Reporter's Notebook

Maps:
     Himalayas
     Headwaters
     Entire Ganga

Side texts:
       How Ganga Came
         Down to Earth   

     Nidish's Thoughts

 

JOURNEY TO THE SOURCE OF GANGA

     Ganga’s not especially long - fifteen hundred miles from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. But her water’s the lifeblood for over six hundred million people in India and Bangladesh. Farmers -big and small - depend on her for their crops. Millions -in villages and cities - depend on her for washing, cooking and drinking and to carry away their waste.

     And many of them worship her as a Goddess whose waters will cleanse them of sin and help them attain moksha or salvation, by carrying their ashes to heaven. Many rivers on other continents are sacred. But no other river in the world is worshipped as a goddess. This is why Ganga is unique.

     Ganga is also under great threat - from pollution, but above all from a rapidly modernising India whose appetite for Ganga’s water far outstrips the river’s capacities.

     In this first program Julian goes deep into the Himalayas in search of the source of Ganga.