Rivers have always captivated my imagination since childhood. Meandering her way, sparkling under the sun or glowing under the moonlight, gurgling happily at every child’s dip into her waters, eavesdropping on women bantering at her banks, splashing to the rhythms of the suntanned boatman’s song — the river journeys forth seeking her home in salty waters, trying her best to sweeten her new abode and slowly erasing herself to merge with the ocean. This journey of the river mirrors the different stages of human life that, in the end, merges with the universal life force. The last resting home of mortal remains of human beings is inevitably a river which carries forth our ashes towards its final destination.
Reading about the mother of all rivers, the river Nile, had kindled a yearning within me since my childhood, to sail on this glorious river that had cradled one of the oldest human civilisations. This dream came true last Christmas, as I sauntered into my late fifties. Landing on the soil of the pharaohs and hieroglyphics, I was swept off my feet at the sight of the pyramids. Getting a panoramic view of the three major pyramids at Giza dwarfing the other three and a cluster of ruins surrounding them was an amazing experience.
The frequent swirls of sand and strong winds pushed me to sway even as I marvelled at the sand-eaten tops of the hoary peaks of limestone and granite. What did the pharaohs dream of? Immortality? Challenging their gods? An assertion of their power over the populace? They succeeded in all these possibilities for well over 4,000 years. Their grandeur and unchallenged glory is, however, undermined by the iPhone-toting, selfie-obsessed tourists, chattering noisily and bargaining for vantage angles as much as they do for local wares or mementos. The inscrutable Sphinx in the adjacent hexagon looked on bemused, but unimpressed by the teeming crowd.
A cruise on the Nile from Aswan to Luxor is a memorable experience. The sumptuous meals and the vivacious belly dance notwithstanding, the cruise is best remembered for the majestic spread of the Nile, that has witnessed the rise and fall of the Egyptian, Nubian, Greek, Roman empires, the Arabs and the colonising British, Dutch and French troops over a period of four to five millennia.
-B Mangalam
