On the Ganges

May 15, 2018
A lively journey down the Ganges River via off-the-beaten-path destinations and historical moments.Journalist Black (Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone, 2012, etc.) traveled from the source of the Ganges to its mouth in a series of short trips. The river is known as "Ma Ganga," a mother goddess, and it feeds half a billion people by irrigating rice and wheat fields. The author's fascination with the Ganges began at age 11 when he saw a woodcut of a widow throwing herself on her husband's funeral pyre on the banks of the river in a 19th-century book he bought from a junk shop. In his quest to discover the modern Ganges and its historical importance, he started in New Delhi before proceeding to the Gangotri Glacier, one of the largest in the Himalayas, and the Rajasthan Desert. From cold, bare lodgings to tourist-trap hotels, Black experienced the extremes of Indian hospitality, and he even learned Hindi insults as a result of some scary rides. Interviews and dialogue enhance the vivid scenes, and the author doesn't limit himself to high-profile destinations Western tourists are likely to see. His stops included a temple on the border with Tibet and a rickshaw graveyard in Dhaka, and he observed a cremation and joined in the search for a problem tiger. Throughout, Black shows that he is aware of the Western travelers who went before, everyone from Sir Edmund Hilary and Mark Twain to the Beatles and Allen Ginsberg. The most poignant moments come when past and present, or various cultures, meet in surprising ways--e.g., relics of the 1857 Indian Rebellion appear alongside Muslim icons and a squatter colony. Black powerfully reveals the contradictions of modern South Asia by way of this body of water, "a seducer, a magnetic field" that is both "place of worship and...open sewer."A worthwhile work that will please armchair travelers and historians.

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May 21, 2018
Hoping to write a book like the ones “early English travelers packed in their portmanteaus,” Black (Empire of Shadows) launched himself on a 1,500-mile trip down the river of legend whose “magnetic field” draws “devotees of the sacred and the profane.” Central to Hinduism, Black explains, the Ganges is often referred to as the river goddess, Ma Ganga, but everywhere he travels he sees that the river is threatened by pollution and overuse. In the mountains where the Ganges starts as “a thin stream of gray, silt-laden water,” he meets stoned and evasive gurus and explores the ruined ashram once owned by the Beatles’ beloved Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Further downstream in the “heat, dust, and unending flatness” of the teeming plains, Black examines the ruins of the British Raj, learns of the mythology behind cremation, and studies Hindu-Muslim tensions. Toward the end of his journey, Black pushes into the delta, where the Ganges pours through the desperate poverty of overpopulated Bangladesh where “life... was a crude Darwinian contest.” Black’s wry, humanistic narrative depicts a people riding on the knife’s edge of catastrophe, but still holding out for hope.

June 1, 2018
As the second most populous nation in the world, India encompasses an array of ethnicities, religious affiliations, socioeconomic levels, and caste identities. In this combination travelogue and social commentary, Black (Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone, 2012) expands on an article that appeared in the New Yorker last year, using the Ganges as a window into Indian society?although he observes that anyone who thinks he's found the essence of India has probably just become ensnared in stereotypes. He documents his travels along the length of the river, from its source high in the Himalayas to where it empties into the Indian Ocean, 1,300 miles away. Seventy-plus brief essays tell of the individuals he meets and show how their lives are shaped by water, whether monsoons, droughts, or rising sea levels that destroy habitats and increase tiger attacks. Black is a great storyteller, putting scenarios?some familiar, others verging on the surreal?into context. Never condescending or sensationalized, but always interesting, his vignettes capture India's continuing dependence on Ma Ganga, the great Ganges River.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)