Some days ago, I found myself on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi, and was pleasantly surprised. There was no sign of any debris and the river flowed gracefully, her rhythm quiet and gentle. The colour of her waters was tinged by the earth she carried with her, eroded from her banks and, perhaps, washed in by the monsoon rains.
A rejuvenated Yamuna brought thoughts of Krishna, whose early life was spent playing and sporting on her banks. For centuries, the Yamuna has remained intertwined in our collective consciousness with Krishna’s early childhood and adolescence.
Really, there would be no Krishna Leela without the Yamuna. She provides the atmospherics and at times also the stage, for so many of Krishna’s exploits recounted in the Puranas. Through her heaving waters, baby Krishna is carried away to safety the night he is born, to save him from the wrath of Kamsa. And in her waters the child Krishna grapples with a poisonous snake, Kaliya, subduing it to dance upon its hood. Along her course, Krishna performs his miracles, lifting Govardhana hill on his little finger, and enchants the resident gopis with his mesmerising flute, drawing them into a play of divine love.
On Krishna Janmashtami (August 28), as we celebrate Krishna, shouldn’t we also spare a thought for the beleaguered Yamuna? I remember a gathering last year, of the residents of Krishna’s land, Brajabhoomi, to protest the weakened flow of the river due to various “projects” that serviced the gargantuan needs of Delhi and its surrounding areas. I thought of Delhi then as a giant demonic parasite, feeding off the life-blood of this fragile river and destroying it in the process.
It is often said that we can never return to what has been because time flows on like a river. It renews every moment. So even though we continue to celebrate the event of Krishna’s birth in a prison cell every year, if he were to be born today a drastically altered landscape would await him. It would probably include a decimated Yamuna, dammed for most of the year; his playgrounds choked with waste plastic and factory fumes perfuming the air instead of kadamba flowers in bloom.
Of course, everything must change, but should change always be polluting, soul-destroying and ugly? The answer seems to be “yes” if we consider the landscape of our country. If Krishna, that divine lover, the most charming of gods, could not inspire us to keep the river and lands associated with him safe from decimation, I wonder what will. A Senegalese poet, Baba Dioum, has said: “In the end, we conserve only what we love.” It is worth asking if we might yet find it in our hearts to preserve Krishna’s ecology in the same way as we have his myths and legends, and the expanse of his consciousness.
Swati Chopra writes on spirituality and mindful living. Her most recent book is Women Awakened: Stories of Contemporary Spirituality in India. Website: www.swatichopra.com