Moving Upstream : Ganga

'From reverence to ignorance, we live in an age where the idea of co-existence will supposedly hit home only when there’s nothing left to destroy or fight over. Great civilizations have flourished on the banks of rivers across the world, bringing to life and supporting generations of people and their needs. A sincere inquiry is all that is required to realize the plight of our rivers and notice our appalling treatment of them. The ‘Moving Upstream’ series is an attempt to document the stories of the rivers of India, bringing out a first-person narrative of the river’s condition and the life of the people of the basin.

The Ganga basin accounts for 26% of the Indian landmass and serves 40% of the country’s population. With the importance that this river holds in the country, it was clear that we need to start from the obvious and then work towards getting the forgotten into the mainstream. A 3000km walk which started in June 2016, saw us walking upstream of the river along it’s banks from the ocean near Sagar island in West Bengal to the glaciers around Tapovan in Uttarakhand.' - http://veditum.org/moving-upstream

My friend Siddharth Agarwal, founder of the Kolkata-based NGO Veditum, undertook this initiative, for which I walked 500 km with him on the last leg of the journey. I directed, co-shot, and co-edited the documentary.