Siddharth Kapila is a lawyer turned writer. He has written for The Wire,
Livemint and The Indian Express, among other publications, with a primary
focus on the Hindu faith and culture. He holds a BA in Law from Cardiff
University, UK and a BA (Hons) in Economics from Delhi University. He was
born and raised in Delhi. This is his first book.
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mummy and I were always fighting about her obsession with faith and ritual…On our yaatras, she would show such deep faith and perform such fevered rituals that the whole exercise would leave me exhausted. Every time I told myself I’d never go with her again. And every time I went. Again and again.’ For as long as the author can remember, he’s been a willing companion to his intrepid and devout mother on their countless journeys to sacred sites along the Ganga. As a young man, he travels to these on his own—seven key destinations from the snow-capped Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal— exploring the faith of not only millions of fellow pilgrims but also his own.
In Gangotri, he meets renunciant babas who are glad to share with him their stories, along with their meagre food. In Kedarnath, a sadhu tells him how the Shiva temple miraculously survived the devastating floods of 2013. At Badrinath, he attends the wedding ceremony of a family friend to Vishnu, to undo a defect in her horoscope. In Rishikesh, he walks with the kanwariyas, and at the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, immerses himself in the shadowy world of the Naga sadhus. Varanasi, the city of light, offers diverse experiences, from a bhang-induced revelry on Mahashivratri to conversations with Aghoris, who tell him why they sometimes drink blood. He also reflects on the ever changing cityscape of Varanasi—from ancient times to Aurangzeb to the present—and the politics behind it. He ends his journey with a loop back to Ganga Sagar, where the Ganga finally meets the sea. An introspective memoir by a questioning Hindu, Tripping Down the Ganga is simultaneously a captivating account of a sacred river and her devotees. It is an ode to the mighty Ganga—sometimes turbulent and at others serene— which has nestled in her life-giving embrace for millennia believer and non- believer alike.
