George Black - On the Ganges: Encounters with Saints and Sinners Along India’s Mythic River

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For bridging the language gap and opening locked doors, thanks to Mostafizur Rahman Jewel, Praveen Kaushal, Damayanti Lahiri, Ajay Pandey, Pallavi Sharma, and Pranav Sharma.

For lending me an extra pair of eyes, thanks to Agns Dherbeys, a brilliant photographer and awesome traveling companion, and to Diane Cook and Len Jenshel.

For helping to usher earlier versions of some of these stories into print, thanks to Doug Barasch, John Bennet, Alan Burdick, Scott Dodd, Mac Funk, Janet Gold, David Kortava, David Remnick, and Dorothy Wickenden.

For creating Paragraph Writers Space, where all this eventually came together, thanks to Joy Parisi, for her vision and her friendship. And for keeping the ship sailing smoothly and the jar of Hersheys Kisses always filled, thanks to Lee Bob Black, Ryan Davenport, Maya Macdonald, Ilana Masad, and Amy Meng.

For teaching me new things about our shared craft (even if you didnt realize it at the time), and for listening to my lamentations when the going was rough, thanks to all my fellow paragrafistas . Its impossible to name everyone, but Id be remiss not to give a special tip of the hat to Saul Anton, Zaina Arafat, Kavita Das, Lisa Dierbeck, Elyssa East, Will Heinrich, Sophie Jaff, Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau, George Kyrtsis, Tim Mangin, Ruth Margalit, Sam Nigro, Susanna Schellenberg, Kaushik Shridharani, Kathleen Smith, Sarah-Jane Stratford, Laura Strausfeld, and Cynthia Weiner. Aurvi Sharma has been a particular friend to this project, and her kindness, sharp intelligence, and sense of humor have saved me from countless errors, both large and small.

For sharing their time, advice, hospitality, and encouragement, and for putting up with my insatiable curiosity and often ill-informed questions, thanks to Anupam Agarwal, Fatima Halima Ahmed, Shirin Akhter, Babu Alam, Firoz Alam, Taj Alam, Abdullah Ansari, Alyssa Ayres, Jugal Giri Baba, Acharya Balkrishna, Adam Barlow, Rajiv Bawa, Martin Brading, David Bruce, Vidyawati Chaudhary, the myriad Chowdhurys of Varanasi, Akanksha Chaurey, Prateek Chawla, Dilip Chenoy, Sarat Dash, Kaushal Deb, Bibek Debroy, Paula Devi, Sumant Dubey, Michael Duffy, R. K. Dwivedi, Jennifer Fowler, Atanu Ganguli, Anshul Garg, Anchita Ghatak, Vignesh Gowrishankar, Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Hafizurrahman, Saleemul Haq, Kanupriya Harish, Syed Iqbal Hasnain, Shahidul Islam, Ramaswamy Iyer, Anjali Jaiswal, Rakesh Jaiswal, Maj. Rajinder Singh Jamnal, Jesmin and the women of Savar and Mirpur, Tara Joy, Babar Kabir, Kushi Kabir, Bonani Kakkar, Pradeep Kakkar, Capt. Mostafa Kamal, Abhishek Kar, Raju Keshri, Meeta Khilnani, Radhika Khosla, Zakir Kibria, Sivarma Krishnan, Col. Manoj Kumar, Nitish Kumar, Anil Kuriyal, Bharat Lal, Anuradha Lohia, Arun Lohia, Munmun Maharaj, Iftekhar Mahmud, Petra Manefeld, Elisabeth Fahrni Mansur, Yvonne McPherson, Brij Mehra, Mike Metrik, Vishwanbharnath Mishra, Ramgopal Mohley, Partha Mukhopadhyay, Mukhti, Bob Nickelsberg, Simon Norfolk, Martina Odermatt, Ragini Pandey, Deependar Panwar, Priya Patel, Ajay Puri, Prema Ram, Navneet Raman, Nithya Ramanathan, Jairam Ramesh, Anita Rana, Haroon ur Rashid, Mariam Rashid, Deepak Rathor, Shruti Ravindran, Shravya Reddy, Ibrahim Hafeez Rehman, Rahim Riyaz, Pallavi Sah, Arvind Sand, Ravindra Sand, Benedict Poresh Sardar, Suresh Semwal, Shabnam, A. K. Sharma, Mourvi Sharma, R. P. Sharma, Shashi Shekhar, A. C. Shukla, Ajeet Singh, Arun Singh, Mahavir Singh, Minijit Singh, Rakesh Singh, S. N. Singh, Violet Smith, Salma Sobhan (who left us much too soon), Leena Srivastava, Meera Subramanian, Mahmudul Suman, S. Sundar, Michael Thompson, Sir Crispin Tickell, Vijay Shankar Tiwari, Raitis Vaivods, Annapurna Vankeshwaran, B. G. Verghese, and Petra Wolf.

