Later still, I learned that the Ganges River, which Hindus refer to as Ganga, had its source high up in the Himalaya mountains and that you could actually trek to the source. I never felt very connected to the Hindu religion -- it was a little too offbeat for the Midwest sensibility all around me -- but I longed to see the source. I think actually I wanted to climb into the mountains, and I felt that seeing the source of Ganga would be an appropriate excuse.
Growing up in the Midwest didn't give me a lot of opportunities to be around mountains, but I always felt that I would enjoy them. I remember feeling very excited about being near the mountains when I had an internship in Boise, Idaho, and loving the Cascades and Olympic mountains when I moved in 1988 to Seattle.
I got an opportunity to trek to the source of Ganga in 1999 when I traveled to India as a graduate student, as part of a study abroad group organized by a couple of professors from University of North Carolina. By this point, I knew that the town where one began the trek was known as Gangotri and that it was at about 10,000 feet. I also knew that the source of the river was actually a glacier, with the name of Gaumukh, and that it was all but impossible to get to the source -- the point of origin -- because the size of the glacier would vary with the seasons, which meant that the source was never a fixed point, a point that becomes obvious when one looks at the concept of an origin from the perspective that Michel Foucault offers in his essay Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. This essay teaches that there is no origin, only beginnings, with emphasis on the plural. Still, I was excited to make the trek.
The hike was 18 kilometers (about 12 miles) one way. It was supposed to be a relatively easy walk, but I was out of shape and relatively easy on a mountain trail at 10,000 feet has a meaning of its own. I was in my mid-thirties, and I was with a group of students who were mostly in their teens. I really could not keep up with them, but I wanted to do the trip.
There were tea houses along the way -- which were essentially huts built into the mountain where shepherds and other mountain folk would live. Serving tourists was a big part of their livelihood, and the tea and samosa and hot paratha that we could get at these rest stops were quite nourishing.
Most people walked to the base of the glacier, and stayed overnight in an ashram like guest house at the base of the glacier. We were going to do the same.
Our group of some fifteen to eighteen people kind of split into clumps. There were a few very kind people in the group who walked with me, mostly older men. One of them was the study abroad group leader Afroz. The other was a graduate student like myself, whose name I'm not sure of. I think it was Vinnie. Anyway, I caught up with a group at the last teahouse before the guest house. One of the girls in the group had gotten some altitude sickness and while she wasn't seriously ill, she didn't want to continue. She decided to stay overnight in the tea house at the shepherds' invitation. This made me a bit skeptical, but Afroz queried the men and gave his approval. It worked out okay, from what I could tell.
I then started walking with Afroz. He and I were talking, and he was putting me at my ease. Throughout the trip, I had sort of felt like an older person. I had had a chip on my shoulder because I am Indian and I wasn't particularly pleased at the way that a bunch of college-age kids were handling their first trip outside the country. I also felt like a prude because I didn't approve of smoking or of women drinking in India in public, unless it was some place like a bar. Afroz treated me like an equal. We talked about research, scholarship, and he encouraged me to keep on exploring my roots. He was Muslim so I talked to him a little about how he perceived the place of Muslims in India.
Then, we hit a point on the trail where a rock slide had occurred. What had been a fairly safe and wide mountain trail had become reduced to a narrow treacherous path that could only be crossed single file. Afroz panicked and said we had to go back. I knew, however, that darkness was coming and that we couldn't make it back. I felt that if we were careful we could get across safely. My knowledge of the Ten Essentials from hiking in the Cascade Mountains kicked in. I asked Afroz if I could walk in front of him, and I held his hand so he could cross after we made it. He was shaking like a leaf and worrying about his partner. I told him that if we kept our own thoughts focused on safety, everyone would arrive safely. My prognosis proved to be correct. Everyone arrived safely.
That was one of the most empowering and strengthening moments of my life. Earlier, on our bus ride up to Gangotri, we had passed through the town of Tehri, which was controversial because a dam had been built there in the 1980s, displacing villages of people. Unlike the lively gurgling sparkling Ganga that characterized most of the ten-hour drive between Rishikesh and Gangotri, the river was dead in Tehri. The water was thick and mosquitoes swarmed the air. The air felt hot and humid, and there seemed to be a fetid smell. I realized that this was the impact of the dam. It had killed a civilization. I remember that I thought as we drove out of Tehri and up toward Gangotri that this was a good reason to be religious. One could link the religious values of Hinduism to the environmental activism that would restore land and life. I could get excited about this kind of a politics, a politics of justice, rooted in the land.
There's a lot more to the story of Gangotri. It's amazing that I have never told it. I have thought it over and over since 1999. That was a difficult period of my life, and I was a difficult person to be around. I had a huge chip on my shoulder then. But maybe when the rocks slid on the mountain that is part of the range from which my name is derived that chip began to loosen. The next day, upon reaching Gaumukh and getting to the glacier's current source, I did a little puja for my parents. That was my mother's request. I bought some incense and flowers from a shepherd, and I placed them in the snow. As I spoke to God, the mountains around me seemed to hover around me, offering me a protective quilt. I felt as if I were them and they were me. As the incense flared with a match light, (and the lighter was provided by one of the smokers in the group, which is ironic that yet someone else whom I had looked down upon came to my aid), I heard a noise. Snow was tumbling down a cliff, the result perhaps of an avalanche. Some people shuddered. I knew somehow that we would be safe.
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