I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities—ever, however, implacable.
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.
His rhythm was present in the nursery bedroom,
In the rank ailanthus of the April dooryard,
In the smell of grapes on the autumn table,
And the evening circle in the winter gaslight.
T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
A strong brown god attacking another one in Rishikesh -
India floods: Death toll rises amid heavy rain - Asia - World - The Independent - the once-lovely holy town beside the Ganges that the Beatles visited in 1967 to be taught meditation by the Maharishi and which I did rather less publicly a decade later, staring in wonder at the sacred (unfishable, try fishing and you'd be lynched) occasionally huge mahseer below Laxman Jhula bridge before heading off to fish much further upstream.
Wouldn't care to be the owner of a riverside property at the moment, but then the river, though the loveliest blue when low, can be a strong brown god, as can ours here.
