The Dark-Coloured Waters is as much the story of a river as it is of a man shaped by its course.

Danesh Rana has had a profound connection with the Chenab. As a child, it flanked family road trips to Kashmir. In the 1990s, it ran through the newspaper headlines of bloodshed and militancy. And in 2002, it flowed past his police station in Ramban during a tense posting flat the heart of conflict. In 2018, on election duty in Himachal Pradesh, Rana arrived at the river’s source – a symbolic homecoming that compelled him to write this book.

Spanning decades and landscapes, The Dark-Coloured Waters traces the Chenab from its mythic origins to the violence-scarred landscape of Jammu and Kashmir. Along the way, Rana blends memoir, travelogue and keen observation to chart the river in all its complexity. Every bend reveals something new – culture and conflict, memory and myth, power and resistance. The Chenab is also a river of diplomacy, enshrined in the Indus Waters Treaty and entangled in the acrimony of India–Pakistan relations. From Bollywood to bloodshed, spiritual quests to statecraft, the Chenab reflects the many Indias that surge along its banks.

This is no linear chronicle, but a riverine journey – restless, reflective and deeply human.