Anand Mahindra, the CEO of Mahindra Group, often expresses his love and appreciation for nature on his widely popular Twitter account.
On Saturday, he shared a stunning photo of the Alaknanda river. The picture, which was shot from above, shows the narrow expanse of the river before it converges with the Bhagirathi river in Devprayag, a town in Uttarakhand.
While tweeting the photograph, the billionaire wrote, “‘Alaknanda’ means ‘flawless.’ I can see why…”. The photo shared by Mahindra is credited to photographer Ujwal Puri, who goes by the Twitter handle @ompsyram.
‘Alaknanda’ means ‘flawless.’ I can see why… https://t.co/Mwu4mEBSiB
— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) May 14, 2022
Mahindra’s tweet soon prompted people to share their own pictures of the rivers, with many people posting photos of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers meeting at Devprayag.
Yesterday I took This photo of Bhagirathi river at Dev Prayag,, May be its time to change my phone,, pic.twitter.com/A7vn7IdKM2
— Vijay Varma (@VijayVarmavtw) May 15, 2022
Really amazing 🤩. Specially the waves of alakananda river is just breathtaking beauty pic.twitter.com/kb2Zdxt6oY
— Ashwinee Kumar (@Ashwine68) May 14, 2022
मन की शांति pic.twitter.com/6NDYnnZqFh
— Himanshu.shakya (@108_Himanshu_8) May 14, 2022
This is not ‘Alaknanda’. This is the river ‘Ganga’ just after the confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers.
The confluence is visible in this pic too. A small strip of muddy water in the left is from Alaknanda, and the crystal clear water in the right is from Bhagirathi.
— Vikas Bharti (@TheVikasBharti) May 15, 2022
#Devprayag #Sangam pic.twitter.com/SAIloeKOrI
— Aakash Upadhyaya (@a_natkhat) May 15, 2022
In the local folklore, ferocious Bhagirathi is known as mother-in-law while the demure Alaknanda is known as daughter-in-law.
Devprayag is a confluence point of these two great rivers and when these two meet; the lifeline of north & east India, river Ganga is born !!— Alok Badoni (@badoni_alok) May 14, 2022
It’s Ganga river in picture, formed by meeting of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi at Devprayag. the bridge shown in the pic was our way to college and water was directly supplied from Alaknanda 🙂
— akhilesh kumar (@aim2akhil) May 15, 2022
That’s not the correct meaning even though Google says it. Alaka is the heaven or palace of heaven acc to Mythology and Nanda means daughter. So, it literally means heaven’s daughter or that’s born out of heaven.
— Saikat Bhowmik (@saiko4u) May 14, 2022
‘Alaknanda’ means ‘flawless.’ I can see why… https://t.co/Mwu4mEBSiB
— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) May 14, 2022
However, some people contested the authenticity of the photo shared by Mahindra. A Twitter user replied to Mahindra’s tweet and wrote, “This is not ‘Alaknanda’. This is the river ‘Ganga’ just after the confluence of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers. The confluence is visible in this pic too. A small strip of muddy water in the left is from Alaknanda, and the crystal clear water in the right is from Bhagirathi.”
Alaknanda, which originates from the Satopanth glacier in Uttarakhand, is known for its clear blue water. However, in 2021, it was noted that the river has become muddy with high amounts of silt. Experts say the river’s muddiness was caused by debris that was added after multiple landslides and floods that ravaged Uttarakhand in the early months of 2021.
