Original subtitles

The Ganges, the longest river in India

On its epic journey from the world's highest mountains

through cultivated farmland,

sprawling wilderness to the Indian Ocean,

it provides a home to some of India's rarest creatures.

(dramatic music)

And a lifeline to millions of people.

Considered a goddess to Hindus,

the Ganges harbors one of the great contradictions

of life in India.

The river people most cherish is the river

they most pollute.

But the Ganges hides life-sustaining secrets.

(awe-inspiring music)

(suspenseful music)

From its origins in the Himalayas,

the Ganges flows over two and a half thousand kilometers

across Northern India before emptying into the ocean

on the border of India and Bangladesh.

This mighty river is home

to some of the rarest and strangest animals on the planet,

including elusive river dolphins

and bizarre long-nosed reptiles.

The Ganges also supports some of the last true wilderness

in the world,

where India's largest population of tigers still thrives.

Nourished by sediment washed from the Himalayas,

the Gangetic Plains are some

of the most fertile land on earth

and home to India's giants.

But man has reaped rewards too.

Vast areas of natural habitat haven been destroyed

to make way for farming and industry.

Half a billion people live in the Ganges Basin,

8% of the world's population.

The river not only provides livelihoods and drinking water.

It carries away the sewage and waste of millions.

For Hindus, the Ganges is far more than a river.

She's a goddess, Ganga.

The grime of thousands of people taking a holy bath filters

into the water every day

Offerings to the goddess

and human cremations on the banks add

to the strain on the river.

But despite this, unique properties in Ganges water

could explain how rare creatures

and rich vegetation are able to survive.

(dramatic music)

Hindu belief in the goddess Ganga's power

to purify could prove to be more than just blind faith.

(dramatic music)

(water burbling)

The Ganges starts its life among the highest mountains

in the world, the Himalayas.

Many of the peaks reach over 6,000 meters

and are constantly covered in snow and ice.

Over 15,000 glaciers make this the world's largest store

of fresh water outside the polar ice caps.

The Gangotri Glacier is one of the largest.

The glacier stretches for 30 kilometers

and fills a valley with solid ice.

Its leading edge is called Gaumukh, the cow's mouth,

as the water which flows under its vast icy tongue

is milky white.

Hindus consider this to be the source of the Ganges.

Only the hardiest pilgrims come and worship here.

It said that if you drink at Gaumukh,

you'll live for 100 years.

But the true headwaters of the Ganges begin

above the glacier,

nearly four and a half thousand meters above sea level.

Few animals can survive in this harsh environment.

A Himalayan blue sheep's dense fur helps insulate it

against the cold, but even here, predators are on the prowl.

Snow leopards are perfectly adapted to mountain life.

Wooly fur keeps out the cold wind.

Its long, thick tail can be wrapped around its body,

like a scarf.

(suspenseful music)

Even the soles of its feet are covered with fur,

for extra warmth.

Minerals in rocks supplement a blue sheep's meager diet,

but they need to be eaten with care.

Rock falls are common.

(rocks clattering)

Constant freeze and thaw makes mountain slopes unstable

A blue sheep which has lost its footing is an easy meal.

Snow melt from the Himalayas continually feeds the Ganges.

Hindu mythology tells that Ganga, the river goddess,

originally flowed through the heavens.

She was brought to earth by a devout king, Bhagiratha,

whose ancestors had been turned to ashes by an angry sage.

The goddess Ganga agreed to come and release

these trapped souls.

But warned that her torrential power

would wash the world away.

Bhagiratha petitioned Lord Shiva for help.

Shiva put his matted hair in the path

of the heavenly river.

His dreadlocks absorbed the torrent's destructive force

and split the deluge into a thousand smaller streams.

The fast flowing mountain brooks are full of insect larvae

and an ideal hunting ground for a brown dipper.

(water whooshing)

Weighing less than 100 grams,

these small birds seem likely

to be washed away by the current,

but they're well adapted to forage for food

in the rocky stream bed.

(birds chirping)

The short wings are strong enough to swim under water

and their blood stores more oxygen than terrestrial birds,

allowing them to hold their breath for half a minute,

ample time to grab a beak full.

