Is there a Ganga in your Amreeka ?

Dear Shekhar
When I joke ( I know that I am not joking) with my 75 years old widowed mother in Rishikesh, who revers and loves Ganga more than anything, that ‘better you die soon since Ganga is going to disappear’, her ever smiling face becomes pale with gloom when she replies back, ” I am going to run and jump in the lap of my mother Ganga before it happens”. She refused to move with me to the US, despite my repeated persuasions for 20 years. ” Is there a Ganga in your Amreeka ?” Her this question would gag me to say anything further.
Ultimately being her only child, I had to move back to India five years back.
We both are born and brought up in Rishikesh and like thousand other citizens of this small town, have silently (and cowardly) seen things going from bad to worse. A bunch of ‘devotees’ which performs Ganga Aarti every evening with loudspeaker, flowers and oil lamps, remains oblivious to the horrible stench of sewage, which falls in the Holy river, not more than 200 meters down.
The least we could do is to admire your sensitivity & concern to our self propelled inevitable climatic disaster. People like me are deeply touched by the intensity of your pain and feel helpless in front of the gigantic self centered ugly greed of our callous society.
Painfully
Dinesh

7 thoughts on “Is there a Ganga in your Amreeka ?

  1. the gigantic self centered ugly greed of our callous society!
    Or
    the gigantic self centered ugly greed of ours…
    hehehehe…
    Entire universe is relative…except Truth!…

  2. Mankind and its greed
    Ultimate disaster
    But no one is really prepared for it
    SAD SAD SAD
    … People are now cashing in the name of Global Warming …
    Greed is Greed
    it doesn’t matter whatsoever kind it maybe…
    ANY HUMANE BEING WHO CARES ?
    RAISE YOUR VOICE FOR THE LIFE
    WHICH GAVE YOU EVERYTHING,
    YOU THINK YOU OWN, HAVE, DESERVE
    (SORRY re: CAPS
    I feel like screaming, until heard)

  3. Helplessness is a state of mind not a way to do anything. When you feel helpless, that is a first step of habit. But the feeling that “what we can do” is another step towards that defeat of ours. IN AMreeka, even the smallest terrain where there is a flowing water thrives like a picnic spot.People see it as a beauty spot. Our habit is to take everything for granted, even our families, our parents,our ancestors like ” Somebody else will come from the sky and heal the world”.
    Thanks to those NGOs, people who still think and write something about it – who work for water, work for social causes.
    OUr Govt. has no accountabiity towards anything but their own politics/chair & even that is a very overrated & understatement at the same time now, when we talk about India in anyway.. DO we NOT have anyway to do anything that is simply PURE and without any prejudices ? Can we do something ? Is there is a society called CWWWMHI -“Can we work for something meaningful that helps India”
    Soldier is a better human being.

  4. mr kapur, whenever i drive by haridwar (when will the sign say “hari dwar”?)i am filled with a sense of peace and the ganga is everything i imagine it to be. then my vision focuses on the garbage and commercial activity on her banks, the spitting and defecating that continues a few feet away and the total absence of reverence on the faces of the people. they are living in a blessed place, a place that ensures piety and purity of spirit. i am told this is true of every holy destination. the purification of ganga is impossible since we associate so many rituals with it. i have decided to carry the picture of a pure and peaceful ganga in my mind, the ganga of my childhood. every one should do the same. the less we visit it, the better it will be for the sake of its continuance.

  5. Hello Dinesh n Shekhar
    Even my grandmother asks her brothers and now my brother this same question And also “Yeah Amreeka mein aissa kya hai jo wahan jatta hai, wahin reah jatta hai? Logon ko Amreeka itna kyun pasand hai? Wahan aissi kya khaas baat hai jo apne desh “Hindustaan” mein nai hai?
    Hey can anyone of you answer these questions?

  6. Ganga is sacred
    It is Bharat
    and
    Blessing for Bharat
    It was touching, knowing why, how and where it flows from …
    Seeker in Search, another journey started …

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