Ganga

The story of India...

From the travel journals of Akanksha Damini Joshi

I know. It's been said. But I need to say it, right now, again. So, listen.

-

The Story of India has been written by men who came from a land, a culture, which was, to put it gently, 'different'. They came not be disciples. But to use, to conquer. All studies of India were commissioned with a purpose to understand, so they could be used, replaced or converted.

As time flowed, they left. But the story they wrote? Their studies, mapping, detailing. It all stayed behind. Shaping the tales that the New Indians were to tell about their own culture, their own land, their own ancestors.

-

Sitting on the banks of Ganga. In the ancient most city on Earth. Listening to living stories that flow in currents completely different from those passed on by the books. I wonder.

Not that the colonisers wrote, or projected a story of India from their perspective. No. That was their calling, their dharma. They did what they had to.

But I wonder.

How come. How come the New Indians - the one who took on power after the Colonial era - how come THEY never questioned. They never doubted. They never Listened. To communities, families which was still alive, still throbbing.

-

Kashi brings this all on the surface. I am listening to family histories that go back 600-700 years. Perhaps the last remaining ends. None of these will fit into the Story of India as projected, as told, as parroted. None.

There is pain in my heart, no doubt. There is anger, no doubt. There is a feeling of betrayal. 

And it hurts because that storytelling still continues. Very successfully. With great financial support. Not just by western institutions, but also by Indian.

The story of Kashi, as I hear. Of India, of arts, crafts, religion, community. None of that can find references in text books. But they still find reflections in LIFE.

To me that's the Indian story. Let's say, those are Indian "stories", multiple, diverse, bubbling. Yet, strung together in ONE Sanatan thread. Like the flow of Ganga. From heaven to earth. Eternal.

So right now, my words may sense like Ganga's surface, full of waves. The winds are changing, you see. But I know. The depth is Silent. For there flows, the real, India.

To her, 

Image:

On The Ganges River, Benares (Varanasi)

Oil Painting by American artist - Edwin Lord Weeks