Ganga Yatra: a journey of self-discovery

When I was young, I was a principled, disciplined girl. I was very studious and wanted to become a chartered accountant. But in the process I became aware there was a lot of corruption in the corporate world and I felt I could never agree with this. That’s where the first major shift happened in my life.

I enrolled myself in a human rights course, the first regular human rights course launched in India. After working for one year for Doordarshan, the Indian Government TV station, as a researcher, which gave me an inside perspective of how the government machinery and politics work in India, I started working with tribes in the Himalayas. We were trying to open up community-based schools because it was very remote and education did not reach them. It was a very fulfilling part of my life.

I did a M.Phil in Diplomatic Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi and after that I worked with tribes in Jharkhand for six years, mobilising them and letting them know about their rights.

When my son was born, my husband and I were wondering what kind of education we wanted to give him. At first, we didn’t want to send him to school but wanted him to stay with us in the villages. Finally, we decided to send him to school so he could integrate with his peer group.

When he was three years, I moved back to Delhi because I wanted to do a Ph.D on alternative education. My son went to a playschool on the Sri Aurobindo Society campus. This is where the magic started for me. Previously, I only knew about Sri Aurobindo as a freedom fighter, but at the playschool parents could come in the evening and learn about the philosophy of Mother and Sri Aurobindo, including The Mother’s philosophy of education.

When my husband passed away I gave up Delhi, and came to Auroville. This was in 2011.

At first, I worked with Upasana on their rural projects, particularly the Small Steps and tsunamika projects, and later I worked at Udavi and Future School. In Future School I was teaching geography but, somehow, I felt some element was missing, that this was not the kind of thing I really wanted to be doing.

One offering I had always wanted to make to Auroville was the Ganga Yatra experience. Why? Firstly, I have always had a fascination with the Himalayas and the Ganges. I lived in the Himalayas for many years and I worked with remote communities there. Then again, I have always found my greatest learnings did not come from textbooks but from my travelling experiences, through meeting people and living in different cultures: I firmly believe in experiential learning. So I wanted to offer this opportunity to the Auroville kids because they don’t get much exposure to the different cultures of India.

What I felt was missing in my textbook learning was my own self. Who am I, what are my strengths, capacities, my challenges? We never introspect in the classroom about these things. So this is what I wanted to offer to the students on this trip: to learn more about themselves in addition to learning about new cultures and environmental issues connected with the Ganges.

In preparation for the trip, I collaborated with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and with Monica Sharma’s team. We came up with a learning framework which identified three perspectives to work upon: the self, society and the environment. Each student had to do a project. They could choose what they wanted to focus upon in relationship to the Ganges, like biodiversity, the flora and fauna, urbanisation, pollution etc. This was the ‘external’ work. They were also asked to document how the journey influenced their inner development through helping identify their challenges and core capacities.

We started our preparations and for two months, three days a week we trained ourselves physically and on alternate Saturdays we took long walks with backpacks. This was mandatory for everyone, both because I wanted everybody to be fit and not collapse in the mountains, but also to bond the group as the students, aged 15-20 years, came from different Auroville schools (NESS, Last School and Future School) and many didn’t know each other. It was important that the group got on well because we had a very intense journey in front of us.

After reaching Delhi, we took a bus that I had hired for the whole trip. My original idea was to travel only by local transport, but in May and June I did the whole journey myself in preparation and realized that using local transport would be too harsh. When you go outside Auroville it is not an easy world, particularly in places like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, which are hard-core patriarchal, feudal societies.

Almost none of the students had travelled in this part of India before and we had nine young girls in the group. I felt I had to be particularly protective of them. We were encountering all sorts of people, so sometimes I had to put my foot down and not let certain people enter our space. That’s probably how I acquired the nickname ‘badass’!

We covered more than 2500 kilometres in one month and had very intense and diverse experiences. We trekked to the Gomukh glacier that is the source of the Ganges, did river-rafting at Rishikesh, stayed in an Ashram in Haridwar, swam with freshwater dolphins, and celebrated Durga Puja in Calcutta.

