24 January,2021 07:34 AM IST | Mumbai | Prutha Bhosle
A family takes a Durga effigy by boat some 100 yards offshore and hoists her into the Ganga
It was in 2008 that Jennifer Prugh made her first trip to India. She was on a pilgrimage and put up at Swami Rama's Ashram in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. After completing a three-day silence retreat, the teachers took Prugh and the others down to the Ganga. She says when she laid eyes on the majestic river, she was captivated. "There was no going back from here," remembers Prugh, founder of Breathe Together Yoga Studio in Los Gatos, California.
She was drawn to yoga when she was a child. In February 1968, the Beatles had travelled to Rishikesh to take part in a Transcendental Meditation (TM) training course at an ashram. This journey resulted in a movement in America, and also changed the course of Prugh's life. "It had a big impact on me. Meditation and yoga became fascinating for me. But I think I started practicing it seriously only when I was in my 20s. And then in 2000, I began teaching. But there came a point when I wanted to understand the root of it. Every American yoga teacher, at some point, arrives in India looking for answers." This was only the first of a dozen trips she would make to the country.
Prugh has now released her new book dedicated to the river, and she thinks there couldn't have been a better time than when the world is looking for answers to meaningful living. River of Offerings is a hard cover photography and story book that covers 12 stories from a variety of locations along the course of the Ganga, from Gangotri in the Himalayas to the delta where it opens into the Bay of Bengal. "The book chronicles the life of India's sacred river, from its source to the sea. After more than a dozen trips to India, my understanding of yoga and meditation deepened. I spent time with the female sadhus, participated in the Kumbh Mela in 2013, witnessed cremations at Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi, and even followed the toxic waste down the Yamuna, known as Ganga's sister. I was caught in a devastating monsoon during the Chota Char Dham, a pilgrimage to the top of the Ganga. These stories, and some more from the trips into Nepal and Tibet to the other tributaries that feed the Ganga, have made it to the book," Prugh shares.
What sets this river apart from formidable others across the world, the yogi thinks, is the devotion it attracts. "A devotion of this sort, to a natural body such as a river, is an alien concept in America. When you look at the top of the river, it looks very young. In the middle, it tends to become quite placid. And at the end, when she meets the sea, she empties herself, basically giving herself away. If you look at the science behind a meaningful life, a part of it involves giving wherever we can, whenever we can. The book, therefore, ends up being a lot about how we can live a meaningful life by offering ourselves, just like the Ganga does."
A picture of two men watching television on a moving boat is one of her best captures. "I thought it was a riot, when I saw them. The men were selling CDs of the Ganga, and they came right up to my boat. I love that picture. It was taken in Varanasi."
Another favourite is of a man who she meets during every trip to Rishikesh. Dressed as the vanara companion of Lord Rama, the man identifies himself as Hanuman. "I'm not a scholar, historian, or a National Geographic photographer. I'm a practitioner and teacher of yoga. Unlike the few who have walked the river from end to end, my journey over a 10-year period has been to one section of the river at a time. What began as a search to deepen my yoga practice became a love affair with this river - and all bodies of water, which deserve the reciprocal care and attention of those who turn to them for solace, sustenance, and redemption," she writes in the book.
When asked what the big takeaway is for her readers, Prugh says, "We are all waiting for the government to take care of us. But I think all of us need to get involved and make the world a place that we want to live in. Every action matters. Ganga provides water to a lot of people. And it is our duty to keep it clean from its source to end. That's my message."
