The Yamuna

Then he asked me, “What do you think of the Yamuna?”

“Yamuna is no longer a river. In Delhi, it has become an impure propaganda,” someone once said.

In 2024, when I visited the Yamuna Ghat for the first time, a young boatman approached me and asked if I wanted a ride. I agreed. As we sat on the boat, he noticed my camera and asked what I did. I told him I was an artist. He asked if I was from the press. I said no.

Then he asked me, “What do you think of the Yamuna?”

I told him honestly that it was my first visit, and I didn’t yet have an opinion.

I remember being struck by the sight of two men bathing in the river. The water was visibly polluted, yet their faith seemed untouched.

The boatman began to speak about his past. “There was a time,” he said, “when my father was deeply spiritual. I used to take dips like this too.” He paused. “In 1998, my father died at the age of 59. My family still doesn’t believe it was because of this.”

Then he said something that stayed with me: “Faith is more polluted than the real pollution.”

After a while, I asked him what else he did besides rowing the boat. He laughed and said he mostly scrolled reels. Then he asked me, “What will you do after this? Do you want to see kusti? I practice it. I’ve made an akhada in my compound. You should come—it will be fun, especially if it’s your first time.”

I said yes.

After the boat ride, we went to watch him wrestle. As I watched his body move against another, I couldn’t separate the physical struggle from the story he had just shared. The Yamuna lingered in my mind.

I began taking photographs.

Was I witnessing a real fight, or a fight shaped by belief, memory, and contradiction?