Five hundred years the river flowed, her pallor
Washed away by the muddy flow,
Five hundred fading springs shed her colour
Each century scrapped her lustrous glow.
The Saraswati
River, now dead and
seized by man,
Was once her artery of trade,
Through which the saudagars with their fleet
Explored islands in Malacca straits.
Down from Triveni, they sailed to port Betor,
Where the mortal mouth of Saraswati
Sacrificed herself to her would be killer
The River Hugli or Bhagirathi.
They prayed to “Bettro-Chandi” in bet-van
Where the darkness overpowered flambeau
Where vipers crawled and looters prowled
And to the goddess they bade Adieu!
With time and ephemeral flow of luck, the river
Flowed through Bhagirathi, killing her stream
And port Betor lay dead and with awe
She saw her opposite bank draping as a queen.
A port was born in the east, a new sun rose
And in the west sank the other,
Ever since the town’s downfall began-
Like a concubine of a step brother.
Slowly her luxuriant green yielded to mills
of cotton, flour and ropes, where labours
thronged her lanes laden with screeching units
Where carbon bred from metallic clamours.
For years men of lesser occupation and wits
Toiled, littered and committed suicide
In the dingy lanes, and the vendors of politics
licked out life from their worn out bodies.
So up came apartments, builders ruled the roost
Where lakes were filled and outlets chocked,
Where coffers filled and the toxicity spewed
Where freedom felt free in a reddish coat.
Now her distant twin on the opposite bank rejoice
She’d don a dress of western grace,
Her feet would frolic in the river called Thames
Her strands transformed by an enchantress.
And says the worn out city within herself
“To relish the other bank come to me,
Sink your boots in this bog of indifference
And stare at the pseudo prosperity.”
The poem was published in the Festival number of The Statesman-2011
