In The Hindu of today a headline caught my eye: "Dying fish raise fears of river pollution".
T and I could not help but laugh out loud in amazement....does this REALLY come as a surprise?
The article reports that a large number of fish in the Karola river in Jalpaiguri district have died, and are disposed of. Meaning that they are fished out of the river in order not pollute the water any further...a feasability is that the water has been polluted by pesticides, causing the oxygen level to drop. The police will investigate who or what caused the waters to turn toxic.

All this brings back memories of the trip to Varanasi that I took recently with my friend Paulien.
Obviously we went on a boat trip along the Ghats (=stairs) that border the river Ganges, one of the most holy rivers in India.

Varanasi is the holy city where many Hindu's come to die, as they believe dying in Varanasi will take them straight to the Nirwana, instead of being reborn in another life and having to cope with it all over again. Those still sound of body (not necessarily mind) go to Varanasi on a pilgrimage, so they can bathe in the holy waters and ritually purify themselves. The Ghats are used for bathing, washing clothes, praying and cremating. Only children, virgins, leprosy sufferers and cows are thrown into the river uncremated, as they are already considered pure.

When rowing along the Ghats at sunrise one can witness a spectacle that gives a true insight into the Hindu culture and devotion; thousands of people are already bathing, swimming, praying, washing and brushing their teeth in the waters of the Ganges. Monks can be seen in their river temples, bells are ringing, cows are peacefully chewing on plastic bags and one is frequently overtaken by boats full of clicking Asian tourists...what a sight! Defenitely not to be missed when in India!

But all this attention has a downside.
Garbage is thrown into the river (see picture above), along with ashes of the cremated and their coverings and ritual constructions, washing detergents, the content of sewers....and what cannot be seen in Varanasi but what I once saw in a documentary on pollution of the Ganges: pesticides and chemicals which are dumped upstream.
In other words, this is one of the most polluted rivers in the world!
We witnessed something living just below the surface, but with all this pollution I am seriously wondering what that something is.....no normal fish will survive a river like that!

But what really made us realise that we will NEVER understand the true Hindu devotion was the fact that we saw a dead calf floating by, bloated and rotting in the waters, a crow picking the last bits of flesh off the bones, and a man downstream (!) washing himself and happily gargling with water of the Ganges. Our boatsman must have seen the horror on our faces, because he started to explain that under normal circumstances this would not be a very hygienic thing to do, but in THIS case we are dealing with Holy water, so no harm will come to the man! Or to anyone bathing in the river, for that matter.
And he REALLY believed it!

So to me, dying fish are not a surprise at all. And frankly, neither should it be to the many bright minds of India... believers or not.