Nadisutra: Sailing into Patna

The river is much bigger now, the clear waters of the Karnali-ghaghra, which comes all the way from Tibet and Nepal, mingling with the sand and silt laden Sharda to become turbid as well after a stretch. Right from the confluence onward, the abundance of dolphins seems to increase very noticeably. And from the confluence onward, we sight no marsh crocodiles, but very numerous gharial crocodiles. Unlike the marsh crocs, the gharial are shy, and slip into the water before we can get anywhere close. The abundance of turtles also seems to decrease very markedly. Upstream on the Sharda, we had seen tracks and remnants of soft eggshells near raided turtle nests. Raided by jackals, we were told.

The jackals are an everyday feature at every riverbank and even on the smallest river-island that we camped on. Their choirs start up along with or following loudspeaker serenades from gurudwaras, temples and masjids from the closest villages. They harmonized every night near our tent too, and took unusual interest in our salt bottle.

We hear there is a cold wave across the northern plain where we are. Dense fog settles on the river soon after sunset, our tent-fly is sopping wet in minutes, and most mornings we have to wait hours before the visibility is good enough for us to see a difference between river and sky. We are also deep into the season for migratory birds along the river, and we hear more through the dense fog than we see. The ruddy shelduck seems most common, exclaiming 'kayak! kayak!' before taking to wing before we are anywhere close to them. Great egrets fly bye in the mist, just a little whiter than the mist around them. Could mistake them for a fleeting memory, if not for their rattle-croak as they fade away. Spoonbills and Openbills, hunched and searching wet mud for clams with their specialized tools. Soaring armadas of common cranes and Sarus spread wide in the sky. Sandpipers, sea-gulls, terns and a curlew. Large flocks of teals bathing like noisy children, and rising up in the hundreds with the sound of an approaching gale.

Our fabled MSR xgk stove packs up, and is impossible to repair because the fuel-line cable will not come out to be cleaned. We paddle three days without hot food or drink downstream of the 120 year old Elgin rail bridge at Ghaghra ghat, but are able to eat packed food we picked up a few days ago. Biscuits, boiled eggs and a few parathas. Till we reach Faizabad, a quarter of our journey done.

Drastic changes in the river

Just before Faizabad, we stop at Ronahi ghat and speak to Naseem Khan, an old fisherman. What changes has he seen in the river over his life-time? Drastic change he says and he elaborates. The flow of water has been greatly reduced by upstream barrages, and the most striking change has also come about around 30 years ago, with the building of the Farakka barrage downstream, diverting water from flowing into Bangladesh and obstructing the movement of fish from the sea upstream to breed. Hilsa and a large freshwater shrimp (his descriptions match macrobrachium gangeticus well, by the size he indicates and the length of the pincers). They have stopped altogether. He himself had caught a 40 ser mahseer 25 years ago, but Mahseer do not migrate so far down any more. Infact even upstream at Ghaghra ghat, a fisherman confirmed that he had caught very large mahseer in the past, but that they do not migrate sofar down any more. The three barrages upstream would have put paid to that. All fishermen concurred that catch volumes and fish size had reduced very greatly with the reduction in flow of the river.

We stop at Faizabad to rest and refurbish. At Guptar ghat, there is a temple marking the place where Ram, the Hindu God, is believed to have taken samadhi in the river at the end of his life. He just walked into this river. Right there, today,  just at the temple steps is a sewer that drains foul sewage from the city into the river. I go to the ghat at daybreak again to meet regular bathers who come there every day of the year. The temperature is around 5 degrees celsius, and there is a thick fog on the river. Nevertheless, a few enthusiastic men come by warmly clad, do some brisk arm-flailing to warm up, and then take me on a small boat ride to a small island away from the flow of the sewage. They shed their clothes, oil themselves and walk into the river till they are belly-button deep, and then take quick dips and splash about like sparrows in a bird-bath. A couple of old men just swim far out into the blanket of fog. They tell me when they return that on one such morning, one of them lost direction in the fog, and had swum an hour downstream before he could get out of the river. I am cold, clad even in two jackets, but they are warm now. Not a shiver. We talk of the change they have seen in this river, and why they allow the sewage to be drained at a site and a river that is sacred to them. Too much water being abstracted upstream and not enough to flush this away, they think. None of them, anywhere along the entire continuum of the river so far, have heard of the governments further plans for their river. The Sharda link and the Ghaghra link, the former being the largest of all the river interlinking projects currently proposed in India and under the drawing board. What will happen when the waters of the Sharda will be taken away to Delhi and on to Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat? When what is left will flow into the Arabian Sea and not the Bay of Bengal? What will happen to present use patterns on the downstream millions today? They say they will find out more about these plans.

