I’m a gush of water from the glacier. By Jove! I’m the gush of the glorious Ganga! I regurgitate out of the inconspicuous mouth of my mother mountain, Gaumukh, as a small quiet rivulet. She lies at the base of my father—the Gangotri glacier.
Gaumukh
At birth, I look very premature, with no identity, idea, or intention. I’m utmost mediocre, just like so many streams born near me. As I saunter down the childhood path of my flow, I pick up pebbles of puzzling problems, find friends in the tumbling flow, and create whirlpools of witty questions. They name me Bhagirathi, as I was born after intense penance, freeing myself from ‘that’ matted hair where I was stuck! How the hell can I know that the tiny I will be “anointed” as the “source stream” of the mighty Ganges? This inconspicuous origin is the same with most of us, isn’t it?
As I flow languidly, I learn not to abort any thought that surfaces in me, even if it looks premature and feels ill at first. Who knows, it could “be the source” of greatness later, like me?
Soon, I serendipitously meet my few tributary friends—Kedar Ganga, Jadh Ganga, Kakora Gad, Jalandhari Gad, and Bhilangna. They are my first buddies, my first teachers, my first cousins, and even my first doctors. Each tributary opens up in me like Fibonacci spirals. Each pours into me the waters of education and experiences. They are also spirited and sanguine. Together we are like scotch with ice, always on the rocks, flowing with life towards our graduation and identification.
Bhagirathi-River-Harsil
For 18 years (read kilometers) of my bouncing flow, these tributaries fill me up with ideas, concepts, playfulness, and studiousness too. I happily cascade down the terrain of teens, flowing up and down with foam and froth of gay abandon! Finally, I attain my graduation at the University of Gangotri!
Now nimble and agile, I immediately turn mischievous. Whoopee! Unknown to many, I have my first and the only ‘waterfall’ at Gangotri University. I soon steady myself and enter a deep gorge for my post-graduation.
Ganga waterfall
As I wander into a wide valley of wilderness of youth, Siyan and Asi Ganga—my two turbulent tributary colleagues—join me. With them, I keep eddying in the twists and turns of college life, not only here and there, but also over there too! I am undaunted as I complete my post-graduation at the second Kashi, Uttarkashi.
Puffed up, I flow unabashedly ahead to complete my internship at Tehri. The dam at Tehri is the tallest I have. The Tehri internship stored a dormant energy in the fabric of my being to unleash later!
Tehri dam on Bhagirathi
These college tributaries and dams are the alumni who sharply shape your course of flow. If they obstruct, you learn not to get obstructed in front of them, but to go around them and flow ahead.
Presto! After 456 hours (read kilometers) in college, I meet the love of my life—Alaknanda! Gaumukh gives me the passport to become a star; she gives me the visa to stardom!
Devprayag
The moment I see her, I know she is distinct, as she is sediment-laden: full of sediments of sentiment! Our forceful confluence is in our first career path itself, at the Garhwal division of Uttarakhand Private Ltd. Our confluence (prayag) feels heavenly, almost like God (dev). This is the Devprayag of my life, giving me the purpose of life. With her, I turn into the best version of myself—the Ganges—setting my career and identity.
Alaknanda mingles into me to the deepest depths of my heart as she loses all her sediments in me! We both experience what Antoine de Saint Exupery said, ‘Love is not always looking into each other’s eyes but to look together in the same direction.’ True love includes shared goals and a united focus. I stick to this credo, and we both move in the same direction as Ganga, beginning my independent life.
I now leave my previous private company and emerge from the mountains to become an independent entrepreneur. I call my startup ‘Rishikesh & Haridwar LLP.’ This helps me to debouch in the market of the Gangetic Plain. My runoff from a small, confined space into a larger, broader body of water is called courage. It needs conviction about your purpose and goals in life. It is always a watershed moment for anyone who develops courage and conviction. It was for me too.
Rishikesh Ganga Aarti Triveni Ghat
Quickly, I find my first customers, the lands of the Doab region of Uttar Pradesh, to irrigate. I owe them a lot, as they gave me the first chance to define my purpose in life. One should never forget the tributaries and the first customers who instilled and inspired the intrepid virtue of purpose of life in you. I now expand my career waistline with joy in the plains of northern India, my main marketplace. Soon, a tributary, Ramganga, joins me. It is my first social association. Ramganga helps me grow socially and also think outside my career for others.
My yield catapults to a sacred level when my daughters join me. My elder daughter, Yamuna, is my longest (1,376 kilometers) influencer. At the confluence, she is larger than me, contributing 58.5% of the combined flow! Without her, I can’t seek sacredness. Unseen to most, my younger daughter is very shy. She is Saraswati. She silently gives me wisdom. This is the ‘Prayagraj stage’ of my life. I throw a grand month-long party to celebrate it, calling it “Maha Kumbh Mela”! When you flow in life with pure intention, ideals, and inspiration, a sacred Triveni confluence (prayag) happens within you, and you feel like a king (raj-a). It redefines and refines your purpose in life. It imbibes an impartial character in you.
