The bridge across the river looked like a concrete monstrosity. It was a late, moonlit night. The milky light from the sky lit up the white expanse of sand. The river flowed quietly. The huge banyan trees abutting the river watched on, carrying tales of a million years within their ancient trunks. It was a still moment. There are vast expanses of green paddy fields on either side and the wind blows ruffling the fields in unique wavy patterns. Then the train came rushing forth, with noisy clatter, breaking the stillness of the night. Then all was quiet...That was Nila river or Bharathapuzha known in local parlance. A river that spawned great poetry, a river that witnessed the tectonic shifts of history.
In our collective memory, the river always flowed, filling it with moments of romance. A romance where you don’t share the presence of a human to share your anguish and pain of this life....of beauty that one day fades...of emotions and tempers that might break the rhythm of a workday life. This was romance of a strange kind. It is the romance of communion with life, with nature.... Ten kilometres up the river, a tributary called Mangalam river flows.. a good 200 metres away from the home I was raised in. Often I remember of a lonely childhood with only books and crazy dreams for company. Often, late at night, we would sit on the white sand. And listen to the rumble of the train, a faint sound 15 kms away from Lakkidi bridge, where the Nila flows. Nila is the poet’s river. Great many poets and writers drew their inspiration and sustenance from the river.
In monsoon, the river changed its’ colours. It looked darker. The sky is overcast and it is raining for days on end. The wind is cold and harsh. The sand banks have disappeared from sight. Twigs, logs and branches got washed away in the wild flow of the river. One could no longer see the the bottom of the river or little fish that would brush against your legs when you took bath in the flowing water. You could no longer cross the river walking. Little boats are pressed into service. The river today is ravaged. When I barely stop on the bridge, my memories go back in time. How the river looked then. The sand has vanished today, a victim of the inexorable process of development, building concrete homes for humans. Twenty five years back, if someone had told me that man’s primary urge to have a roof over his head, a shelter to keep his family safe, could plunder the river of all its’ sand, I wouldn’t have believed it. The paddy fields are dotted with concrete homes. The moonlight has a tinge of tears. In summer the river is dry. There are patches of vegetation and water along the river. The river no more flows...
Around five years back, when I was working in Delhi, I saw an article by a journalist called Akber Ayub in The Hindu on the slowly dying Nila river. I wrote to the journalist and asked him if I could do something to save the river. He said he gets lot of mails of similar kind. I kept a few copies of the article and gave it to friends who, I knew, cared for the river. I spoke to a senior bureaucrat in Kerala government, who swore that there is little that civil society can do. The government has already put in place plans to save the river. But each year I go back to my home town, I see the river a little more denuded. A little less in its element. A little closer to death. We can do nothing but grieve over something that has died inside us...
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‘But Ma’am must have been briefed, surely?’
‘Of course,’ said the Queen, ‘but briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject. Reading opens it up.’
- Alan Bennet in the ‘Uncommon reader’.
I read the above lines several times. It struck me as very relevant to Delhi bureaucrats, who come with little domain knowledge and are briefed by specialists. Policy making evolves through several rounds of briefing which closes down the subject instead of opening up, as Bennett’s Queen would say.
I have been reading this short book and the book sort of grew on me. When I ordered it on flipkart for a princely sum of Rs 577, I expected a hardback tome. When it arrived, it was all of 120 odd pages, a paperback, half the size of an A4 size paper. I also had this vague feeling that I had read this before, but had forgotten about it.
Possess this book. It will possess you surely. It is about the Queen of England who, in old age, falls prey to the joys of reading and its’ unintentional, but comic fallout. The Palace staff, cabinet ministers, Archbishop of Canterbury and others are put to severe inconvenience, having an erudite Monarch, who dares to improvise her speeches. How would it be if the Queen were to ask, by way of polite conversation, what you thought of Bronte or Jean Genet, instead of asking you whether you had come far and whether the traffic was nasty? A chance visit to the travelling library sets off a hilarious sequence of events. This is a great book. A Bibliophile’s book.
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