How Ganga came down to earth

NIDISH'S THOUGHTS

     So Nidish, Aditi and I wander down to the Bhagirathi, a hundred metres from our campsite. We sit by the fast-flowing stream. Scattered at the edges are more huge, meringue cream rocks, some as big as small houses, littered haphazardly after the gods had finished rolling their dice. I’m intrigued. Does Nidish, a man who has travelled the world, really believe the river came down in the locks of Shiva’s matted hair?

     Nidish is emphatic. ‘Based on what I have read I would say yes! Ganga was brought down to earth from heaven, and I’ll tell you why. Only Ganga can never get contaminated. Yamuna is holy but it doesn’t have these properties. Indian scientists attribute this to the properties of minerals and herbs in the water. But there are other rivers such as the Alaknanda or the Mandakini that rise here and contain mountain herbs and minerals and their water gets contaminated. So yes, Ganga is unique and it must be so because she comes straight from heaven. We are basically a god-fearing people. Whenever we find something unusual, we attribute this to our gods.’

     I still find it surprising that a well-travelled man
l like Nidish believes this story of the origins of Ganga. Maybe I should just sit back and enjoy being in the company of a friend who can go where I cannot?

     I go back to the tents, which are drying out in the sun, and fetch a couple of thick plastic water bottles and two Ziploc bags to take samples of Ganga jal. After all, it can’t get much purer than here, unless up at the source itself. The sediments settle immediately but the water itself stays cloudy. Nidish says if water in winter is absolutely clear, presumably because there are no monsoon deluges to wash sediment down the mountain sides.

     ‘Have you drunk Ganga jal?’ I ask Nidish. Sometimes the simplest questions produce unexpected revelations, and he doesn’t disappoint: ‘Many times. Without Ganga jal we cannot survive. Ganga jal is everything for a Hindu, and I’m very much a Hindu!’ Looking at my cloudy bottle, I object: ‘ But it must taste of sand?’ Nidish doesn’t buy that at all: ‘This water is far better than the Ganges water people are drinking in Varanasi. That looks like sewage water. I’m drinking the water from the source. No matter it is cloudy or sandy or whatever. Nothing happens to us.’

     ‘And you’ve never been ill?’ Nidish’s answer is firm: ‘Never!

     Same thing with his parents, whom I’ve met on several occasions. His father is still an active mountaineer at seventy-three, and his father before him lived to a ripe old age. Nidish attributes this to a swig of Ganga jal first thing every morning. Also, a few drops of Ganga jal mixed with ordinary tap water to perform his morning pooja.

     ‘I remember the day he died,’ Nidish tells me. ‘We took his body - he was still alive - opened his mouth, and placed two drops of Ganga jal in his mouth, and then he died.’

      I’ve never seen Nidish bathe or pray to any idol. He travels to Europe regularly, takes tour parties from the West up into different parts of Garhwal, and is very fond of high altitude medicine. So beyond the usual pieties what does it really mean for him to be a Hindu?

     ‘I believe in all religions, even though by birth I’m a Hindu - of course I come to the temple and respect my gods and perform the few rituals I know well. I think Hinduism is the most flexible religion in the world, where everything is accepted - everything.’ So far nothing unexceptional. But that last phrase ‘where everything is accepted - everything’ has real practical meaning for Nidish in his everyday life. In fact, I wonder if he came to his understanding of Hinduism recently as a way of justifying his habits to his wife Kalyani.

     ‘In Garhwal - in this part of it which is the abode of Shiva - we always say there are many gods and goddesses and you have to please them accordingly. We have gods for everything, for food, for weather, we have a god for mountains, for wealth, we even have a god for sex.’
I shouldn’t have been surprised; Hindu mythology never strays far from fertility and sex. ‘So who’s the god of sex?’ I ask.

     ‘That’s Kam devta,’ answers Aditi, quick as a flash. She’s obviously quite animated at this turn of the conversation and chips in her two cents worth: ‘Kama is a very powerful god. He’s supposed to have ignited Shiva’s third eye. It actually burnt him to ashes because he was trying to create desire in Shiva when the other gods wanted Shiva to get more involved in what was happening here on earth.’

     I steer the conversation towards another potential god. ‘Is there a god or goddess of wine?’

     This time it’s Nidish who jumps in: ‘Ah Shiva! It was Shiva who actually drank...’ He searches for the word. ‘Amrit,’ suggests Aditi.

     Nidish doesn’t miss a beat. ‘There are certain Hindu temples in Punjab where you have to take an offering of a bottle of alcohol.’

     But Aditi is more interested in our previous topic. ‘Did you know that the southern goddess Lord Kamakshi, also in some traditions seen as a consort of Shiva, is one of the forms of Kama? She is the devi version of the god of desire - in other words, the goddess of sex. In fact she’s the deity my father worships, and I have a big idol of her at home.’

     Nidish and Aditi discuss their family gods. Nidish explains, ‘At home our family deity is Narsingh - the lion (one of the avatars of Vishnu). And every family, at least in the mountains, has its own family god. We offer our prayers to Shiva, Lakshmi, Rama or Krishna. But the main one in our family poojas is Narsingh.’

     Aditi almost falls into the water in her excitement. ‘Like Nidish, we also have a family god, Lord Jyotirba, who was actually a version of Shiva. Just outside Kohlapur, which is my ancestral town, there’s a Jyotirba temple. He’s a very powerful warrior god, not a Brahmin god, a Kshatriya god. So the offerings are meat and all kinds of sacrilegious items.’ And sex is still on Aditi’s mind: ‘We also have an idol at home, a very beautiful idol of Devi Kamakshi with an actual yoni (vagina), made in Kanchipuram. She is completely black, made of granite and she glistens when oil is put on her. She is absolutely gorgeous!’