One of my long standing dreams has been to swim in the Ganges.
I have been along the Ganga in various stages of her flow. When she is a youthful energetic self – agile and swift when coming down from the high mountains in Garhwal, below the snow line where she is colored turquoise in the wooded country and meanders through the mountains – much softer but still quick and seemingly in search of the plains, in Rishikesh where she widens her path and looks to stray from her channel that has remained narrow so far, and in Haridwar where she still retains her energy and purity as she cleanses thousands of pilgrims in the bathing ghats.
Map: Course of Ganga
She remains charming as ever all along and each time I step close to the bank, I am driven by an irresistible urge to jump in, swim along her course for a few miles and feel like the river myself. It has been a dream for many years now, since the first time I set sight on her in Rishikesh.
Ganga at Rishikesh
The dream has remained unfulfilled, there was always something that held me back. She is a wild torrent and the water is frigid up in the mountains. She looks deep and just nice enough to float along with her in the mountains upstream of Rishikesh, but still flows fast and appears hostile. Ganga’s river bed has been reduced to a trickle in Haridwar by a dam and the swift currents in the narrow canals are not meant for swimming.
Ganga at Varanasi
I had my hopes on Varanasi. I knew she would be mild here and take her time to push through the plains to the ocean. I knew she would be deep enough that the river bed never runs dry in these parts. I had heard of its polluted waters but hoped it would be fit enough at least for a swim. I was eager to see the Ganga on my first visit to Varanasi.
But when I went there, the sight of Varanasi’s ghats was depressing. The river was not just unclean, but looked no different from a sewer. It was dark, nearly opaque and was filled with floating organic mass along the bank. At Assi ghat where the river makes a slight bend into the west bank, disposed trash made a thick layer that completely covered the surface. Forget swimming, even touching the water seemed unthinkable.
But pious pilgrims who arrive here seem to be unmindful, which surprises me. Their faith must be a really strong to be able to callously step into the murky river and be at ease during the ritual bath.
A friend who was recently in Varanasi was taken aback by the response when she asked someone if they are not troubled by the pollution in the river.
“Ganga is intrinsically pure,” she was told, “there is no way it can be polluted, no matter what gets mixed into it.”
‘Ganga Ma’ was loved as is, no matter what state her waters were in. But I had met a few people who were more concerned. A man I was speaking to who was on a pilgrimage was deeply concerned. “You must be feeling sad about all that is happening to the Ganga,” he told me, “see what we are doing to our mother.”
Despite seeing hundreds of people taking a dip or go swimming in the river, I did not have the courage to jump. When I returned from there, my wish remained unfulfilled. I shall be going back to Rishikesh some day, and when I do, I shall go rafting and drift down the river and hopefully get to swim in it’s friendly stretches.
An educated lady with whom I got into a conversation at the breakfast table in Khajuraho asked about me, and I replied to her questions.
When I asked where she was from, she replied, “From Varanasi,” and quickly added with a grimace, “don’t visit the place, it’s one of the dirtiest cities with such polluted waters.” I could only smile in return.
I shall go to Varanasi some day!
Do go. It has its charms despite the polluted river.
Its been my dream to go to and see the ganges ..maybe some day…
lakshmi
is it safe to swim in ganges?
The dam at Haridwar built by the British in 1854 to irrigate the surrounding land, diverts much of the Himalayan snowmelt into the Upper Ganges Canal. This caused severe deterioration to the water flow in the Ganga, and is a major cause for the decay of Ganga as an inland waterway.
A total of 146 industries are located along the river Ganga between Rishikesh and Prayagraj (Allahabad). Under the Ganga Action Plan Phase II, 82 industries have installed Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) and are reported to be complying with the standards. Another 35 have ceased operations altogether.
Between the same two cities, there are 132 drains dumping untreated sewage in the Ganga. Under GAP-II, the plan is to treat approximately 65% of the domestic pollution load of the river. A sewage treatment capacity of 933 million litres per day (mld.) has been created so far. The latest being a loan agreement with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) for undertaking the pollution abatement works of the river at Varanasi.
If it’s really your dream you should just do it next time when you are there. Swimming and bathing in Ganga river in Varanasi is also one of my dreams, luckily I did it on 2006.
tzuche
@backpakker, you seem to have a long list
@matt, it depends on which part of Ganga; at some places it should be.
@sanjay, thanks for the info. Kanpur is another city that contributes significantly.
@tzuche, thanks. Hopefully I will swim in Rishikesh.
This is the only exhaustive blog I have found on the internet. Keep it up!
great stuff !!!
Am waiting to visit the ganga soon this year
Who are you dreamer of the river? I typed to a yahoo search, who knows why??? well impatient really! So, i typed in: where is my dream man in the ganga river? and your beautiful dream blog came up! Best wishes, perhaps see you there.
peace love blessings
Lavanya
ps there are these awsome music collection, music of the ganges, 3 discs of someones recordings of music while travelling down the river, raw beautiful sound.
Swimming in the Ganga upstream of Rishikesh is definitely OK/safe – I wouldn’t purposely swallow any of the water, but I’ve inadvertently done so and had no ill effects. There are stories about the Ganga’s ability to “self clean” and, given the amount of human waste I’ve seen going into it, there’s got to be something to these stories. I’ve never seen the river as far downstream as Varanasi, but people do go in and survive. That said, doesn’t Varanasi have a high rate of waterborne illness? One just needs to be careful about ingesting.
She is a beautiful river!
Jon
Yes Jon, she is indeed a beautiful river. My concerns for swimming upstream doesn’t come from worries of cleanliness, but my lack of confidence in swimming in the flow.
It is a river easy to fall in love with. The self-cleaning nature of Ganga is apparently proven with some scientific experiments too. But downstream, so much trash goes into, the limit is reached.
Your aticle is really gives us nice information. Varanasi is a relegious place for hindus. Varanasi also commonly known as Benares, is a city situated on the left (west) bank of the River Ganga (Ganges) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarded as holy by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Senthoo. It is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.