We travelled through five different states, each of which was very different. The students were absorbing and responding to each culture, particularly regarding the treatment of young women. Delhi they didn’t like at all, they found it crude, harsh; Uttar Pradesh, a hard-core patriarchal society, was the harshest of all. Surprisingly, they loved Bihar. Overall, they didn’t like the city life; the best part for them was the mountains.

The educational aspect was very important. In Roorkee we had two seminars with IIT professors. One, who is associated with the National Green Tribunal of India, gave a presentation on the pollution of the Ganges. We received another perspective on this from the youth cell of the Gayatri Pariwar Trust. Whereas the approach of the IIT professor was very scientific, the youth had a more spiritual perspective. They wanted to effect change through working with the beliefs of the local people.

We only really appreciated the scale of the pollution problem when we reached Kanpur. An activist who has been working there for 23 years showed us the discharges from the many local tanneries into the river. It was horrifying.

The students learned that while there are programmes on paper to clean the Ganges, implementation is extremely hard. The volume of the Ganges is so vast that it can clean itself if it is allowed to flow naturally. However, in Haridwar and other places, barrages have been constructed. These divert up to 80% of the water to irrigate the fields. While the activists say the barrages should be removed, others say the water is needed to irrigate the highest populated river basin in the world.

In this way, the students were introduced to the political dimension of protecting the Ganges.

But pollution is not the only problem. We also learned there is over-fishing. For three days we were looked after by the local university in Bhagalpur. They told us that fish stocks and biodiversity are being threatened by those fishermen who use small mesh nets because these catch even the youngest fish. Our students learned there are legal restrictions regarding the size of the fishing nets and became quite expert at spotting the illegal ones.

On the journey, the students also learned a lot about themselves. They could talk openly about their personal challenges and learnings because in our evening circles we created a safe environment where they felt they could share anything.

For example, one boy said he thought at the beginning of the trip that he was not good for anything. He had no purpose in life, he wasn’t doing well in his studies and he had lost all his friends. But during the journey this changed. He felt a new sense of achievement because he learned to work in a team and be appreciated for capacities he never knew he had.

And he was not an exception. We had a mixed group of students, some of whom I’d never seen smiling before. But they bloomed during this journey. During this trip, each one of them saw the good aspect of themselves.

In fact, I felt the whole group made a major perspective shift. It was tough travelling – we were sometimes 14 hours on the bus with little food – but in spite of this, none of the students ever complained. There was only gratitude and mutual respect.

The group cohered wonderfully. There was a time when the adults stepped back and for ten days I was running everything on my own and was feeling tired. So then we formed student teams. Every day there was a different call-out team, responsible for getting us away on time, and food team. They were amazing. And sharing the responsibility made them feel they were contributing, in a very practical way, to the success of the yatra.

At the end, none of the students wanted the trip to end…

I feel that we get lifetime learnings from such experiences. This is why I told them to document what had happened to them because when they read it after ten years they will feel inspired all over again.

But to get the learnings we have to unlearn many things. Often we are conditioned by society, parents and peer groups to believe we are not good enough or cannot do certain things, so the unlearning part is recognizing conditionings like this and seeing that we can be something completely different.

The other ‘unlearning’ we need to do is the assumption that all important knowledge is in textbooks. But we don’t get knowledge only by sitting in a classroom: the whole earth is there to teach us. This is one reason why on this journey we lived the locals’ life, ate the local food. Putting the students in an entirely different environment enabled them to learn something new. If you’re still getting your cheese and brown bread, in one sense you have not left Auroville.

Now I would like to learn how to carry forward the learning from the trip. Individuals have all learned something but I would like to see how the student group as a whole can carry it forward, to provide them with the tools to do this. So the trip doesn’t end here!

