Slowly Down the Ganges

"In a way this is the book that inspired me to write mine. I read it quite a long time ago and I just love Eric Newby. It’s a travel book, but like most of his books it’s not only extremely colourful and interesting, but extremely funny. He’s the kind of writer who makes you laugh out loud when you read his words on a plane, embarrassing the people who are sitting next you. He has wonderful descriptions of waking up in the early mornings in India and listening to people coughing and hawking and spitting and going about their daily business. “India’s democracy is wonderful, but there are many other aspects of a successful free society that are lacking” He tried to journey as much of the Ganges as he could. He sets off not from the source, as you can’t really travel by boat down the early part of the river where it’s a rushing stream, but ironically he immediately runs aground a few yards below the first bridge where they decided to start their long boat journey. In the first six days they run aground 63 times. Of course, they come across a bunch of grasping boat sellers. Travelling is often difficult in India , and it was even more difficult then. He sometimes has to bypass parts of the river where he can’t manage it and go by train. They finish at the mouth of the Ganges in the Bay of Bengal with pilots who have guided ships for generations down the very difficult lower regions of the holy river. That’s interesting. I would say the main change for the river and indeed for India as a whole is the sheer growth of the Indian population. At the time of independence in 1947, the population was about a quarter of what it is now, and Newby’s book was written not that long after independence. India’s population is now between 1.3 and 1.4 billion, and India will soon be the most populous country in the world, overtaking China. The northern part of India where the Ganges flows is very densely populated, and where population growth is exceptionally high in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Of course, all this puts enormous pressure on natural resources, including the river and its water. So you have a massive pollution load that grows every year with the growing population, from untreated sewage but also from industry. Oh yes, absolutely. Newby has a wonderful description of the Ganges in the dry season, what was essentially a pretty dried-up looking, boring river. Then the monsoon came, and the massive, huge river poured across the horizon. That extraordinary change still comes over the landscape when the Ganges goes from being a small river by most standards during the dry season, to a massive, raging torrent during the monsoon season, which thrashes its way across the countryside and is quite a stunning sight. Yet although the natural aspects of the river are relatively unchanged, wildlife is more threatened than it was then, and the human population is much greater. One aspect that has changed in terms of river traffic is that you would be very lucky to see any kind of sailing vessel on the Ganges nowadays, whereas back in the 1960s and before, you would have seen quite a lot of sailing boats."