hollywood film starring candice bergen which won more golden statuettes than anything else ever sponsored by the indian taxpayer 3 is a magic name that guarantees its bearer short odds of being offered the prime ministership though it gains in lustre if the prime ministry is refused ganga is the countrys great river which to some degree is ironic since the names india indian hindu and hindustan all derive from the river indus which now flows through pakistan it is the ganga though that irrigates northern indias great alluvial plain waters many of hinduisms holy places and washes away the sins of believers nehru waxed lyrical about the ganga in his will to him it was the river of india beloved of her people round which are intertwined her racial memories her hopes and fears her songs of triumph her victories and her defeats she has been a symbol of indias agelong culture and civilisation everchanging everflowing and yet ever the same ganga a memory of the past of india running into the present and flowing on to the great ocean of the future to nehru the most sacred river of hinduism was a force for cultural unity a torrent that unites history with hope when his grandson rajiv gandhi was elected prime minister he used his first postelection broadcast to announce the setting up of a central ganga authority to cleanse and safeguard this symbol of indias culture the source of our legend and poetry the sustainer of millions and to restore its pristine purity after centuries of neglect and pollution two decades later the ganga is less neglected but more pollutedgavaskar sunil is one of contemporary indias first authentic national heroes somebody good enough at his chosen vocation to be numbered among the best in the world at it who can forget his memorable debut series of 774 runs in four tests against the west indies and what it meant for a generation of indian cricket fans who were becoming inured to defeat since then his innumerable batting records have fallen to others most memorably the highest number of test centuries ever scored and the most runs ever made in test cricket but they were records he set in a sport where indians did not usually set records even if his captaincy never quite measured up to expectations gavaskars batting as he stood up to the worlds fastest and most fearsome bowling attacks did as much for national pride as it did for indian cricketmore gs to follow