The young Ganges River that flows from the Gangotri Glacier

is called Bhagirathi, in honor of the king

that brought the river goddess to earth.

50 kilometers downstream,

the turbulent Bhagirathi collides

with one of its sister streams,

the sedate and muddy Alaknanda.

The two run alongside each other for 200 meters

before their waters mix.

This river is now called Ganges.

(suspenseful music)

Raging water calms as the river reaches the flat lands

of the Gangetic Plains.

Sediments carried from high among the glaciers are released.

(awe-inspiring music)

The Ganges deposits 1.6 billion tons of sediment every year,

four times as much as the Amazon.

This creates some of the most fertile land in the world.

The Ganges River Basin covers a million square kilometers

of Northeastern India.

Much of this huge flood plain has been farmed,

but a few pockets of wild grassland and forest survive

among the river's furthest tributaries

in a region known as the Terai.

The Terai is home to one of the largest animals

in the world, the Indian rhino.

(birds chirping)

Males can weigh up to 3000 kilos,

twice the weight of the average family car.

Indian rhinos once roamed right across the Gangetic Plains.

But now are found in just a few protected areas.

Their single horn can grow to over half a meter in length.

Their prehensile lip makes their mouths

almost as nimble as a hand.

They can grasp tufts of grass and pick up fruit and leaves.

Rhinos eyesight is poor, but their sense of smell is sharp.

Scent glands on their feet leave a pungent trail

wherever they walk back.

At midday, pre-monsoon heat nudges temperatures

into the 40s.

Rhinos seek refuge in the river.

As they are the most aquatic of all rhinos,

a calf's first lesson is how to swim.

Indian rhinos are more tolerant of company

than their African cousins and often bathe together.

(suspenseful music)

But tempers fray when females are on heat

Battles over breeding rights can be bloody

Thick, warty folds around a male's neck

offer some protection.

But fights like this often lead to death.

The reward for the victorious male is the right to mate.

In 16 months, the female will give birth to one calf.

It will be two to three years

before she's ready to mate again.

(mysterious music)

The floodplains of the Ganges in Northern India contain

some of the world's most fertile soil.

Nearly 500 million people live in the Ganges River Basin.

It's one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Wildlife is under increasing pressure

from the huge number of people

sharing the river's resources.

Ganges water is naturally muddy.

Runoff from farming and industry makes it murkier still,

but there are animals living here.

One creature is seen so rarely, it seems almost mythical.

(bright music)

The Gangetic river dolphin spends most

of its time foraging for food.

Visibility in the water is so poor

that the dolphins eyes have lost their lenses.

They're almost completely blind and use echolocation

to navigate and detect prey.

Like its marine cousins,

the river dolphin is a mammal

and has to surface every few minutes to breathe.

Local people call it susu after the sound it makes

when it takes in air through the blow hole

on the top of its head.

(uplifting music)

The elusive susu isn't the only strange creature

to call the Ganges home.

(suspenseful music)

These armor plates belong

to one of the largest crocodilians in the world,

the gharial.

Male gharials can grow to be six meters long.

This prehistoric-looking predator poses no threat to man

Its long slender jaws are too delicate

to tackle large mammals.

They're adapted to hunt fish.

A slim-line snout whips through the water with little drag.

Slippery fish is skewered on rows of razor sharp teeth.

Tiny pits in their scales detect vibrations

in the water and help pinpoint prey.

Male gharials develop a bump at the end of their noses

called a gharra, after the Hindi word for pot.

The bigger the gharra,

the more attractive a male is to a mate,

but a female may hear her suitor before she sees him.

(gharial buzzing)

Air squeezed through the male's nostrils is amplified

by his bulbous snout.

It becomes a loud buzzing sound

that can be heard up to a kilometer away.

A female raises her head, a sign she's ready to male.

The courting couple slip under the cover of water

and stay submerged up to half an hour.

Females lay their eggs on sandy riverbanks.

Gharials are much better adapted to life in water.

On land, the female's short legs

can't lift her body clear of the ground.

