Ominous spectre of the dying Padma

Nilratan Halder Songs on and lores or legends surrounding river crossing abound. But now is the time to compose epitaphs on dying rivers. The once mighty and furious Padma seems to be in its death pang. A pictorial story carried in a Bangla daily shows how people are walking on the sandy river bed against an unending desolate expanse of background with a bare land mass meeting the hazy sky. It shows the section of the river at Sujanagar, Rajshahi near the Rabindrakuthi (temporary abode of Tagore from where he supervised his zamindari estate) point. The report has it that there is no water except for a stretch of 100 yards or so near the 'kuthi'. Only three months ago, runs the report, people had to cross the river by boat. The worst prediction is that the river might disappear within the next 10 years. Just imagine a Bangladesh without its most famous river. Will the country remain the same without this river? Once steamers used to be the main transport for people and the very name of Golanda steamer terminal and railway station were enough to evoke an array of nostalgic associations in old people who happened to have travelled by rail and steamer from this part of Bengal to its then capital Calcutta (now Kolkata). Rabindranath made extensive boat journeys in those days and once he just survived a storm by sheer luck. His "Chhinna Patra" (torn letters or scattered leaves) is a testament as well to his inner journey that he undertook in intimate encounter with Nature at its mellifluous best in East Bengal. Sunrises, sunsets and moonlit nights left an indelible impression on his poetic mind. But still he was not forgetful of the toiling people in Patisar or Kushtia. Take away a river, you take away livelihoods of people, their living style and many more. The lore surrounding a river, the poet in man and the struggle that gives a particular community or people in general vanish with the disappearance of a river. When it comes to a river with the size and influence of the Padma, the loss on all such counts cannot be measured by any means. Here is a river that has made Bangladesh a specially fertile land. Although it is not an original river like the Ganges and the Brahmaputra issuing from the Himalayas, all other rivers used to pale before its length and breadth. Many of its tributaries have already become extinct. Is the Gorai, a favourite with Tagore, still there? Way back in 1991, this river with small pools like potholes here and there on a street could easily be negotiated by a jeep or truck. Now the Padma is destined to embrace the same fate within a few years. Already the Chalan Beel (swamp of Chalan area) has become dry and dusty. It has turned into land for crop cultivation. The geo-morphological change has been phenomenal in the northern region of the country in particular. Well, other regions like the country's south or south-west has also undergone radical changes but those are mainly due to human actions such as shrimp culture. The last straw on the camel's back was the cyclones Sidr and Aila. They have caused so much infiltration of saline water in parts of the coastal area that they are now water-logged human habitats with few options for cultivation or other livelihoods. How will the Padma when it will just exist in history book and lore, affect people in the north and the central regions? People in this land have a natural affinity for water and river because water is the prime condition for life and rivers carry water eternally to fulfil that condition of life. Without the river the risk of some areas becoming totally arid cannot be ruled out. It has happened in many parts of the globe. Shrinking streams of the river owes to the Farakka barrage and the upper riparian nations are increasingly advancing irrational arguments for withdrawal of water in violation of internationally approved laws. It is for the international community to abide by the laws and follow the principle, "live and let others live".