A windy day, I embarked on another challenging voyage, that was walking to the spot where the holy river Ganga bifurcates as Bhagirathi and Padma in Murshidabad, West Bengal.
I call this Walk challenging…
Not because I was walking alone on Ganga banks in the interiors.
Not because that was difficult terrain.
Yet it was, because the entire walk required permission from the Border Security Force, being on the Bangladesh border area.
What if they did not permit me to walk and take River images? These thoughts did perturb me for a while but I decided to put my best efforts to accomplish my objective.
The right distributary of Ganga, Bhagirathi, also called Hoogly further downstream, flows into India and merges in sea at Gangasagar island of West Bengal.
The left distributary Padma flows into Bangladesh and merges in sea at Hatia island there.
As per my research, that significant spot was somewhere between Dhulian and Jangipur, a stretch of around 29 km. After walking some distance I realized the whole area comes under BSF. So the first thing I needed was to take permission. I met BSF officers in Jangipur. Explained to them about my Ganga exploring. Showed my travel blog which has a category of Ganga Walks with plenty of posts. They appreciated my efforts and not only let me walk on river banks and capture images but also guided me to the place where Gangaji bifurcates. That place is Neemtita. At Neemtita BSF camp, after completing the documentation process one officer was assigned to take me along to the river bed where river Ganga splits.
I felt elated seeing the origin of the river Padma as I had already been to Hatia island in Bangladesh where Padma merges into the sea.
I saw Padma in good health at her source.
But I saw Bhagirathi NOT in good health, in the post monsoon season. There were massive sand deposits with shallow water patches. I noticed almost a similar condition of Bhagirathi for some distance until the feeder canal from Farakka barrage infuses life into the river and Bhagirathi Ganga gets good flow from Jangipur onwards.
When I took this unusual detour of Gangaji, I just knew that I will be richer in my understanding of the sacred river and share the same.
