Crossing Cultures, Building Bridges:Ilija Trojanow’s Travelogue Along the Ganga

Is a travelogue in the times of Discovery Channel, National Geographic and the internet, the best bet to know a place or a culture? Isn’t the Ganga-divine goddess, holy river, symbol of purity and chastity, a mother sustaining culture and civilization, yet paradoxically the most polluted and profaned by the very people who worship her-too well known to be discovered through a travelogue? Can an author, with a name like Ilija Trojanow, that sounds strange to an Indian ear, say something striking and refreshing about a “Ganga yatra” which has not been said before? What can a “firangi” know about the mythical, enigmatic, pristine, life-affirming fount of Indian civilization? These are only some of the questions which stir the senses of an Indian reader, as soon as he picks up Along the Ganga., To the Inner Shores of India. This paper is an attempt to answer these questions, notwithstanding the fact that the grandeur of Ganga cannot be captured in a critique of a few pages, or a travelogue of one hundred and seventy two pages.