For the beautiful maps, thanks to Joe Lemonnier.

For Anne, David, and Julia, thanks for your collective creative energy, intellectual and moral curiosity, and regard for fine writing.

For sixteen years of friendship, advice, and support, thanks to my incomparable agent, Henry Dunow. Long-lasting relationships and personal loyalties are increasingly rare in this business, and writers can often feel like relief pitchers in baseball, bouncing from one team to another in search of the best contract for each new season. For that reason, its a special pleasure to work twice in a row with the same house. Thanks then to Sara Ensey, Meryl Gross, Gwen Hawkes, Steven Seighman, Dori Weintraub, Michelle Cashman, Rob Grom, and the rest of the fine team at St. Martins Press, but above all to Michael Flamini, who came up with the idea for this book in the first place. Michael, this ones for you.

For anyone with a love of language, India is a special delight. Indian English is deeply idiosyncratic, filled with quirky turns of phrase and archaisms from the days of colonial rule. For a speaker of standard Englishwhatever that may meanthe effect can sometimes be unintentionally comic, and in reproducing conversations verbatim, its easy for the writer to come across as condescending. Im fully aware of those pitfalls, but my overriding goal was to capture and respect the authenticity of the voices of those I met on my travels along the Ganges.

Contrary to popular belief, only about ten percent of Indians speak English, and not always fluently. Many of the conversations in this book were with people who spoke only rudimentary English, or none at all. Some switched back and forth between English and their own language. Many spoke only Hindi, or in some cases Urdu. In these situations, the writer is at the mercy of the translator, and inevitably some translators are better than others. Again, I have done my best to convey the speakers voice as accurately as possible.

Since Independence in 1947, the anglicized names of more than a hundred Indian towns and cities have been changed. The effects of this on popular usage have been uneven. Madras has all but given way to Chennai, yet very few people refer to its southern neighbor as Bengaluru; its still Bangalore. While some argue for Mumbai, others stay loyal to Bombay. Theres a similar tension between the new Kolkata and the old Calcuttaa matter that is debated by residents of the city, fueled by vodka mojitos and bhang pakoras, at my Holi party. The most extreme case of all is Varanasiaka Benares, Banaras, and Kashi. In writing about these places, Ive used different variants according to the context, the source, or the speaker.

Above all, of course, there is the name of the great river itself. Is it the Ganges or Ganga? If its the river goddess, Ive always used Ganga, or Ma Ganga. Otherwise, Ive used both names, depending on the context and the speaker. When in doubt, my default has been to call it the Ganges, simply because its more familiar that way to non-Indian readers.

Calamity-averting Ganesh!

Salam!!

Thou who art invoked on the commencement of a journey,

the writing of a book,

Salam!!

Oh! Ganesh, put not thine ears to sleep!

Encourage me, and then behold my bravery.

F ANNY P ARKES , Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque , 1850