‘Goddess of the River’ by Vaishnavi Patel tells Ganga’s story through feminist lens

Pain and suffering, the eternal woes of being mortal… How we all wish, at times, for the elixir of happiness, one that will grant us the supreme goal of contentment and free us from the cycle of desire. But what if you were immortal, without the worldly trappings of fear and desire and the suffering that accompanies? And then, one day, in the immortal realm itself, you were bounded and restricted — would you then be acquainted with the feelings of us mortals?  Would you be able to free yourself with the knowledge that these feelings belong to mortals?

This is how Vaishnavi Patel starts the story in her book ‘Goddess of the River’, and we are introduced to Ganga, who flows in the skies and is part of the limitless divinity. Ganga is sent to the planet as an answer to the prayers of the mortals. When the mortals fear the wrath of Ganga, she is bound by Shiva as an answer to the prayers of the mortals. My curiosity was piqued, for if an immortal can feel, even if in a fictional retelling, bound and restrained, I, as a human, and a female, am bound to feel so?

We, thereafter, traverse the journey with Ganga, marvelling at the twists and turns, feeling both the awe and the angst. While Ganga feels grateful to be of value to humans, slowly she resents the exploitation of her gifts. In this mortal realm, she finds companionship in eight Vasus (Godlings) and feels a maternal instinct towards them much before a common curse binds them all in a shared destiny. An altercation with a mortal man condemns the Vasus to a mortal existence, and as Ganga speaks for them, she is bound further to a mortal existence, which she undertakes as a moral duty. She navigates mortal life and many firsts, including the desires that ensure we stay mortal — the pain, the separation and the bounds of love.

I use the term ‘bound’ frequently here, for the constant in Ganga’s life, as we see it, is being bound. Even after shedding her mortal being, she is still bound by her love for Bhishma (Devavrata), the last Vasu, who is her son with King Shantanu, for whom she traverses the distance to the land of the war, Kurukshetra.

The author takes us into the minds of Ganga and Bhishma and others through Ganga’s telepathic reading of their minds. Ganga feels real, for despite her divinity, she encounters crossroads and dilemmas that we mortals do. When Amba, who feels wronged by Ganga’s son, prays to her for help, she discharges her dharma by taking Amba to Shiva, who grants her a new life. This event speaks volumes about the protagonist of this book — this beautiful merging of divinity with mortal emotions, and it leaves the reader with a good nudge to think about duty and righteousness, the very tenets of the events the course of Ganga witnesses (in the ‘Mahabharata’).

This mythic retelling is not just a reimagining of the narrative, it imparts a feminist lens to the events, for the Goddess of the River, Ganga, assumes mortal form as a lady. The prism of her desires and dilemmas throws up different patterns — as a woman, a mother and a wife. I wondered after reading the book: what if Ganga was male… The prism would have thrown very different patterns!

The one thing I missed while reading the book was an in-depth exploration of the dilemmas that Ganga faced, the dilemmas that chisel out the finesse in our decisions. I felt the book only scrapes the surface of her decisions, but on another note, that gives the reader enough space to ruminate upon!