National Geographic - USA (2020-08)

New

Delhi

Dongra

Nov. 1, 2018

Prayagraj

(Allahabad)

Bathinda

Lahore

Oct. 10, 2018

Seondha

Lucknow

Kanpur

Mari Mustafa

Amritsar

July 17, 2018

Jaipur

Ya

mu

na

Be

tw

Sin a

dh

Ke

n

Ch

am

ba
l
In
du

s

B Sutlej

ea

s

Ra

vi

Jhe

lum

Chenab

Ga

nge

s (^) (Ga
nga)
Gh
ag
ha
ra
Sambhar
Salt Lake
H
I
M
A
L
G a n g e s
(^)
THAR
DESERT
HARIKE BARRAGE
PANNA N.P.
NEPAL
PAKISTAN
INDIA
TIBET

RAJASTHAN

UTTARAKHAND

HARYANA

MADHYA

PRADESH

DELHI

PUNJAB

HIMACHAL

PRADESH

UTTAR PRADESH

JAMMU

AND

KASHMIR

LADAKH

50 km

50 mi

NN

Paul Salopek’s

walking route

Enters India

Feb. 27, 2018

Flood

Drought

Low

High

Low High

Vulnerability

in populated

areas

overpumped water tables are dropping by 40,

60, even a hundred feet in a single generation.

And the problem doesn’t end with supply. Pol-

lution in the form of industrial waste, urban

sewage, and agricultural runoff has poisoned

entire river systems. In total, some 600 million

people—roughly half India’s population—live

without enough clean water. Meanwhile, 20 mil-

lion human beings are born every year in India,

each requiring water to live.

I trek for nearly a year and a half across the

river plains of northern India. I plod over con-

crete highway overpasses, balance atop railroad

bridges, and sit on my pack in tippy canoes, navi-

gating river after river. There are hundreds. Each

one, according to Hinduism, is sacred—a deity

even. (The Ganges, or Ganga in Hindi, is a pale

goddess depicted with as many as four arms,

riding a crocodile.) The future of India churns

within their silty currents.

“Will there be a magic show?” ask the people

of the Thar.

Children skip alongside us, barefooted, laugh-

ing, squinting up against the desert sun. Sentinel

khejri trees throw pale silver shadows onto the

yellow ocher sands. The local wells are poisoned

by too much iron and fluoride.

Magic? Sure. Let us call it the grand vanish-

ing act.

On the burned flats around Sambhar Salt Lake,

in a dying wetland outside Jaipur, we spot hun-

dreds of ragged figures moving in the distance.

Hour after hour they walk backward, yanking

wooden rakes over the white plain. Women salt

workers. The quicksilver heat swallows up their

spindly legs, delivers them back again. Infernal

abracadabra. But it isn’t, really. It’s just us in a

waterless world.

The Indus: River of rivers

INDIA—FROM INDOS IN GREEK, derived from hind

in Persian, originating from the Sanskrit word

sindhu, meaning river.

Where is the fabled Indus—river of rivers?

Where can one locate this immensely long,

brawny waterway, born in the glaciers of Tibet—a

gigantic, supple, living, liquid entity whose basin

sprawls across nearly half a million square miles

CHRISTINE FELLENZ, NGMWHYMAP GWV, BGR & UNESCO 2015 STAFF. SOURCES: LANDSCAN;

Completed

AREAENLARGED

ASIA

Planned

route

Gray categories

are not found in

this part of India.