Dheeraj Kalgutkar

  I too live by the river Our river though is not sacred It is still clean Perhaps it's the fate of sacred rivers to be dirty We too go to our river to swim We don't take dips, we swim and swim till our lungs and legs can no longer hold And we run from our river only when our mothers holler our names There are no flowers floating in our river No oil lamps float in our river too We don't even leave our dead in our river Our river is not sacred like yours We still love our river though It feeds us, it nurtures us Do you think our river misses being sacred? Do you think your river likes being sacred?  

What you see is a calm river shore, a ghat where people are going about their ritualistic life, the soothing calmness of it. Beautiful imagery for certain. But images do lie. What I saw vis-a-vis my real eyes was a slow process of killing what was once a roaring mighty river. Kaveri or Cauvery - however you spell it. A river which once protected Tipu Sultan’s island of Srirangapatnam from enemies, a living breathing river that was lifeline of so many lives, river that saw lives grow and disappear, river of many legends, not anymore. It is a dying stream now. Srirangapatnam is no more an island. The old river no more flows around the old town. Tipu Sultan was long killed by British Army. His Srirangapatnam plundered. And today the prized river is slowly killed by the modern man. People from distance come to the 'holy' river, they take bath in its fabled waters and then dump their clothes and trash into its 'holy' waters. They think they’re dumping their sins. Bu...

Photo by Artem Bali on Unsplash I forgot my red water bottle. Wait, what? You want us to read about you losing your water bottle? No, no, not any bottle but red water bottle with white cap. It’s no ordinary bottle. It’s the one that I take with me to the gym. The one in which I fill water from a water purifier attached there with those weird beads in that machine. I have a theory that that machine just doesn’t work and I’ve been drinking tap water for long now. Thanks to placebo for not letting me fall sick. Anyway, coming back to my water bottle. I remember taking it to the gym, drinking water from it. Sweating working my legs out. Oh yes, it was a leg day. But don’t worry. Somehow for some reasons that I’m unaware of, my legs aren’t hurting today. It’s 11:30PM, full 3 hours since I reached my room and found out, actually, I did not, I have not been able to find my bottle. The red one with the white cap. I had to drink water from another stupid bottle from which my flatmate u...