The gange valley
The sky is completely overcast with clouds full of rain; As beautiful as dark blue petals of lotus; Here, they remind of the kohl around a lady's eyes; There, they are charming like pregnant women's breasts.Kalidasa, Indian poet
This time riding a two wheeled steel horse imported from France, the Gange river, far more than a guideline threading across northern India will reveal, or so I hope, some of its mysteries, from its spring down to its consecration. Indeed water plays a major part in everyday life, beliefs and Hindis' rituals, and reveals itself as a powerful link between men.
During the period preceding the monsoon, I plan to follow this valley, the birthplace of an important hydraulic civilization. Meeting Indians in this context of intensity and growing impatience while waiting for the first rains, and celebrating the so-eagerly awaited monsoon will be the keys to discovering a culture and its relations to water.
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India, swarming with life, each year looks forward to the Monsoon, liberating it from the drought that may become damaging if lasting too long. Some would even say that India adores water, because there, the rain season beats in rhythm to life and connects people to the order of the world. This country is probably the only place on earth where men are so closely related to water. The rural class, used since time immemorial to the immutable rhythm and to the inviolable regularity of the Monsoon, finds its absence as absurd as death or a psychiatric internment in the family.