Under the cover of darkness,

she buries up to 100 eggs.

Sand acts as an incubator.

It absorbs the sun's warmth

and keeps the eggs between 30 and 34 degrees Celsius.

The mother guards her nest for two months

while her eggs develop.

The eggs are some of the largest in the crocodile world

and make a tasty meal for a jackal or a monitor lizard.

(suspenseful music)

Gharials are an ancient species, over 60 million years old.

Just 60 years ago, there were thought

to be as many as 10,000 living wild.

Today, there are fewer than 200.

They've been hunted for their meat and skins

and for the males gharra,

which some people believe is an aphrodisiac.

As the Ganges banks succumb to agriculture and industry,

their habitat is being destroyed too.

Human pressure has pushed gharials

to the brink of extinction,

but for Hindus, the worship, protection,

and feeding of animals is key to their faith.

(birds shrieking)

Usi Sahami rows across the Ganges every morning.

Feeding gulls has been her daily ritual for 20 years.

She considers it her duty as a Hindu

and believes it will help her achieve a better existence

in the next life.

Reincarnation is a core belief of Hinduism.

Nowhere is this more evident

than in Usi's hometown, Varanasi.

Varanasi is at the heart of the Ganges

and is considered to be the holiest place in India.

It's one of the oldest cities in the world.

People have been coming here to bathe in the Ganges

for over 3000 years.

The water is believed to wash away sins and purify the soul.

Every Hindu dreams of visiting the Ganges,

But the many who comes to Varanasi, it's the last journey

they'll ever make.

Varanasi is a city of death.

Hindus believe every soul is locked

in a perpetual cycle of birth and reincarnation,

known as samsara.

Death is just one link in the chain.

The scent of sandalwood, incense, and ghee fills the air.

Funeral pyres burn round the clock.

Varanasi is considered to be a gateway

between heaven and earth.

To die and be cremated here is believed

to ease the soul on its journey to the next life.

The ultimate goal is to escape the suffering

of repeated lives and attain moksha, release.

For the untouchable Dom caste, Varanasi's undertakers,

death is a way of life.

The Doms keep Varanasi's fires burning.

They sell the wood and prepare bodies for cremation.

The chief undertaker, the Dom Raja,

guards an eternal flame from which all pyres must be lit.

An average of 250 cremations take place

on the burning ghats every day.

The ashes of thousands are scattered

in the Ganges River each year.

When the funeral is over, religious devotion dissolves

into raw reality once more.

The Doms sift through their client's remains,

looking for spoils.

They're rumor to collect up to seven grams

of gold teeth and earrings every day.

In Varanasi, the spiritual and the mundane go hand-in-hand.

Pilgrims wash while they worship

and pollute as they purify.

The Ganges is one of the most polluted rivers in the world.

Yet the life-sustaining power of Ganges water

has been recognized for hundreds of years.

In the 16th century, the Mughal Emperor Akbar called it

the water of immortality.

He would serve nothing else to his guests

because it tasted so sweet.

200 years later,

the British East India Company regularly stocked ships

with barrels of Ganges water.

They claimed no other water stayed as fresh

for the three-month journey back to England

Today, despite huge numbers gathering

to bathe, often where raw sewage drains into the river,

there have been no recorded outbreaks

of major diseases like cholera or typhoid.

Hindus insist Ganges water has the power to purify.

Maybe there is more to this claim than meets the eye.

The lower reaches of India's Ganges River Basin

are so fertile, the locals call the area

the Rice Bowl of India.

Farmers reap four rice harvests a year here,

double that of many parts of the country.

But these fertile fields bring dangers of their own.

(suspenseful music)

A deadly monocled cobra feasts on a toad.

Common prey in a paddy field.

The snake's hunting trip brings it

perilously close to farmers harvesting rice.

A million people in India are bitten by snakes every year.

Monocled cobras are one of the most venomous snakes in Asia.

(men shouting in foreign language)

Fangs inject poison

that paralyzes its victim's nervous system

and breaks down its cells.

(snake hissing)

One bite can kill a man in less than an hour.

