I was reminded today by an old friend, Wibbs Coulson, that it's been 10 years now since Pete McBride and I sat with Wibbs and his friends on the bank at Devprayag (Deva prayāga), shooting for our film Holy (un)Holy River (Amazon or Vimeo).
Devprayag is a special place. In the foothills of the Garhwal Himalaya in Uttarakhand State, Devprayag (or "Godly Confluence") is where the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi Rivers - both sacred in their own right - converge and form the mighty and holy Ganges River. It is one of the many pilgrimage spots on the Ganges and a place where many come to make offerings to - and gather blessings from - the sacred river.
The rivers here are stunning as well. In the photo below, you can see the Bhagirathi coming in from the left, it's waters more cloudy by carrying silts from the Tehri Dam above. The Alaknanda, in contrast, has the turquoise tint of a glacial river carrying fine silts that reflect blues and greens naturally.
If you haven't had a chance to visit Devprayag - or the Ganges as a whole - I highly recommend it. Beautiful, spiritual, challenging, inspiring, all of that and more mixed together in a tapestry of chaos that is hard to beat. Check out a clip below from Holy (un)Holy River of our time at Devprayag while telling the story of the Ganges.
And, while we're on the subject of things being real, not AI, I compiled a short list of some of the projects USAID worked with in relation to India and the Ganges River. Pretty impressive work for radical lunatics...
- Integrated District-level Water Quality and Scarcity Estimates for India
- India Water Resources Profile
- The Contribution to High Asia Runoff (CHARIS) project
- Practical Steps Toward Healthier Cities and a Cleaner Global Environment
- Faith, Water and Development
- Ganges River Basin book
- More work and research on South Asian "water towers" by CHARIS
- Water accounting dashboard for the Ganges River Basin
- Transboundary Water Resources Management
