'...mummy and I were always fighting about her obsession with faith and ritual...On
our yaatras, she would show such deep faith and perform such fevered rituals that the
whole exercise would leave me exhausted. Every time I told myself I'd never go with her
again. And every time I went. Again and again.'
For as long as the author can remember, he's been a willing companion to
his intrepid and devout mother on their countless journeys to sacred sites
along the Ganga. As a young man, he travels to these on his own-seven
key destinations from the snow-capped Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal-
exploring the faith of not only millions of fellow pilgrims but also his own.
In Gangotri, he meets renunciant babas who are glad to share with him their
stories, along with their meagre food. In Kedarnath, a sadhu tells him how
the Shiva temple miraculously survived the devastating floods of 2013. At
Badrinath, he attends the wedding ceremony of a family friend to Vishnu, to
undo a defect in her horoscope. In Rishikesh, he walks with the kanwariyas,
and at the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, immerses himself in the shadowy world
of the Naga sadhus. Varanasi, the city of light, offers diverse experiences,
from a bhang-induced revelry on Mahashivratri to conversations with
Aghoris, who tell him why they sometimes drink blood. He also reflects on
the ever changing cityscape of Varanasi-from ancient times to Aurangzeb to
the present-and the politics behind it. He ends his journey with a loop back
to Ganga Sagar, where the Ganga finally meets the sea.
An introspective memoir by a questioning Hindu, Tripping Down the Ganga is
simultaneously a captivating account of a sacred river and her devotees. It is
an ode to the mighty Ganga-sometimes turbulent and at others serene-
which has nestled in her life-giving embrace for millennia believer and nonbeliever
alike.
