Where did the river go?

18th March 2025

Ridhima was trying to put Yash to sleep, she was reading him a bedtime story. Listening to multiple references to village, river, mango tree, potter, and everything rustic ignited a curious spark in Yash, and he started questioning Ridhima.

"This would be a beautiful place!"
"Have I ever been to a village?"
"Yes, Yash. We had been to my native place when you were 1.5 years old!" replied Ridhima. "Really? Do we have pictures from there? I want to see!" asked Yash.
"Yes, we do have. I will show them to you tomorrow. It's too late now, you have to wake up early for school tomorrow", Ridhima elaborated.
"Can we see those now? Pleeeaaaseee....!", insisted Yash.
"Now?" Ridhima rolled her eyes, and Yash's puppy face quizzed, "Do we have a choice?"
They both left the bedroom and marched towards the living room. Ridhima took out the box of hard drives to carefully extract the one with her native trip from the stack. She quickly connected the hard drive to the smart TV and fidgeting with the remote controller they both sat on the sofa to relive the memories. Yash was mesmerized by the glimpse of the river, little hills, kachaa houses, and narrow and dusty streets. The pictures lured him to visit the village right then. He expressed the same feeling to Ridhima at that very moment. She promised to take him to her native place during his winter break, which was a month later.

Yash shared it with all his friends, and was counting days to departure. Ridhima was observing all of it with great joy. They started packing their bags. Yash insisted that Ridhima carry the camera without fail. Yash and Ridhima boarded the bus, the journey began, and they reached the village without any difficulty. On their way to her ancestral home from the bus stop, Yash was trying to spot the things he had heard in stories and seen in old photographs. Most of them he could recognize and spot, but unfortunately, the river was missing. There were tall, concrete towers that surrounded the dry river trail. Yash was disappointed, his series of questions had started doing rounds again.

"Where is the river? It was there in old pictures. Where did it go now?" "Why was it surrounded by garbage and plastics, bottles all around?"



The first evening passed in disappointment. But Yash was determined to find the answers. For that, he made new friends there and started throwing his questions at them. They had similar stories where they noticed the river disappearing as they grew up but had no idea why it happened. The kids made a group to work towards bringing the river back to the village. They first started by cleaning the area around by picking up plastics and bottles. They then initiated work towards seeking permission to change the location to dump all the garbage. The waste coming out from the buildings also had to be rerouted. The little ones knew they would need the help of an adult for this. After being neglected by their uncles, they finally resorted to Mr. Prakash Waghmare - grandfather of Panshul Waghmare, who was one of the new friends Yash had made.

Mr. Prakash deciphered the urge in kids and agreed to help them to the best of his capacity. They started writing formal letters to the administration and corporations. This whole process was taking time and it was about time for Yash to leave as his school was about to reopen. When returned to school, his EVS (Environmental Science) teacher started teaching them a new chapter, "Water and Us". "Rain is the primary source of water. Other natural sources like rivers, lakes, and seas provide us water in rain's absence", was a part of the chapter that the teacher read out loud for students. Yash raised his hand and asked, "Teacher, if we know this, then why don't we save our rivers?", the teacher got confused with his question. She was astonished to see Yash able to apply the knowledge he was gaining through books in his day-to-day life. Yash was taken to the Principal's office to share his thoughts and the foundation he had laid to bring the river back to Ridhima's native place. Being impressed with his conviction, the principal advised of making it a community project. She also promised to take the kids to the village during summer break to complete the remaining work of bringing the river back. Yash was happy to have received support from his school. They are now working dedicatedly to bring the river back to the village with the help of officials in that area, planting more trees, keeping the area near the river clean, and creating awareness.

I hope the next rain fills the river in a way that it never goes dry again.

Note: This story was originally conceived by my then 8-year-old son. I have only edited it. Posting with his permission.

This post is a part of "H2OhSnap Blog Hop" hosted by Sukaina Majeed and Manali Desai .