Ganga management
As the Ganges increasingly comes to resemble a fetid sewer, some of the more civic-minded residents of Varanasi are pinning their hopes on Narendra Modi, the prime minister they helped to elect, to purify the 'goddess' flowing through their city, Amrit Dhillon reports
For 13 generations, the family of Vishwambhar Nath Mishra has been bathing daily in the River Ganges.
Mishra, the latest in a long line of Brahmin priests in Varanasi, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, takes a dip early in the morning and carries river water back to the family temple, dedicated to the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman. Before the idol of Hanuman is dressed and offered food, it must be bathed with the "pure" water of the holy Ganges.
Hindus call it the Ganga or, with more emotion, Ganga Maa ("Mother Ganga"), and India's longest river is revered by all adherents of the faith, without exception.
But Mother Ganga has become very sick.
"When I was a boy of five, I used to drink the water, it was so pure. After a few years, I saw it getting dirty. I used to be disturbed when I saw an animal carcass floating towards me," says Mishra. "The state of the river is a tragedy."
Both priest and engineer, Mishra teaches electronics at the local Banaras Hindu University. In his spare time, he performs the job entrusted to him by his father, the late Professor Veer Bhadra Mishra, who taught hydraulic engineering and who, decades ago, became distressed at the raw sewage, industrial effluent and rubbish being pumped into the river.
In 1982, the elder Mishra set up the Sankat Mochan Foundation. Its aim was - and still is, since the river has become even dirtier - to clean the Ganges. Given that this task has proved too much for successive Indian governments, with all the resources of the state at their command (not to mention the billions of dollars that have poured in from international aid organisations), it can be said with no disrespect that the foundation has failed totally.