Floods and rivers

We think about rivers at odd times when they go dry or bring too much of water as they do in the monsoon season. Imagining rivers in such a narrow sense speaks of ignorance of what great rivers are all about. A pedestrian understanding of them is that they are a source of sustenance for all life forms. Rivers irrigate agriculture, cool down industrial machines and keep the city life happy and humming.

It is no coincidence that historically all our urban centres have grown close to rivers or oceans before we started damming them and taking out waters in branches of canals. And the much controversial blocking and dropping down of water generates power that lights homes, controls traffic and runs industry. Rivers and oceans in one way or another have played a big role in the evolution of our and other human civilisations in every part of the world.

In my view, rivers are more than a mere source of water, perennial or seasonal. The vastness of their bed full of water in some seasons and dry at other times tell a story of evolution of culture, languages, social groups and even communities with a particular way of life shaped by river flows.

The rivers are great social connectors among cultures and communities. By following their running track or trail you can establish clearly the connectivity among different streams of cultures and languages, a sort of social chain with both loose and strong links. The cultural streams running parallel to changing shapes of water as it passes through narrow mountain valleys with hundreds of thousands of streams joining like small snakes being swallowed greedily by a python, tell us another story of merging individual identities to a bigger whole. Giving themselves up unto some greater and unfamiliar form may be an act of self-sacrifice or search for a new identity.

Rivers are more than a culture and a civilisation. There is something metaphysical about them. Serene spirituality, calmness and storm of life and splendid beauty at dawn and sunset all can be witnessed and experienced at their banks. The holy men and women, saints, mystics, poets and prophets have common bonds of spiritualy that links them to some body of water, river or ocean and what they contain in themselves.

The lowly ebb and tidy flow of rivers remind us about what we or other forms of life experience, as grief, happiness, emptiness and fullness. There is a lesson as well about constant change and uncertainty in life.

Waters in rivers descend from heavens in tiny snowflakes and drops and bring with them some invisible godly quality to them. The cleanliness of rivers symbolises the purity of human spirit and thought. In some religious mythologies, there are river gods hidden under the waters, and those who have spiritual quality can talk to them and listen to them what they say.

In classical spirituality, and in our subcontinental religious traditions, dipping one’s self in the river waters is the first step in self-purification. It washes off all impurities, sins and wrongs. With each wash, one may have a fresh start in to life without any burden of the past. The lucky folks close to a river may experience endless spiritual renewal, provided they open up their minds and spirits to what bounty they have.

Look, what we have done to our rivers, the pure life with dropping raw sewerage, garbage and industrial waste into them. What a show of gratitude! Where are our bureaucrats, civil society folks and the mighty rulers? River gods might be angry.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2010.