Collecting cow urine for Ayurvedic medicines and food additives at Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth complex near Haridwar.
A pilgrim and a construction worker outside the home of Brij Mehra in Swargashram.
In a village near Allahabad, women thresh rice in the black carbon haze from dung and wood cooking fires.
One of the countless wandering saddhus on the ghats of Varanasi, a prosperous man in his earlier life.
Each day at dawn, thousands of worshippers line the ghats for their “holy dip” in the Ganges.
Alleyways near the Ganges in Varanasi are piled high with wood for the cremation pyres. (Photograph courtesy of Agnès Dherbeys)
More than a hundred bodies are burned each day at Manikarnika, the main cremation ghat.
Doms—members of the dalit caste who manage the cremation grounds—sift the ashes to collect any valuables left on the bodies.
Jagdish Chowdhury, the Dom Raja, at home in the Tiger House with his Brahman bull.
Boatmen ferry customers across the river at the Saderghat ferry terminal in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.
In the ruins of Rana Plaza, the factory building that collapsed in 2013, killing more than 1,100 Bangladeshi garment workers.
Dawn in the rice paddies of Khulna Division, at the edge of the Sundarbans in Bangladesh.
Stallholders from Odisha State at the Kolkata flower market, at the foot of Howrah Bridge.
Tapan Chatterjee, one of the hundreds of priests at Kolkata’s Kalighat Temple, at his brother’s sweetshop.
Gujarati women on their way to Gangasagar, coming to the end of a six-week tour of India’s most important pilgrimage sites.
ALSO BY GEORGE BLACK
The Good Neighbor: How the United States Wrote the History of Central America and the Caribbean
Black Hands of Beijing: Lives of Defiance in China’s Democracy Movement (with Robin Munro)
Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds
The Trout Pool Paradox: The American Lives of Three Rivers
Casting a Spell: The Bamboo Fly Rod and the American Pursuit of Perfection
Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Black is an award-winning author and journalist living in New York City. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, newyorker.com, Harper’s, Mother Jones, The Nation, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. On the Ganges is his seventh book, and rivers run through most of them. His previous book for St. Martin’s Press, Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone, was a finalist for the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
A Note on Language
Epigraph
PART ONE: MOUNTAINS
Travelers’ Tales
Present at the Creation
The Water Pyramid
The Cow’s Mouth
The Temple on the Rock
Cave Dwellers
The Raja of Harsil
Winter Quarters
Nomads
Big Fish Story
The Age of Kali
All You Need Is Love
The Happy Escapee
Good Vibrations
From Ocean to Sky
Going to Extremes
Gateway to God
Why Shiva Turned Blue
Mrs. Chaurey’s Glasses
The Best Medicine
Fizzy Whizzy
PART TWO: PLAINS
Capstan Baba
Butchers
Massacre Ghat
Manchester of the East
Scavengers
Mothers and Children
Press One for Mangoes
Bookworms
Allahabadminton
The Moustache Dancer
The Abode of Happiness
The Traffic in Mirganj
The Invisible River
Desolate and Ruinous
Armpit of the Universe
The View from the Train
Jewel of the Ear
Sacred Fire
The Spectacle of Wood
The Commission Men
Ashes to Ashes
Slowly-Slowly
Keepers of the Flame
In the Tiger House
I Now Feel I Have Seen India
The Poets of Benares
The Lost Boy
Ganga Fuji Raga
The Mother’s Lap
Guru of the World
The Field of Fulfillment
Two Brothers
Heritage
The Forest of Remembrance
PART THREE: DELTA
Bored in Bihar
India’s Coral Strand
Easy Like Water
The Impossible City
Where You Are From?
Women of the Delta
The Will of Allah
Fields of Salt
The Tiger of Chandpai
On the Beach
Holi on the Hooghly
The World of Apu
The Aging Prostitute
A Walk in the Park
Going Native
Last Jewel in the Crown
Packed and Pestilential
Multiple Personalities
The Bollywood Goddess
The Coin Collector
Photos
Also by George Black
About the Author
Copyright
ON THE GANGES. Copyright © 2018 by George Black. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Portions of this book originally appeared in a different form in The New Yorker, newyorker.com, OnEarth, onearth.org, and the Times of India.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Rob Grom
Cover photograph © Soumya Bandyopadhyay Photography / Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-05735-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6111-4 (ebook)
eISBN 9781466861114
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: July 2018
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