The first work from the Sabarmati River

A poem by Falguni Bharateeya
Well,
We are Amdavadis
Money-minded people.
Aren’t you happy O River!
We have made your bed watery
24 hours 7 days.
You don’t like celebrations!
We are going to celebrate
Several festivals on your river front.
Sabarmati,you’re a mother
Of this “Walled City”.
We have given you a new look
Offering many plastic bags
That are smiling
Watching the Metrocity
From your surface.
You have grown to be a space
To accommodate all development
all calamities.


At the Sabamarti by Jane
At the Sabarmarti, I tried to look at the water, but the light was so bright, my camera wouldn't focus on the surface of the river. So, how was I to capture the Sabarmarti?

Walking along her banks, I feel disconnected from the water. Bothe the
ashram and the idea of "mother river" seem at odds with the harsh industrial
landscape of the riverbank.

Far below, a dog trots along the concrete, as if he has somewhere important
to get to. A woman is washing clothes and laying the wet slabs of coloured
cloth along a section of broken wall. Her children, two small girls and a
boy, slip through the metal gates that bar the steps to the ashram and make
a beeline for any passerby who looks like a tourist. Once a few rupees are
grasped within their small, well-practiced fingers, they scurry back down to
hand the coins to their mother, still washing clothes, far below, in the
waters of the Sabamarti.

I watch from a distance. I am distanced by space, by the gates, by a million
things more. My camera sees the tiny figures belo, but they are so far away
they seem to scarcely move. They already look like a photograph.

Later, I tell Rachel I was sorry not to have been able to go down to the
water's edge. She tells me that the gates have been closed to discourage
suicides. Each week there are more and more bodies snarling the fishermen's
nets. Men who face ruin, from what is called the credit crunch, drown their
wives and children too, because they know there will be no-one else to care
of them.


Asha Makhecha
Narmati
O, mother of mine!
Let you have your
Own water
Own flow
Own voice and music
I don’t want a step-mother.

Yes, I agree
I am fond of change
As change is eternal.
Well, I don’t want
This CHANGE to be eternal…

Now
I suspect the very existence of yours!
I question to myself
Am I on the bank of Sabarmati?
Or on the bank of Narmada?
Am I in the lap of my mother or step-mother?

Well, I expect eternity
To have life
More and more life
And
Not death
No never ever...

Migration by Beccy Stirrup
The birds have migrated to the wrong place.
They used to follow Sabarmati’s flow
but down below, Narmada speaks –
her sister lost beneath the earth.
The birds have stopped,
their chatter loud, louder even than
the cars, and bikes and life.
People look, and shudder, and think
Hitchcock-like thoughts.
The birds have migrated to the wrong place,
they let air currents hold them above
Narmada’s new home.
They are not confused.