Faces in the water: Rakhshanda Jalil reviews ‘From Volga to Ganga’ by Rahul Sankrityayan, trs Victor Gordon Kiernan, Kanwal Dhaliwal

Rahul Sankrityayan’s rare erudition and imagination power this chronological series of vignettes recreating the past

This book is quite unlike any I have read in recent times. Though, of course, the river as a metaphor for ceaselessly flowing time as also a cradle of civilisation is not a new literary device. There have been books written on a grand, epic scale about peoples and cultures linked to rivers — such as Mikhail Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows the Don or Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Darya (The River of Fire) — and about journeys from one river to another signifying journeys across civilisations, such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. But none can match the scale and magnitude, the erudition and fine detail, the sheer sweep of terrain and ideas of Rahul Sankrityayan’s Hindi classic Volga se Ganga. (Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter. )