BY now,the Yamuna has seen it alltoxic 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 cranesbig yellow giants that rumble all day as they roll along the Yamunas sandy banks. This is change as the Yamuna sees it,triggered by frenzied deadlines and the changing needs of a city thats 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 thats 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 years710 divas,says a scrawl on the board. The embankment is probably the citys 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 thats 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 its 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. Misroo says she grows tori,lobia,bhindi,palak and a few other vegetables on her fields. Gobar ka khad dalte hain. Urea nahin, she claims. But a new water pipeline has cut one of her fields into two and rendered a big part of it useless. The riverbed has two purposes. Farming and flooding. The annual floods in the Yamuna recharge the underground aquifers. And after the flood waters have receded,farmers grow their crops, says Rajendra Singh,the waterman and Magsaysay award winner. He is here for the Sanchalak Mandal meeting of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan (Let the Yamuna Live campaign). The satyagarhis are setting their agenda for August 1,when the campaign completes two years. They plan to take out a march to raise awareness on the Yamuna,tie up with the MCD to check people from throwing rubbish into the river,get farmers to take a pledge to grow organic and plant trees along the riverbed. Nearby,a school that runs out of a shed breaks for lunch. The children come of the sultry classroom,made hotter by the burning asbestos roof,and sit around in the sun. Bobby and a few other children continue to sit inside,doodling on sheets of paper. They are copying from my drawing. And I copied from the textbook. The teacher told us to do that, says Bobby. But they all draw well, he adds,patronisingly. How old is he? I am the oldest. I am 13-and-a-half. But he barely looks eight. I dont look it. Thats because I used to do a lot of work, he says. Bobby says he used to accompany his father to the highway where they sold vegetables. His father works as a farm hand and the family lives in a hut on the riverbed. I have already been to three schools. We used to live in the Yamuna Pushta slums and I went to a school there. But they razed our homes and we moved here. I like this school. I can read and write Hindi. I want to learn English now. But I hope this school stays and they dont build anything here, he says. Outside,the cranes let out loud snarls. Bobby likes the cranes too. They are huge, he says looking up admiringly at one of the giants.
