Dear Shekhar
\nWhen I joke ( I know that I am not joking) with my 75 years old widowed mother in Rishikesh, who revers and loves Ganga more than anything, that ‘better you die soon since Ganga is going to disappear’, her ever smiling face becomes pale with gloom when she replies back, ” I am going to run and jump in the lap of my mother Ganga before it happens”. She refused to move with me to the US, despite my repeated persuasions for 20 years. ” Is there a Ganga in your Amreeka ?” Her this question would gag me to say anything further.
\nUltimately being her only child, I had to move back to India five years back.
\nWe both are born and brought up in Rishikesh and like thousand other citizens of this small town, have silently (and cowardly) seen things going from bad to worse. A bunch of ‘devotees’ which performs Ganga Aarti every evening with loudspeaker, flowers and oil lamps, remains oblivious to the horrible stench of sewage, which falls in the Holy river, not more than 200 meters down.
\nThe least we could do is to admire your sensitivity & concern to our self propelled inevitable climatic disaster. People like me are deeply touched by the intensity of your pain and feel helpless in front of the gigantic self centered ugly greed of our callous society.
\nPainfully
\nDinesh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Shekhar When I joke ( I know that I am not joking) with my 75 years old widowed mother in Rishikesh, who revers and loves Ganga more than anything, that ‘better you die soon since Ganga is going to disappear’, her ever smiling face becomes pale with gloom when she replies back, ” I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paani"],"yoast_head":"\n