Many people here have an understandable fear of snakes,

but in the village of Chhoto Poshla in West Bengal,

the attitude towards these deadly serpents

is rather more surprising.

Snakes are drawn to the village in search of rodents,

often found around human settlements.

(suspenseful music)

A rat in the larder is one thing.

A cobra in the bedroom, quite another.

But instead of causing panic,

the venomous visitor raises not so much as an eyebrow.

Villagers here don't just tolerate snakes.

They worship them.

The village priest is summoned

to relocate the revered intruder.

He's the only one permitted to handle them.

Chhoto Poshla's 6,000 residents share the village

with 3000 monocled cobras.

Village elders tell the tale

that snakes arrived six centuries ago to seek refuge

from a huge flood.

Flood water brought with it remarkable rice production.

Snakes have been associated with prosperity ever since.

When he's not removing snakes from people's homes,

Shyamal Chakrabarti leads the worship in the village temple.

(bell ringing)

(bright music)

Villagers make offerings of fruit and sweets

to the snake goddess Manasa,

who they believe keeps their fields flourishing

and their people safe from snakebite.

When a dead snake is found,

Shyamal carries its body to the Ganges

so it can continue its journey of reincarnation.

(water burbling) (birds chirping)

As well as a sacred burial site for humans and animals,

the Ganges also provides a hunting ground

for one of the world's most skillful aquatic predators.

Smooth-coated otters are in their element underwater.

Ears and nostrils close to keep water out

as they propel themselves with powerful webbed hind feet

and a strong flattened tail.

Thick velvety coats provide a streamlined surface,

crucial to the high-speed pursuit of fish.

(bright music)

An otter can change direction in a flash.

Sensitive whiskers detect the slightest movement of prey.

Unlike other otters,

smooth-coated otters are social animals.

Family groups of as many as 17 share a territory

led by a dominant female.

Wriggling against each other helps dry their coats

and reinforces bonds.

Otters work as a team when they hunt,

corralling shoals of fish and sharing the spoils,

But they aren't the only fishermen on the river.

Sachin Bishwash has made his living on the Ganges

for over 40 years, but Sachin is no ordinary angler.

He has a secret weapon.

(otters chirping)

Otters.

He's recruited some of nature's most talented fishermen

and trained them to herd fish into his nets.

(man speaking in foreign language)

The fact that fish survive in this polluted river

is another indication

that Ganges water has unique properties.

(otters chirping)

Today's catch is small, but profitable.

Catfish can fetch over $30 each.

This family of otters has been fishing with Sachin's family

for generations, but the men must still be careful.

Even a friendly nip could take a man's finger clean off.

Otters work hard and are well paid for their labor.

No matter how small the catch, they are first to be fed.

Back in their village, the otters get time time

to take a dust bath with their pups.

This is their fourth litter,

five healthy and boisterous males.

A second helping of fish keeps the family content.

The pups have a lot to learn yet about catching food.

They're three months old and just about weaned.

Sachin's mother always lends a hand rearing the otters.

In a few weeks,

these youngsters will begin their training

and learn to fish with the humans.

And when they're a year old,

Sachin will sell them on.

A good fishing otter can fetch over $200.

Much of the fish Sachin catches is sold

and transported downstream,

where it ends up in the markets

of one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world.

Kolkata is home to nearly 16 million people

and sprawls along the Hooghly River,

the main branch of the Ganges that runs to the sea.

Once capital of the British Raj,

Kolkata is now one of India's most diverse

and chaotic cities.

Kolkata's lifeblood is its river,

which it depends on for trade, industry,

and hydroelectric power.

The city is far removed from the wild Ganges

and it's a stark reminder of the huge demands put

on the river by man.

But just 60 kilometers upstream,

a recent discovery has provided a glimmer of hope

for the Ganges and its wildlife.

(crickets chirring)

Gharials are making a comeback.

Thought to be extinct in this part of the river,

there have been no gharial sightings here for over 30 years,

until now.

Muted squeaks bring a female out of the water.

When they're ready to hatch,

her young call out from inside their eggs.

