Daughter of the Mountains

The waves of a wild river leap and rage against the banks. The sharp ringing of a temple bell pierces the air of incense and thick smoke. Secrets of marination, held close for centuries, melt away in the mouth. On a wind-swept ghat, a priest skims through the pages of sacrosanct family registers. A masterful stroke completes the kohl that outlines a goddess' eye, and an ancestral home conjures the stories from a seminal poet's life. 

Ganga is one of the major rivers in India which descends from the mighty Himalaya into the Northern Plains. With Delhi as a touchpoint, this journey begins by tracing the course of the holy river along the foothills of the Himalaya, in Rishikesh and Haridwar. Descending onto the plains in Lucknow, we follow the Ganges as it meanders into Allahabad, the city of a sacred confluence and Varanasi, the holy town of Lord Shiva and a consuming spiritual flight. This journey concludes at the first colonial capital of India and the largest city on the banks of the Ganges, Kolkata.

Hailed as the capital city for more than a century, Delhi remains to be the seat of political power for modern-day India. Protected by forts and ramparts, the walled old city swells with stories of a wealthy past. The metropolis of New Delhi continues to develop exponentially retaining within it the charms of the olden days. The pink sun rises over the royal Mughal gardens and lights up the dewy sandstone forts and monuments from its various pasts.

Eventually, to be met with the Yamuna down the plains, the holy Ganges descends from the lofty Himalaya and courses into Haridwar and Rishikesh, offering an immersion into the ancient art of meditation and yoga. Brought into the limelight with the arrival of the Beatles, this spiritual centre is filled with devotees, travellers, and locals meditating by the riverbanks. Also called the Yoga Capital of the World, the people of this land have mirrored their ancestors who once recited chants at the prayer service for the river in a spectacular ritual called the Ganga Aarti and performed ablutions in the flowing river water.

Moving deeper into the plains, Lucknow greets a tributary of the Holy Ganges with its quintessential charm. The capital city of the empire of the Nawabs of Awadh, its contribution to the fields of literature, poetry, music and dance is unparalleled. Lucknow’s real charm lies not only in its monuments of Indo-Islamic architecture but also in the Tehzeeb-o-Saqafat or culture and sophistication of its people.

Further south in Allahabad, the sacred river of Yamuna, personified in Yami as the goddess of life, merges with the Ganges and the mythical Saraswati to form a holy confluence of absolution. In its cluster of Hindu temples along the confluence, attended to by learned priests and flocked with devotees, the city endures as a site of Hindu pilgrimage. In a smattering of exquisite Indo-Islamic heritage, the city prevails as a Mughal emperors' abode of the gods.

Changing course to head eastward, the holy river meanders to a city that has seen men, kingdoms and gods pass by. One of Hinduism’s seven holy cities, and an important Buddhist centre, Varanasi was once a fertile land of philosophy, theosophy, medicine and learning. The remnants still linger in its narrow lanes and slippery ghats, inhabited by locals, devotees, sadhus, aghoris and travellers who visit the city looking for salvation and peace.

Further on, the holy river debouches into the plains of Bengal. Its capital Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, is the largest city on the banks of River Ganges. The river is called the Hooghly here. Kolkata is the centre of Bengali culture and is the cultural and educational hub of Eastern India. Besides a glorious view of the Victoria Memorial, one of the many remnants of Kolkata’s colonial past, the St. Paul’s Cathedral stands as an excellent tribute to the ‘British Calcutta’ before it wisps into the cultural rituals of the Far East.