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Going with the flow
Source: The Hindu, Date: , 2014
A look at
life in and around the Yamuna.
Quiet flows
the Yamuna. A sacred stream for a million people. Then some more. For many, it
is just a trickle of polluted water which transforms itself into a river during
the monsoon. Then Yamuna is like a playful girl, now teasing the banks, now
eluding them, now cheerful, now naughty. Otherwise, the river goes quiet,
almost in morbid fear of being admonished if it were to make anything more than
ripples. Yet quietly, unobtrusively, and often unknown even to the denizens of
Delhi, life goes on around the Yamuna, on its ghats, on its often sullied
waters. Every evening, the faithful gather for a pooja, an aarti, sprinkling
marigold petals on its waters. Every morning, as the believers cross the Old
Yamuna bridge near ISBT or the new one leading to ITO, some stop their vehicle
for a few seconds, offer a coin in obeisance and move on. Others just slow down
their cars or bikes, take a quick bow and move on. The river accepts them all.
At other
places though, the things are not as serene or pious. There are stretches of
lather arising out of the pollutants dumped into the river. There are others
where frenetic construction takes away from the timelessness of the river.
Again, the Yamuna flows on, impervious to the challenges, confident that she,
named after the sister of the Deity of Death, can overcome them all.
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