We visit the fish mandi at Faizabad to speak to sellers about changes they have witnessed in catch over the years. The Farakka barrage story is repeated here. Much fish now comes to the markets from captive fish-culture in ponds all the way from Andhra Pradesh.

'Purification baths' in near-sewage water

Ahyodhya, a downstream twin city of Faizabad, has bathing ghats kilometers long, and many sewage drains spewing foul into the river. Kilometers of cremation ghats in a line, and people having 'purification baths' in the near-sewage. The nature of the river changes completely now. No dolphins or gharial or turtles for days thereafter. And dead human parts and full animal carcasses in the water. We find a dead horse having drifted close to where we had tented down for the night, on an island. We filter and chlorinate the water to drink, but now do so with great unease, and because we have no other choice. Water levels continue to drop drastically every night, making it, as it were,  a richer brew. 'Where have all the crocodiles gone?' we almost lament. The last crocs we heard of were days upstream, resident at a large cremation ghat now, where, as we witnessed in other places, unburned remnants are ritually tossed into the river at the end of a stick.

The river banks are now densely populated for some days, and we cross lines of cremation ghats, the sewage of Tanda and the effluents of the NTPC thermal power station. All into the river. It is only days downstream and after the confluence with the Rapti, do we being to see dolphins and gharial crocs again. There is a small wild stretch before and after Dohrighat that we begin to see spoor of many ungulates again, wild pigs, nilgai and another shorter deer that was too far to indentify precisely. And first tracks of otters, and then couples and families of otters themselves. We follow a delightful family of four otters in mid river to get photos, but try not to be too intrusive. People don't hunt them here, we are told, but are scared of them. They tear away and eat up men's 'eggs', we are told with a graphic gesture.

We are also repeatedly cautioned about looters along the river, but are fortunate not to meet up with any so far. River pirates, like highwaymen, have apparently been a long tradition, a centuries old phenomenon along the river, more intense along the Ganga mainstem.

Just before the confluence of the Ghaghra with the Ganga, we stop opposite Doriganj, at the noisiest place we have ever been to. Ever. There are large wooden frieght boats with very loud thumping motors, and even louder amplifying speakers with megaphone horns that are blasting Bhojpuri music almost all through the night. They are ferrying sand from the confluence with the Sone river, and there seem to be at least 3000 such boats.

We finally do a long haul to Patna next day, aided by, for the first time, a strong wind behind us. It is only when we reach the second braid of the Ganga meeting the Ghaghra, that we notice the confluence. The river is now very wide. There are two distinct colours of the two distinct waters of the Ganga and the Ghaghra. The waters of the Ganga are glassy green, and carry less sediment, while the waters of the Ghaghra are khakhi with suspended sand and silt. The eddyline is not very turbulent but there is a long string of giant boils along it; some at least 5 meters wide. They bubble up with a loud bioling sound, and we can feel them spout under our boat as well.

We pass the thousands of boats pulling out sand from the riverbed midstream. Coarse, golden river sand from the Sone river, flowing straight in a stretch into the Ganga. Alternating with paddling, we unfurl our little sail, and quite literally, sail almost into Patna. Almost, because there are two little jolts we get before we reach. One, an entire dead human body floating, mercifully face down, close to our kayak, and two, we had to paddle up a sewer drain to the ghat, because the main river flow has shifted half a kilometer north, and the sewer is now exposed and undiluted along the right bank. Much hosing down of the boat, and much bathing preceded any sitting down to celebrate half the journey done.