They came armed with bulldozers and bulletins
onto our verdant fields and into our modest homes.
The government wanted to build a big dam,
arrest the mighty river and submerge our sunshine
beneath placid dark green water.
We protested, tore our hair and hearts
but the babus did not listen.
Progress is not pollution they advised.

The sounds of industry echoed between the twin hills.
The wall grew, inch by inch, a barrier for Bhagirathi.
Our fields, our homes swallowed by the rising waters.
Our tears traveled down the hills to pool on the plains.

Lives uprooted we moved to the hot and dusty plains,
(proud hill folk) we left the sickle and took up the hammer.
Never bound by the horizon now our imagination is
limited by the claustrophobic closeness of this crowded slum.

Up in the hills our blood will stop flowing soon. The Gods will
not be pleased by this arrogance. Their downstream daughter
is being widowed. One day soon the Lord of Kailas will descend and dance
destruction with Dharti mata and thus will man’s folly be finished.

(To know more about what is happening to the great Ganga in the mountains of Uttarakhand do read this.)