Eight I was, when I met her first,
She perhaps was eight thousand years!
On a summer dawn, my first river –
Calm and deep; an eternal giver.
Around a fort and by a hill,
Flowed she, gently, almost still.

The adults haggle and strike a price
We’re in the boat now, off with cries!
In our feet, some sand and grime,
O’er the Yamuna the very first time!

Remember the gentle tinkle of oars?
And a turtle on his daily chores?
As we slided sweetly down her back,
Our cup of joy was about to crack.

A little life, that day, the Yamuna took,
An innocent boy with an innocent look,
Who must have been about my age,
Was trapp’d in a whirlpool’s watery cage.

I still remember that black black day,
When a young life quietly dipped away,
The dim feeling, never really goes,
A fear of Yamuna within me flows.

Then off to schools – some nice, some rotten,
I read and Yamuna flowed forgotten,
Till I spotted her around the Taj,
Choked with garbage, ruin writ large.

And I wondered as o’er the Yamuna I flew–
‘From the sky ’tis such a different view!’
These rivers that we exploit for gains,
Look like Earth’s myriad veins.

From up there humans seem like worms,
A bacteria from which the earth squirms,
And cities resemble an ugly scab,
O’er a wound or a deathly stab.

Then I met Yamuna at Delhi,
Trapp’d in drains and quite smelly,
A civilization that she reared,
Now she flows through, smeared and jeered.

How strange ’tis the fate of rivers,
A cruel blow destiny delivers,
As we live our ‘meaningful lives’
There’s nothing else that survives.

O Yamuna!

Will you not drown us with your waves?
Find for us wet watery graves?
When? When will your patience burst?
For our lives do you not thirst?

The Akshardham temple sits on your banks,
A million devotees – a million cranks?
And a dim feeling within me grows,
A little pain of yours within me flows.