Ganges, bottled and home-delivered!
HIGH in the Himalayas, where the mighty Ganges is still a frigid glacial stream, labourers fill jerry cans with its holy waters to be distributed to Hindus all over India.
Buyers sparingly use the precious liquid to bless important occasions, from births, weddings, and funerals to festivals such as Diwali or the purchase of a new car.
‘This is for every faithful Hindu who can't get here personally,' said one of the workers in the pilgrimage town of Gangotri, giving his name as Ramesh.
‘It feels blessed to be part of a project that reaffirms our Hindu faith and delivers this divine water to all corners of the country,' he told AFP.
The scheme is run by the Indian postal service and is one example of a raft of initiatives, from the symbolic to the gargantuan, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi promoting Hinduism in the country 75 years after independence.
The water is considered purest closest to its source so is collected in Gangotri, where the Ganges starts its roughly 2,500-kilometre (1,550-mile) journey across India, and trucked to a bottling plant 100 kilometres downstream.
After being left to settle for three or four days, it is filtered in tanks before workers decant it by hand into 250-millilitre plastic bottles.
Bought over the counter at post offices around India, they cost just Rs. 30 ($0.37) each - customers can also order them online for home delivery at Rs. 321 for a pack of four.
Millions of the little containers have been sold since the scheme launched six years ago.