Ganges and Ganga : "What a Terrible River, What a Wonderful River!"

The 'noble' Indian river Ganga or Ganges plays a very distinct role in both the literary works: A passage to India and The Wasteland. My observation was the glaring difference in Forster and Eliot's conception of this mighty river. I think this difference is also coherent with what the authors think of India over-all. The setting in "A passage to India" as we know shows India under foreign rule with intense sub-ordination of the native devoid of any hope of prosperity or freedom. Contrary to that, Eliot tries to find solace and spirituality in the Indian landscape and the Hindu traditions. It serves to him as an alternative to the meaningless life symbolized by a 'falling London bridge' and a not so appealing River Thames. His focus then shifts to 'Ganga' when he says:

                                

In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves	395
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder

 Rain descends as a blessing on Ganga feeding the dry leaves followed by a thunder. This scene revolving around ganga highlights the possibility of betterment. It shows that the infertility will go away flooding ganga. We can see that Eliot associates ganga with positivity and something meaningful. 

On the other hand, Forster attaches minimal significance to the 'sacred' river. His version gives the river an english name 'Ganges' which in the larger scheme of events stands for the failure of the native cultural values, the loss of historic glory. Forster's ganga is just a hub of crocodiles feasting on filthy hindu dead bodies making Chandrapore a terrible place thanks to this terrible river. Forster writes,

           

                 "The dead bodies floated down that way from Benares,or would if the crocodiles let them."It's not much of a dead body that gets down to Chandrapore."

  'Crocodiles drown in it too, how terrible!', his mother murmured...she continued, "What a terrible river, what a wonderful river!" and sighed. 

We can see that the difference in the authors perspective is very evident. Eliot paints ganga as a place receiving bounties of rain and Forsters sketches a gloomy and sad story of absurdity and dirt. Indeed, what a terrible river, What a wonderful river!