Triveni Sangam
As I meander ahead, more influencers—Tamsa (or Tons) and Gomti—join me to start new business verticals and partnerships. Soon, my tributaries, cousins Ghaghara and Son, join me from Nepal and Tibet for trade, and I turn into a multinational! I continue to ripen. I add youthful board of directors to manage my company—my tributaries, my granddaughters Gandaki and Kosi. Without their naughtiness, the boardroom would feel like naught.
Like others, I too reach the southern latitude of my life. I now have a new realm of understanding the true essence of life. I create the Farakka Barrage to become relatively silt-free, free from my attachments and possessions through meditation, charity, and selfless service. This helps me to branch out personally for the first time in my life as my two distributaries, my doppelgangers. One is Hooghly. As he progressed, he too grew into a conglomerate with his own tributaries like Damodar! Satisfied, I calm down as I empty into the Bay of Thee (Bengal) as Hooghly.
Farakka Barrage
My other doppelganger distributary has a change of heart. I now deeply desire to be at the lotus feet of the lord. I cross over to enter a new basin of life called Bangladesh. I am now called Padma, from Podmo in Bengali, which means lotus. I deeply experience that when your intention is pure, more purity tries to seep in you. As Padma, I’m joined by Jamuna, the largest distributary of the other Guru, Brahmaputra. I realize what Julia Cameron realized, that, as you move towards your dream, the dream moves towards you!
My basin—the Ganga Brahmaputra basin—is with Meghna. It is the second largest international river runoff basin in the world after the Amazon. My spread is over 1.38 million square kilometers, the most populous river basin in the world with over 630 million people! The message is clear—the more you merge in the ‘satsang’ or with the wisdom of others (Brahmaputra and Meghna), the more fertile you become!
Ganga Brahmaputra basin
In my whole life, it has always been the other tributaries that have joined me. I melt this ego too. Now it is me, Padma, who is merging with Meghna! As I empty myself with her into the Bay of Thee, I reach my shunyata, my emptiness, my true self by transcending from my own self, which is my ego and my duality within me.
The life of a human being mimics my life, the life of Ganga. The flow of your life’s story is the same as how I flow. Like me, your birth is inconspicuous in itself. Like me, unless innumerable tributaries confluence in you—your parents, friends, cousins, colleagues, teachers, retailers, vendors, and co-workers—you cannot create the grace, the volume, and the might of Ganga in you. It’s a jolting realization that I’m “dependent” on each and every tributary to become an “independent” Ganga! Why do I then feel that it is me who has achieved everything on my own might, independently? Ah! It’s so obvious; it’s my utterly egoistic and muddied ignorance that creates the eddying, so-called independent whirlpools in me, to suck and drown me in the vortex of suffering and misery!
I make all Mediate!
My life taught me that life is interdependence. The earlier and deeper you realize it and live it, the greater is the gratitude and grace in you.
I teach Interdependence
Whether you can empty yourself in thee’s Bay of all Galls (Bengal) depends on what course you take while flowing as life and whether you can de-silt and self-purify yourself off your attachments and expectations or not. I’m the only freshwater river in the world with a natural self-purification system! The 1,100 types of bacteriophages in me destroy harmful bacteria 50 times faster, ensuring ecological balance. Each phage rapidly multiplies into 100-300 new phages per cycle. This continues their purifying action selectively, as phages target only harmful bacteria. My alkaline nature helps too. In life, cyclical and selective self-cleaning balances your inner ecology. It reduces your acidic conversions, turning you alkaline. This starts healing your fragmented self to transform you into a whole being, even if innumerable people dip in you daily with dis-ease and distraught to distract you. You can be holy only when you’re whole.
Many obstructing dams will also be built on your flow; it is a rule of life! Even the Bhagirathi has 18 dams on her, and over 900 dams and barrages are over me! They definitely obstruct, but they also help you slow down to think about what went wrong. They renew your energy too for a fresh course of flow further to irrigate and enrich the newer surroundings.
It’s amusing and amazing to know that the more you enrich yourself with value and vitality in your flow in life, the more lives you can enrich on your banks. Along my 2,510-kilometer journey, as a “Ganga conglomerate,” I open a public issue, an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to sell my shares of ownership, allowing all kinds of investors to become my shareholders and enabling me to raise more capital for service. As an IPO, I supply water (shares) to about 500 million shareholders across 11 states, which is 40% of India’s population. I have the most populated (shareholders) river basin in the world! This mutual fund (faith) in me by 100 cities with more than 100,000 residents, 97 cities with 50,000 to 100,000 residents, and 48 towns helped them bank along my two sides.
Varanasi
Their Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) in me is without discrimination. It’s a deep insight that as I flow down in life enriching others with value and vitality, my SIP investors increase proportionately! It starts with 2 towns in Jharkhand, 16 in Uttarakhand, 18 in Bihar, 21 in Uttar Pradesh, and 40 in West Bengal. They are in daily SIP in me! It is a dynamic, evolving process that continues for a lifetime.
One needs to thus approach life with wanderlust of wonder and a desire to discover to enrich oneself immeasurably. As Ved Vyasa said, “We behold what we are, and we are what we behold.”