It's their mother's cue to give them a helping hand

and dig them out.

The little hatchlings pierce the leathery shell

of their eggs with a tiny egg tooth

that grows on the tip of their snouts.

(eerie music)

(hatchlings chirping)

A female gharial cannot carry her young

to the water like other crocodilians.

Her teeth are too shop.

The hatchlings need to make their own way to the river.

(birds chirping)

But one nest has been unearthed by the wrong reptile.

A monitor lizard makes short work of a clutch of eggs.

The mother moves quickly.

(suspenseful music)

(gharial hisses)

But she's not quick enough.

This clutch has been unlucky, but others have survived.

Less than 40 centimeters long when they hatch,

newborn gharials are vulnerable to predators too,

But their mother protects them for several weeks

while they learn to hunt.

Juveniles feed on insects and small frogs.

It will be a few years before

these miniature predators pose any threat to fish.

It's thought that there are now at least 100 gharials

living in this stretch of river.

If they're surviving here, so close to a big city,

then there may yet be some hope for their future.

(uplifting music)

The Ganges supplies trillions of gallons

of water for farming and industry,

and flushes away the waste of millions of people.

Despite this, Hindus drink it every day

and claim that far from making them ill,

it's good for physical and spiritual health.

Scientists have studied this paradox.

The Ganges seems to contain a natural disinfectant,

capable of killing pathogens that cause widespread disease.

Research has identified the presence of bacteriophages,

microscopic organisms that feed on bacteria.

When they find food,

bacteriophages multiply incredibly quickly.

In less than half an hour, 100 can become 100,000.

The more people that enter the water,

the more food is available to the Ganges's bacteriophages

In an invisible feeding frenzy,

they eliminate diseases before they spread.

Tests also show

that the Ganges carries an unusually large amount

of dissolved oxygen.

This helps break down the human and animal waste spewed

into the river.

The Ganges does this 25 times faster than any other river.

This could be the secret to the survival of animals here.

A high oxygen content sustains a healthy fish population,

which in turn supports the Ganges's aquatic animals,

river dolphins, gharials, and otters.

And organic waste is broken down into nutrients

that are useful rather than harmful to the environment.

(wind whooshing)

On the border of India and Bangladesh,

the Ganges dissolves into the largest river delta on earth.

Formed by the confluence of the Ganges,

the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna rivers,

this super delta is a labyrinth of channels and creeks.

In it lies the largest tract

of mangrove swamp and forest on earth.

(suspenseful music)

The Sundarbans.

Rivers wash mud and silt out into the Bay of Bengal,

ocean tides flood the forest with salt water every day.

It's one of

the world's most challenging natural environments.

The Sundarbans is a place where land meets sea

and the line in between is blurred.

Even the fish seem confused.

Mudskippers spend more time out of the water than in it.

Water stored in pouches stops their gills drying out

and they can breathe through their skin

as long as it's wet.

Modified pectoral fins are strong enough

to pull them over the ground

and they can skip a half a meter by flexing their tails.

During the breeding season,

tensions run high and males defend their territories.

(suspenseful music)

Blue markings become brighter.

Dorsal fins wave like warning flags.

If this fails to deter an intruder,

there's nothing left except mouth to mouth combat.

Trees also have strange adaptations.

To escape the waterlogged soil,

their roots send up stalks,

which absorb oxygen from the atmosphere.

(insects chirring)

For a wild boar,

the muddy Sundarbans's a paradise.

Chital deer look up rather than down for food

and always keep an eye open for danger.

With good reason.

(tiger snarls)

In the Sundarbans,

the tiger is still king of the jungle.

(suspenseful music)

Stripes break up its outline

and make it hard to spot through the trees.

Male tigers are the heaviest cats in the world.

They can weigh over 200 kilos,

about three times more than the average human.

Paws the size of side plates spread their weight

and help them move silently through the forest.

(suspenseful music)

Tigers creep as close to prey as possible

before launching an attack.

Thick mangroves provide plenty of cover.

Chital deer are favorite targets.

Tiger's canines can grow to 10 centimeters,

the longest of any cat.

