Traversing the Majestic Kali River: A Journey through India and Nepal’s Natural Beauty

After completing my journey to Ganga and Yamuna rivers in the Himalayas, I undertook a journey to see the beauty of the river Kali which is known as Mahakali in Nepal and later known as Sarda after Purnagiri hills near Tanakpur in Uttarakhand. We started from Tawaghat about 30 kilometres from Dharchula town in Pithoragarh district. We really wanted to go up to Adi Kailash but due to heavy rains and landslides it was not possible.

So, at Tawaghat, the Darma river or Dhauli ganga ( not the same that merges with Alaknanda at Vishnu Prayag) flows into the Kali river. Tawaghat was an important market on the way to Kaliash Mansarovar but 2013 floods destroyed the entire market and there is not even a small trace of it.

At Dharchula, you can see a city divided by two national identities India and Nepal but the culture and civilisation unite them. It shows how culture is a powerful uniting factor. Kali or Mahakali is actually the border line between India and Nepal in the Uttarakhand region. This film focuses purely on the conditions of the river and does not delve into border issues.

Thirty kilometers down Kali meets another river coming from the Milam glacier known as Gori Ganga. Some call it Gauri Ganga at Joljibi which is a historic town for business between India and Nepal. From Joljibi we also focused on Askot, a beautiful historical town where the Pal dynasty of the Uttarakhand flourished once. A beautiful temple of Mallikarjun Mahadev is at the top which can provide you with beautiful peaks of the Panchachuli Himalayan range as well as the Kali valley.

From Joljibi the river then moves towards Jhulaghat, another important town between India and Nepal. Just ahead of Jhulaghat, about five kilometres, the Chamelia river coming from Nepal flows into Kali. From Jhulaghat the river moves to Pancheshwar where the Saryu river flows into Kali and after some kilometres journey this river is known as Sarda from Purnagiri hills just a few kilometres before Tanakpur Barrage.

At the border town of Banbasa ( bordering with Mahendranagar district of Nepal) the river passes through some forest zones and reach Pilibhit and Lakhimpur Kheri bus from Khatima, a parallel Sarda Canal passes through beautiful Surai forests followed by Pilibhit Tiger Range. At the border of Sitapur-Lakhimpur Kheri-Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh, Sarda River finally ends its journey by merging into the Ghaghara River.

Ghaghra River’s origin too is from the Mansarovar range. It takes a downturn to the beautiful region of Nepal and is known as Karnali before passing through mesmerising landscape near Pitmari and Cheesapani in Nepal and splits into two rivers before entering to India, namely Girua and Kudiyala. Both these rivers pass through dense forests of Kataraniyaghat Tiger range in Bahraich and meet at Girijapuri where a barrage is made over them and the river afterward is called ‘Ghaghra’. From there the river pass through Bahraich, Sitapur, Gonda and is known as Saryu at Ayodhya and it moves towards Basi, Azamgarh and finally enters Bihar via Siwan and ultimately merges into the river Ganges at a place near Chirand and Revelanj in district Saran. Son river coming from Amarkantak and Kaimur hills meet Ganges at this point known as Teen dhara about 10 kilometre river journey from Chirand.

The fact is heavy sand mining on our rivers has actually destroyed them. You cannot stand for a minute as the air has thick layers of sand and dust. Every year Ghaghra and Sarda cause huge devastation, changing their embankment and millions of hectares of fertile land are turning barren. While in Uttarakhand Dams, construction among others has made a challenge and we may not see many of these locations which we have shown in our film. I deliberately did not mention anything of that because we want people to understand the crisis is totally man-made. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the disaster is being caused by mining as well as rituals when people take a dip in the rivers and commit their sins in it without bothering as to what will happen tomorrow.

We need a people’s conscious decision not to pollute our rivers. At the policy level the government needs to think of what needs to be done. There is a limit for commercial usage. Our rivers are our identity and we need to see whether we want to protect our rivers, our heritage and cultural identities or just put them for commercial usage. How long will this commercial exploitation be allowed? What is the limit to exploitation? Of course, these are not part of the film as the film is just a narration of a journey and the conclusion can be drawn by the people themselves.