, we would just spring our hands out of the boat, get some water into our cupped palms, and sprinkle it on our heads. That ride stays fresh in my memory, nearly 22 years on, for many reasons.
The pictures that this friend put up replayed a conversation with the pan-chewing boatmen though. They were two of them. One, an older guy who I cannot remember how he looked, and the younger guy. Rowing against the water-in-spate, is no mean feat. Yet they did it. On the wall of a ghat building that looked more like it emerged from water, there was a sign that said 232 feet. We gasped.
All through, we heard those along the ghats and boatmen address Ganga as maiyya or mother. She was the source of their livelihood.
The boatman's effort at rowing drew our silent appreciation, not long. We were used to seeing paan spitting people outside of the river. But here, this guy chewed paan, and spit it into the river.
My mom asked him why he was spitting into the river.
``Yeh Ganga maiyya hai, kuch bhi ho, le legi. Maa hai,'' that was his logic!
(She is mother Ganga. She will take anything. She is a mother.)
The older boatman talked in a similar tone. No apology. No respect. Yet, it was the same river that got them their daily bread.
Rivers are worshipped more in their feminine form in India. Does it then give humans the right to throw dirt at them. Rivers who they worship as their mothers?
Ganga is considered the most sacred of all Indian rivers. And abused the most. What gives any human the right to spit at his/her mother? I cannot understand the philosophy behind throwing half burnt dead bodies into the river. I cannot accept throwing industrial waste (however polite that sounds) into rivers. Why do we commit such crimes on those that we worship?
Perhaps, it is this lop-sided thinking that costs us our own rivers.
Rivers are a culture. They nurture all that's around them. We humans repay them, by killing them.
Needless to say, over two decades on, it saddens me all the more to see Ganga crying for help. Varanasi is probably keeping pace with the other cities. It was a city I fell in love with as a child. It is a city that continues to fascinate me. Only wish I could see a cleaner Ganga.
Pics courtesy: Mihir Srivastava
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