Ma Ganga

We left Goa in late April, just as it was getting very hot. The Himalaya is the cure for the season Indians call "the hot". After a month in Nepal (getting visas, eating western food in Thamel, dodging Maoist demonstrations) we joined friends from Los Angeles, Tom and Yvana, and followed the pilgrim route from Delhi through Haridwar and Rishkesh to Gangotri, where the Ganga falls out of the high Himalaya. From there we trekked along the holy river to its source.

It's a full day's walk from Gangotri to Gaumukh, the glacier that's more or less considered to be the source of the Ganga, or Ganges as western maps like to call it. We spent the night in a government-owned dormatory (barn) four kilometers from the glacier and walked the rest of the way the second day. The last kilometers of the trek are hazardous - rockslides created by leaping Himalayan Mountain Goats sent rocks crashing down onto the narrow pathway. At one point, while we thought we were safely hiding behind a boulder from a slide, a grapefruit-sized stone rocketed between my and Yvana's heads, no more than a foot from either of us. After that we got very serious about watching the rocks - and mountain goats, above us.

It was worth the effort once we reached Gaumukh, where it's said that immersing oneself in the freezing cold water wipes away seven generations of one's families sins. I did it, and it's as cold as you might expect for water pouring out of ice, but it was so dry that the water evaporated as soon as I stood up and felt the warm sunshine. Tom and Yvana got the holy cleasing too, but Erin said she hasn't sinned as much as the rest of us and contented herself with washing her face.

Somehow the pictures of me in the water got erased - you wouldn't have wanted to be around the evening I discovered this and accused Erin of doing it - accidentally, of course, but they disappeared right after I showed her how to delete pictures. She resents the implication and in fact I hope she never reads this blog - it's a subject that should die a quiet death... We've moved on.

But we're not here to cast aspersions, afterall. I'm more interested in the sins I've apparently washed away for me and my family. As I see it, I've got a lot of sinning in the bank and I intend to spend it all before I pass from this mortal coil... and since I took one for the entire family I guess all past family grudges are cleared up, too. What a relief!

The Indian beaches get the publicity but the Himalaya is the best part of the subcontinent for me. It was interesting the way the Hindu pilgrms got friendlier and friendlier as we got closer to Gaumukh, closer to the source of Ma Ganga, the river that flows from Shiva's hair...

Gaumukh is disappearing fast, like all the other glaciers in the world. I'm very happy I got to see it - it was worth the two day walk.