This strange, genre-defying book by Hartosh Singh Bal hasn’t really received the recognition it deserves. In part, I think it’s because it defies the expectations of both readers and reviewers. It is simultaneously a story of a ‘parikrama’ of the Narmada and an erudite examination of the religiosities of the people along the river’s banks. It discusses — in its effortlessly scholarly way — art, sociology and the different takes on anthropology that have informed discourse along the river’s length, while remaining a politically-freighted commentary on what is happening to it now, and in India at large. Bal is at home discussing Kabirpanthis and the Upanishads, Elwin and his progeny, Gond art and the Delhi salons that enable its dissemination.

Through it all, he keeps his engagement with the place, the earth that he feels he’s rooted in. To me, it is the ambition of the endeavour that is of interest. This is no collection of impressions. He’s not explaining a world to an imaginary readership. As he moves through this riverine world, he encounters himself, again and again, and doesn’t shirk the contact. The river, the Narmada herself, provides the backbeat to one of the most breathtaking quests you’re likely to read.

Avtar Singh is a writer and an editor whose latest book is Necropolis







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