BY now, the Yamuna has seen it all—toxic slush from factories, offerings that come cruising down in plastic bags, drivers who take their hands off the steering wheel in a dangerous moment of reverence, the lush green on its banks. Everything. And now, the cranes—big yellow giants that rumble all day as they roll along the Yamuna’s sandy banks.

This is change as the Yamuna sees it, triggered by frenzied deadlines and the changing needs of a city that’s growing in ambition and size. Work on the Commonwealth Games village, a grey block that is racing to meet its target, is on and so is work on a water pipeline that’s being diverted through the fields on the riverbank.

On one of the embankments, on the right side of the Nizamuddin bridge on the way from east Delhi, the Yamuna satyagrahis fight a lonely battle, a white board announcing that they have been campaigning here for close to two years—“710 divas”, says a scrawl on the board.

The embankment is probably the city’s last few pastoral spots. Above, the highway moves at a different pace. But here, in the heart of the city, people call themselves “gaon walle”, children talk about the “city” that’s a few metres away, an old woman carries a charpoyee on her head for you to sit and places it across a gurgling stream. Rustic bliss. But it’s only when the 60-year-old Misroo offers “Yamunaji ka pani hai, meetha hai” that our urban sensibilities come in the way, unabashedly: “Yamuna ka pani? Direct? Dhanyavaad. Pyas nahi hain.”

... contd.