We have so much data to process. At the moment, I’m trying to look at the journey from the perspective of the twelve qualities of Mother. I feel that at every stage one or more of these qualities was evoked, strengthened: in the mountains there was a strong aspiration to reach our goal, and courage and endurance were needed to get there. And then, throughout the trip, there was an amazing feeling of gratitude.

I learned a lot myself. One day we fell behind schedule and we reached Patna late. We were not supposed to stay there overnight but it was too late to go on. So, through Facebook, I contacted an old school friend who I hadn’t seen in 20 years and asked her to arrange a place for us to stay that night. And when we finally arrived at one o’clock in the morning, they were waiting on the road to receive us! I’m very grateful to have people in my life who show such support when I need them. And to the Foundation for World Education, SAIIER and friends whose financial support made this trip possible.

Also, having been an activist had somehow burned me. Having to look at the corrupt aspects of society had made me think that goodness is missing in this world. But this trip reminded me that this world is still beautiful, and there are many good people in it. That was very gratifying.

The next trip will be next summer when we will go to the Himalayas. These journeys have an incredible capacity to create harmony so, as an experiment, this time we will bring together students from different regions and backgrounds: ten students from schools in the larger India, ten from Auroville and ten from the bioregion. I will continue with the Ganges trips for other students. We are also planning another journey in the Ladakh region, where we will be working with the local tribes.

In other words, the Ganga Yatra is just the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime’s unending learning and unlearning.

Arayman (NESS): While trekking, I had a dip in the freezing water and after that I had a headache and was not able to walk well. But Ashwin and Aneeta said, “Keep going, you can do it,” and this helped me finish with the others. In the circle that evening, they explained that I succeeded because mental strength is stronger than physical strength. I will always remember this.

The other thing that really struck me was that in Haridwar the youth activists told us, “We are not trying to clean the Ganga, we are trying to clean the mindset of the people so that they don’t pollute it.” That was the best thing that I heard on the whole trip.

Chandra (Future School): For me it was a journey of self-discovery. In the mountains, I found out I had a lot more strength than I realized. I felt such joy during that trek. In the mountains I felt my full potential and now I am back in my day-to-day life I’m trying to apply this joy to the tiniest things.

Also, being with people all the time forced me to connect. Before, I found it hard to open up, but during this journey I learned just to be myself and open to whatever came my way.

The main thing I discovered is that it is not what happens to you that is important. It is your attitude, the way you deal with situations.

Sagarika (Last School): I have travelled in India but mainly with an architectural perspective because both my parents are architects. But during this journey I was able to look at India in a different way.

When I set out on this journey I had a conflict within me. I felt I had to decide which educational path I should take in future: the path of exams or the path that I was already following in Last School.

By the end of the trip, I realised I had the answer all along. Essentially, I can create my path. I’m going to continue to develop my inner being and help myself evolve in the way I believe and feel comfortable with.

Bhavya (Future School): Before this trip, for me the Ganga was just a river in the north that meant a lot to the Indian community. Now it is a river that I will always have a connection with because of the people we met along it, and because of what I experienced beside it.

When you enter a church or mosque or temple inside there is a special energy. When we were at the confluence of the Ganga, for the first time I experienced this energy outside, beside the river. I felt it so much I cried. I realise that this energy is what spirituality and religion are based upon; that this is the energy we all want to receive. I still don’t know what the Divine is, but this is where I felt closest to it on this trip.

Somdutta: I came to Auroville four months back through a programme called Swadharma. For me this yatra was like a journey within, which was my intention in coming to Auroville – to find my inner calling.

Every day there was so much to reflect upon. When I heard about the different solutions offered to the Ganga problem they all seemed very small; something was missing for me. So I tried to work out my own solution. Finally, I realised that it’s not only about cleaning the river. It’s also about keeping yourself clean. The dirty river is like a mirror that shows the current state of our country.

We have become too stuck on wasteful and polluting consumerism. So we need to change ourselves as well as clean up our surroundings.