The Days we Coasted by...(Part 1)

'Is this the river we came to bathe in, all the way from Mumbai', Vijay asked in a downcast voice. The Vasishti that was drawn in a promising blue color in the map was now a dark little flow which seemed to eke out a stark living and seemed ready to wilt further in the oncoming summer. From the bridge where we had just alighted upon, we could sense none of the grandeur we had imagined in its name. Worse,
instead of clear waters, a suspectfully dark river, banked by srubby undergrowth and smooth pebbles were all we could see now. Evidently this bank was once its bed-or takes up its old avatar under the river once an year if the monsoons granted the boons. Images of Cooum and Buckingham Canal, smelly black open-air sewers of Chennai, visited us. 'Here is the Cooum of Chiplun', we wanted to wail. The size, current, color-from this distance all the dimensions of the river tucked our conversation within dissapointment and deprecating humour.

'Never say aloud we came all the way from Mumbai to bathe in this river...', 'Hmm this is what the hotelwallah mentioned as where you can have a refreshing bath..ahem..', 'I am not bathing..whatever water making up this river would be displaced that I shall have to emerge dry anyways..' And so we went on.

We felt pity for the lone individual who was washing his clothes in those dark waters. 'Cleaning up the river', intepreted Vijay. I added, 'Why the bother yaar...if only he had been patient for a couple of years, he wouldn't have had a river to clean up...'

We went farther away from the bridge towards a parallel railway line that spanned upon a bridge the misplaced banks and the skeleton river. We saw a couple of other individuals bathing, in a manner we surely cannot mistake as a cleaning expedition of the river. We asked the last person if we can indeed bathe in the river. The man neatly srubbed and with washed clothes over his shoulders answered in affirmative and left the place for us. We opened our eyes for the first time to look beyond its dark and skeletony facade and view the river afresh. We dipped into its cool waters and came up with some of the best moments of our life...

...To be continued