The past and present of rivers

Author(s): Karuna Futane We are a generation that has turned flowing fresh water rivers to rivers of sewage and garbage. We have lost rivers. But there was a time when there was a river in everybody's life. Cultures developed alongside rivers. Rivers sustained farmlands, they were home to variety of fish, they were conduits of commerce and cultural exchange. People followed waterways, from canals to great rivers, to build businesses, communities, and new lives. Rivers were revered and feared. The river was a playmate to a child to splash or joy for a woman after a hard day's domestic toil. A river could also be the unpredictable elder who inspired awe. Flooding at many times turned a harbinger of life and prosperity into a raging torrent of large-scale destruction that destroyed human lives and ruined food crops leading to food shortages and starvation. But people learned to live with such vagaries. They learnt about the ebbs and flows of rivers. They tried to avoid places where its raging waters would strike, and congregate at those where it would be at its nurturing best. They learnt to make use of the silt left by its floodwaters and to avoid the sand which harmed their crops. But even then rivers flooded, changed courses and wrought destruction. People learnt to take that in their stride, sometimes with wit which our folklore is replete with. Over the past 150 years or so, this connection has been severed. The change happened sometime during colonial rule. Colonial water planners and water engineers introduced the idea of tapping rivers. Colonial intervention transformed seasonally inundated floodplains into sites for irrigation sites involving construction of barrages and weirs. But colonial hydrology could not come to terms with the idiosyncracies of Indian rivers. Replete with sand and sediment, most of them refused to flow between banks. Unfortunately, our planners did not take note of this failure of the colonial state when they devised plans for Indian rivers. At the same time, the people also lost the spiritual connect with rivers. Today many grow into adulthood without having seen a river in its full glory. Many of the mighty rivers have been reduced to a trickle. A lot of us still venerate rivers. In fact, the pilgrim throngs to sites associated with the big rivers, Ganga, Yamuna and Brahmaputra, seem to be growing over the years. But there is a discord between such ritual veneration and the ways we treat our rivers. Every pilgrimage adds to the trash burden on rivers. Many of our rivers have turned into veritable sewers. Some of them are toxic cesspools. Today in official documents these rivers have been renamed as drains. There cannot be a bigger loss. On International Rivers Day, we bring this collection of writings to celebrate the river.

My entire childhood and young adulthood had passed in close connection with rivers, so it was like a great viraha (pain of separation) when I found that my marital home did not have a river flowing right next to it. But soon I was introduced to three small rivers flowing nearby. The Chudaman river is also known as the Khadak (boulder) river because its path lies between huge black boulders.

Compared with the big boulders, the tiny river sliding between them struck one as too small, even fragile, but its water was always crystal clear. Diving off one of the boulders into the doh (deep pool within riverbed) was a thrilling experience. A number of village children turned up there to learn swimming. Neither they nor we adults ever missed a swimming pool.

This river flowed in beautiful curves, enriching the farms along its banks. The banks were lush with greenery and its curves created many large and small natural dohs along its course, which held water during the four summer months when the river dried up. One very deep doh, aptly named Junepani (old water), was known to have water right through the summer into the monsoon when “new” water refreshed the river.

Some dohs were reserved for cattle to drink and bathe, some for women. Some of the shallow dohs were ideal for washing linen and heavy drapery like durries and blankets. On sunny days in the sharad (early winter) season following the monsoons, families would load their dirty laundry on bullock carts and go to the river. The accumulated dust of summer and the damp smells acquired through the long monsoon wash off easy in the river, and it is easier to dry these heavy pieces on the sun-warmed boulders than at home. Returning home with stacks of crisp, fresh linen also freshened up the people.

Time flew collecting shells and rocks, making architectural masterpieces out of sand, and watching birds, fish. Boredom, the bane of modern childhood, was not known to river children

As childhood turned to teenage, the river was around to absorb the pain of romantic disappointments. There was no distress the river could not absorb. It was counsellor, loving elder and shrink

The river, for women, is a cleanser of dirty clothes, refresher of sore body and healer of hurt soul. The cleaning process acts as a catharsis against the accumulated hurts of a rough day

The Chudaman river has eight dams proposed along its course. Two have already been constructed. The driedup riverbed is now good only for dumping garbage

Translated from the original Marathi version by Aparna Pallavi

India