‘The Dark Coloured Waters’ by Danesh Rana: This is Chenab, Janaab

There was a time when rivers and civilisation were intimately connected. Proximity to water was sacred for our ancestors and as a result, cities sprung up on river banks all across the world — London-Thames, Paris-Seine, Cairo-Nile, Varanasi-Ganges. Cities and rivers were inseparable twins. But as the modern era of dams, canals, reservoirs and pipelines dawned, humanity imagined that it had engineered and innovated itself out of the river’s grasp.

The recent floods in North India have shown that this is a naive thought. Our lives and livelihoods are still directly linked to rivers. Primal and fierce, they create their own boundaries and remind us of the power nature holds over us.

Danesh Rana knows and understands this better than most. His journey has been intimately linked to the Chenab. Throughout his life, the river has been present by his side. In his childhood, the river flanked him as he visited Kashmir on family trips. When he crossed into adulthood and was posted as Superintendent of Police, Ramban, his guesthouse was located on the banks of the Chenab.

Later, in 2018, as an election observer in Tandi in Himachal, he found himself at the source of the river. The Chenab, quite clearly, has recurred in his life as a motif. It has found in him a worthy conduit to tell its tale.

In ‘The Dark Coloured Waters’, Rana follows the Chenab, right from its birthplace in the upper Himalayas to its final embrace with the Arabian Sea. Along the way, the river passes through several towns and villages, and reveals to us their myths, legends and secrets.

We pass through rugged lands where eccentric kings rule. We hear fascinating stories of outlaws such as Mian Dido and of Buddhist nuns such as Diane Perry. And not only mortals, we hear the stories of local goddesses such as Chitoo Devi, and of Sufi saints such as Sheikh Zaid ud Din Wali.

Rana illuminates regions such as Kishtwar, Doda, Bhaderwah, Ramban, Reasi — places we are mostly unaware of because in this neck of the woods, Kashmir is the attention hegemon. Through Rana’s work, we realise how rich these regions are in folklore, history, myth; how brave, resourceful and creative are the people who reside here; how rich these lands are in sapphires, lithium, timber and tales.

One mild criticism of Rana’s work would be that, at times, he meanders like an unruly tributary and goes too deep in certain tangents. The chapter ‘Doda Files’ is an example. Here the river disappears and we get a short history of terrorism in Doda. But even this bit is informative, so one cannot begrudge Rana a departure from the narrative.

Rana’s great strength is that he is not an anthropologist, sociologist or ethnographer. He walks along the river as a peripatetic scholar-at-large who is interested in these regions as a keen traveller, thirsty for knowledge. He discovers and distils the stories of kings, lovers, saints, spirits and militants that roamed these lands, and presents them to us in an eminently readable manner.

In times when water is being weaponised by nations, when floods are causing widespread damage, Rana’s book is an urgent reminder of how important rivers are for civilisation to prosper and thrive.

— The reviewer is author of ‘This Our Paradise’