Drowning in the Ganges by Vincent Zandri

Author:Vincent Zandri [Zandri, Vincent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bear Media
Published: 2014-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

Human Skull, Ganges riverbank

The three of us follow.

Like my fixer, I’ve stripped down to my boxer shorts (black cotton jobs imprinted with white skulls and bones). I expect cold, if not frigid, water considering the source of the long winding river is the Himalayan glaciers. But instead, the water is warm. Shallow too. So shallow it comes up only to my knees.

“Do like this,” Pradeep offers as he maneuvers himself onto all fours and starts performing a sort of half-swim, half-crab movement in the water, only his head and shoulders visible above the river surface. Taking his advice, I immediately drop down onto all fours, the palms of my hands pressed flat on the smooth sandy bottom, my feet floating just below the shallow water. We move downstream, propelled by both the crabbing movement of our hands, along with the kicking of our bare feet, and the propulsion of the current which is surprisingly strong. Now I understand why the boatmen don’t require all that much human rowing strength or powerful wind gusts for moving the boat downriver.

I’d been in India for three days now after spending a week in the jungle territory of Nepal, and this is the first time I’ve felt remotely cool in the unrelenting, pre-Monsoon, mid-June heat. Unlike the sewage ravaged river water around Varanasi, this water is clean and clear. I’m able to see through it to the bottom. Dare I say it, it looks almost good enough to drink. But I discount the urge immediately. Who knows what dangerous microbes infect it?

When we came upon a sudden and severe dip in the sandy bottom, the crabbing turns into all out swimming. I straggle behind while the two women and Pradeep surge ahead. I grew up with a swimming pool in my upstate New York backyard and because of it, I’m a proficient enough swimmer. But when it comes to long distance swimming, I’m pretty much a drowner.

Lord Shiva be praised, the deep section is short-lived and the shallow bottom quickly returns. Once more we find ourselves crawling along nicely. But soon we come upon an area of river that is noticeably darker than the water-over-light-brown-sand color we’ve become used to. This section of river water has taken on a dark blue tint. This isn’t an indication of pollution. Far from it. This is an indication of something else entirely, but something just as dangerous.

The fixer turns to us.

“Are you all strong swimmers?”

“Sure,” belts out Australian Woman. “I grew up on the Reef.”

“Of course,” assures English Lady. “I swam competitive in school.”

I’m just about to confess that a single, suburban, in-ground pool length is just about my limit, when the three of them start across the seemingly endless blue stretch of Ganges water.

Oh crap…

Mother Ganges is the giver of life. But she is also the receiver of death. Death here is not like it is in the U.S. where you’re hooked up to a life-support system and pumped up with as many drugs and pain killers as possible until your heart stops beating and brain turns to mush.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.