“The river is flowing, flowing down to the sea. Mother carry me, your child I will always be, Mother carry me down to the sea.” –

Ojibwe Native American women

From Lake Superior’s primordial shores, from the mighty Mississippi and Missouri,tribal women in rivers of the North American heartland prayed to Mother Aki and mermaid-like Nibhana Spirits. The Ojibwe women’s heartfelt call reached the Ganga – and her daughters answered with their own life- changing river adventure. Great rivers connect cities and continents, people, and cultures.Nari Nauka(‘Woman’s Boat’) – India’s first training program for female river rafting guides – is connecting training for a livelihood to training for living a better life. In India, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Scotland and Costa Rica,top river rafting veterans from the US-based ‘Worldwide Women of White water are training young women to be masters of their rafts and kayaks, and master of their lives: conquer fears, gender barriers, self-doubts and weakness causing problems in the work they do, and with whom they work. Nari Nauka’s third edition running from March 20 to 28in the ancient Himalayan gateway town of Rishikesh.

No coincidences, I often say, only the Law of Cause and Effect at work. Nothing happens “by chance”. So it came to pass that I, son of theHimalayas (Himalaya Putra is my given ascetic name),heard about the daughters of Ganga while I was briefly back in Rishikesh. I decided to share their story before returning to my higher Himalayan abode for solitary Vipassana meditation (www.dhamma.org). I practice Vipassana alone in a heavenly abode between Nanda Devi and Drona Giri – two of India’s tallest and revered Himalayan peaks. I live below towering cliffs in a mountain forest, beside the silveryDhauli Ganga river flowing toRishikesh 300 kms away. Alone in the mountains, I am sometimes asked: “are you not afraid?”No, I reply. Vipassana practice reduces the ego and self-centeredness. Fear reduces when thinking more about the safety, welfare of others than oneself.

Fear Vanishes when the mind prepares for worst case scenarios. For Vipassana works to serve all beings, I reached the higher Himalayas ready to starve to death.There were cold January nights when I thought there would be no morning – but there was no fear. Likewise, four teen young woman began their own individual journey to freedom from fear. They are where I am, in Uttarakhand, the beautiful Himalayan state called ‘Land of the Gods’. The 14 Nari Nauka pioneers came from villages along the Ganges, the sacred river considered daughter of the Himalayas.

Among the pione ering 14 womenwas23-year-old Priyanka Rana from Sirasu, a scenic village 20-minutes’ drive from Rishikesh. She grew up like other “water babies” by the Ganges – children revering the river. “Maa Ganga has always been a source of peace, strength and healing,” she said. Small of stature and big of heart, Priyanka passed gruelling training, physical tests, and the government’s river guide exam. She became the first female safety kayaker with Red Chilli Adventure,a gold standard company in India’s Fast growing adventure sports industry (Rs 1.6 lakh crore/US$ 19 billionturnover in 2025 – IMARC Group). Co-founded by Arvind Bhardwaj and Vipin Kumar Sharma, Red Chilli owns a rare TripAdvisor 4.9 rating – higher than the iconic Taj Mahal Palace (4.7) and The Oberoi (4.8)in my home city of Mumbai.

With Red Chillirafts and Nari Naukatrainers, Priyanka and other Ganga girls learnt to read the river’s boil lines,holdferry angles against hydraulics, shout clear commands to paddlers amid the spray-splashed mayhem of ‘Return to Sender’ and ‘Wall’ Grade 4 rapids. Theylearntrescue and self-rescue in the water. After a fall, learn to haul yourself back. Red Chilli’s Vipin is confident girls can succeed as rafting guides.“I believe we have to follow our heart in what we do in life,” he says. Follow your heart and gain support of universal forces. The nine-day Nari Nauka3 this Marchis unfolding during the nine-day Navratri festival of warrior goddess Durga.

Nine returning graduates are mentoring nine new women. Organizers happily see this as cosmic symmetry. “Serendipity,” saidrafting veterans Elisha McArthur and Jess Ransom when I said I was titling their story as ‘River’s Daughters’. They told me of their senior colleagueBridget Crocker’s memoir titled ‘The River’s Daughter’. In ‘River’s Daughter’,Bridget shareshow she battled life’s turbulent currents. She survived traumatic relationship breakdowns, betrayals. She faces death on the Zambezi river in the African wilds. She fought storm arising in the impermanence of all things.

“When you can control your boat in the river, then you can also control your life outside,”India’s leading female kayaker Naina Adhikarideclared in the award-winning documentary ‘Ganga Girls’. Naina began her river adventures as a terrified 13-year-old. A decade later she represented India in two kayaking World Championships and two World Cups in Germany and the Czech Republic. Self-discovery becomes the greater inner adventure. Naina and her Ganga sisters are discovering how courage comes not merely from harnessing the power of rivers or mountains, but from emotional self-dependence – from within.

(The author’s ‘Mind Book-The Mind Age Version’ is available worldwide as paperback via Amazonetc, and as free ebook from www.globalpagoda.blogspot.com)

205.5 lakh indigenous fish seeds released through 169 river ranching programmes between 2017 and 2025

For much of the past century, the River Ganga has carried more than water.

Uttarakhand HC seeks Indian Army’s advice on removing illegal mining, 121 stone crushers from Ganga; pulls up state government

In an unusual development, Uttarakhand High Court has asked Indian Army for its advice on how to keep river Ganga free of 121 stone crushers set up in Haridwar. The court deplored the ongoing illegal mining of building materials from Ganga riverbed and setting up stone crushers on its banks.

Reincarnation is key to self-realisation

In any discussion with Americans, especially Christians, about death and afterlife I find it difficult to bring up the subject of reincarnation. They neither understand nor believe in the concept.

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