Waters Close Over Us A Journey along the Narmada

01 December, 2013

Hartosh Singh Bal

HarperCollins India

272 pages, Rs 499

It is at the Narmada that the agriculturist first encountered the forest dweller, the Indo-European north faced the Dravidian south, the Afghan battled the Gond and the dam builders confronted the environmentalists. As the author seeks to understand these dualities, the stories he encounters take on a life of their own—from Osho’s relatives who still safeguard his memory in sari shops to the king of a small island who spends moonlit nights firing bullets into the river.