An exploration of personal faith

In the very center of Rome’s Piazza Navona stands one of the city’s most famous fountains: Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, “Fountain of the Four Rivers.” Created in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the then Pope Innocent X, the fountain depicts the main rivers of the four continents over which papal authority extended: the Nile, the Danube, the Río de la Plata and the Ganges.
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To the average Western tourist, it is a spectacular sight, a grand spectacle. For the average Indian, it is also perhaps a source of pride: this is our river, our Ganga. (It is quite another matter that Bernini’s Ganga is a muscular and thickly bearded man, and not at all the makara-riding goddess as the Indians know her).

But despite the inaccuracies, Bernini’s Ganges is an interesting reflection of how vital this river is, how resounding a symbol of India. In Europe, which in 1651 still knew little about the exotic East, the example of the East was the Ganges; in India it was not just water, not just life, but much more. Mother, savior, purifier, the very heartbeat of India, the core of Hinduism.

It is this river that Siddharth Kapil sets out to trace in Ganga Journey: An Exploration of the Son’s Faith (Talking Tiger Books, 2024). The book brings together Kapila’s travels along the Ganges: more specifically, to seven places located along the river that are the focus of yaatras or pilgrimages for Hindus. As Kapila explains in her foreword to her memoir, these journeys took place over two different time periods: one over a 7-year period between 2015 and 2022; and another in earlier years when Kapila went on yaatras with his mother.

These journeys intertwine in the book, in the same place – be it Kedarnath or Badrinath, Gangotri or Kashi – in two different times. Kapila intersperses memories from less than ten years ago with memories from almost 30 years ago, creating an interesting palimpsest of places, pilgrimages, people.

The people are what shines bright and clear here, because it is their faith that takes center stage. Kapila’s conversations, both with those around him and with himself, become increasingly insightful and profound as the book progresses.

He speaks to the holy men who bravely bathe in the icy waters of Gangotra; To the Naga sadhus, the warriors sworn to defend the faith; to the formidable (and disturbingly ‘other’, to some people?) Aghoris that haunt the cremation grounds of Kashi. He discusses spirituality both with Westerners traveling through India and with his partner, a young Agan who leans towards Buddhism.

And importantly, he dwells on the faith of his mother, a tax lawyer, who is a deeply devoted person and for whom her religion becomes the pillar of her life. Many of the yatras that Kapila narrates are performed in the company of his mother, but there are other ways in which she enters the narrative: in conversations, in her son’s views on organized religion and faith (often very different from his mother’s), even in his discussion of the dichotomy that appears to be manifested in his mother. A solid, clear mind, a perfectly rational lawyer when she’s at work, but a ritualistic believer when she’s not.

Faith, in its many forms, manifests itself in many ways. For example, the quiet devotion of many people who give up their lives with family and home to become sannyasis (there are several in this book, including the Swamijis of the Kapil family).

But in contrast to quiet devotion is the tumultuous and loud “masti married to bhakti”, which Kapila describes in the context of the kanwaris who go to the Ganga every season to draw water. Or, as he puts it, “the great Indian free-for-all”: jostling, jostling, loud, boisterous devotees, not disdaining their religious fervor.

However, Journey Down the Ganges is not simply a demonstration of the author’s own faith or the faith of those he meets on his travels; it is also a closer look at religion and its intersection with other religions, other organized structures; on the difficult relations of Hinduism with Buddhism and even more difficult relations with Islam; on the growing (especially recently) nexus between religion and politics, and on the hidden reality of issues like the Gyanwapi Masjid and the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project.

Part travelogue, part memoir, part introspection, this book manages to bring together the many facets of the Ganga and all that surrounds its status as India’s most sacred river. Kapila’s writing is colloquial, sometimes even humorous.

He does not pretend to be erudition (although his research is obviously serious and extensive), and his sincerity and insight shine through. However, this does not dull his faith, and one gets the impression that he is a man whose faith is steadfast, but not at the expense of his humanity: he straddles two worlds, as his mother seems to do. This sub-heading, An Inquiry by a Son of Faith, proves to be a fitting tribute to the memory of Kapila’s mother.

Published by special arrangement with TheWire.in