They're so powerful they've been known

to bring down animals six times their own weight.

The chital sense danger.

Fleeing into water is usually a good tactic

for escaping predators.

(water whooshing)

But tigers don't mind getting wet.

(dramatic music) (water whooshing)

Unlike most cats, they're excellent swimmers.

(water whooshing)

With its catch back on dry land,

the big cat makes light work of its meal.

A rough tongue scrapes meat clean off the bone

Today, the Sundarbans is home

to the largest population of wild Bengal tigers in India.

Over 400.

It's the only place on earth

where these big cats live in such an aquatic environment.

Tigers have embraced their watery world

and will feed on fish and crabs,

(birds cooing)

but there is something else on their menu.

(suspenseful music)

The Sundarbans tigers are notorious man eaters.

It's thought that as many as 250 people are killed

in tiger attacks here every year.

(men shouting in foreign language)

Foraging in the forest for honey or firewood can be fatal.

Some say a tiger can even pull a man from a boat.

Villagers have even been dragged from their beds.

It's still not fully understood

why the tigers here are such a threat to man.

People live close to tigers in other parts of India,

but nowhere else are fatalities so high.

One theory is they've developed a taste for human flesh

after scavenging on the bodies of cyclone victims.

Devastating weather in the Bay of Bengal kills thousands

of people every year.

(waves whooshing)

Or perhaps these tigers have never learned to fear man.

In the 20th century,

big game hunting caused India's tiger population to crash

from 40,000 to just 1800,

but impenetrable mangrove forest protected Sundarbans tigers

from man and his guns.

Here, people are prey,

but each time a tiger takes a human life,

the precarious existence of its own kind is shaken.

Fear and reprisal leads to tigers being killed.

For a species on the brink of extinction,

every tiger death is a catastrophe.

(melancholy music)

A government conservation program works hard

to keep man and cat safe from each other.

As home to one of the world's most endangered animals,

the Sundarbans will be protected

so people as well as tigers can benefit from it

for generations to come.

While the Sundarbans is one

of the world's great wildernesses,

a small island, just a few miles away,

hosts one of the planet's largest gatherings of people.

Sagar Island is the place

where the Ganges finally reaches the sea

and flows into the Bay of Bengal.

It's the middle of January

and this sleepy island is about

to be transformed by an inundation.

Not of water, but of people.

This is a dramatic reminder of the pressure put

on the Ganges river and its wildlife by humans.

(bright music)

Millions of Hindus arrive here

on the day of Makara Sankranti, the winter solstice.

The Gangasagar Mela, as it is known,

is one of the largest religious gatherings on earth.

(people chattering)

Many travel for days to get here.

(people singing in foreign language)

For some, it's the first time they've ever seen the sea.

Tropical beaches are transformed

into the world's biggest campsite.

Pilgrims throw coins as offerings for the goddess Ganga.

For enterprising children,

it's an opportunity worth braving the mud to exploit.

During the festival, they can make over 1000 rupees,

a healthy boost to often meager incomes,

Makara Sankranti is a harvest festival,

a time to give thanks to the Ganges

for the crop she provides and livelihood she sustains.

Sagar Island is regarded

as one of the most auspicious places

to bathe in Ganges water.

(uplifting music)

This is a grand farewell

to a river that has played such a vital role

in the lives of India's people and wildlife.

(suspenseful music)

The Ganges is home to some of India's rarest creatures,

which fight for survival as man encroaches on wilderness.

Agriculture and industry have swallowed much

of the Ganges's fertile floodplain, once home to giants

like the Indian rhino.

Millions of humans live and die on the riverbanks.

The Ganges is regarded not just as sacred,

but as a goddess in her own right.

A dip in the holy river purifies the soul,

but also pollutes the water,

but high levels of oxygen and disease-eating microorganisms

lend the scientific ring of truth to religious beliefs

in the cleansing powers of the Ganges.

The river's unique properties nurture and sustain

a spectacular array of wildlife.

From death and decay come new beginnings on the Ganges.

India's great river of life.

(dramatic music)

(snake hisses)

(bright music)