STRIKINGLY COLOURFUL TEMPLES, most of them dedicated to Lord Krishna, dot the banks of Yamuna. Apart from devotees offering prayers along its bank and in temples, children play in its waters, visitors hop on for boat rides, sadhus sit on its steps, and priests go about doing business convincing, and often coercing, visitors to get puja done. Monkeys hop around, terrorising worshippers. One swiftly snatches an onlooker’s glasses only to return after being obliged with a fruit. It is noon, with a scorching summer sun blazing on top, but nothing subduing the vibrant activity on Mathura’s ghats.
There are 23 ghats in total. The main one is Vishram Ghat, with 11 ghats on each of its two sides. Lord Krishna is believed to have rested at Vishram Ghat after killing his demon uncle Kansa, whose humongous but glaringly non-striking abode stands in one corner. There are heaps of saris on the river’s bank, and celebratory worship begins on an adjoining ghat. “We are adorning Yamuna ji with saris,” says priest Ajay Chaturvedi. “They say it makes your wishes come true.”
While rivers in India are part of the sacred geography, especially for the Hindus, the significance of the Yamuna in Mathura feels magnified. Here, it ceases to be a holy river or just a river used as a garbage dump but assumes a character of its own. Here, the Yamuna becomes a daughter, sister, wife and mother, as women often do. Here, the river becomes a ‘she’.
Sitting on the step of a ghat, Laljibhai Shastri, a spiritual storyteller, talks fondly of the holy river. “She is a mother, but she is also a maharani (queen). Even Radha couldn’t earn the title. Yamuna is one of Krishna’s wives,” he says.
The relationship Krishna shared with the Yamuna goes back to his birth story when he was born to Devaki and Vasudeva at his uncle Kansa’s dungeon in Mathura. As Vasudeva, carrying an infant Krishna to safety, was crossing the Yamuna, the river raged. Her waters rose high until it touched the baby Krishna’s feet, after which it turned quiet as if that was her singular intent. Vasudeva, then, swiftly brings Krishna to Vrindavan, to Yashoda and Nanda.
The relationship continues in Vrindavan, where he spends quite a lot of time playing flute and pranks on its bank, teasing gopis (milkmaids), dancing with Radha, and also taming Kaliya, the snake who was poisoning the Yamuna.
On one side of the ghat, two women can be seen praying to several deities, one of whom, I am told, is Yamuna as goddess. Right around them can be seen puja essentials―clothes, flowers in plastic bags, burnt incense sticks.
While the river has been much talked about for its abysmal state in Delhi, it isn’t in its best health in Mathura, either. And while the river is broader and has depth compared to its stretches in Delhi and Agra, it looks visibly polluted.
At a temple, a board reads: ‘Chalo kuch ab naam kare, Yamuna bachane ka kaam kare [Let’s make a name for ourselves by saving Yamuna]’. ‘Saabun na lagaye [Don’t apply soap while taking a dip in Yamuna]’, reads another.
While signs of the river’s worsening condition are visible, the city residents blame Delhi, which alone contributes more than 75 per cent of waste that goes into the Yamuna. “However, with so many drains emptying into the river, it is only a matter of time when the river here, too, turns bad,” says Chaturvedi.
The river often assumes a political character, too, such as last year, when while campaigning during the Lok Sabha polls, BJP’s Hema Malini, now MP from Mathura, performed puja at Vishram Ghat and said that cleaning the river would be her “top priority in her next tenure”.
Here, religion and politics also brush against tourism. The Uttar Pradesh government has unveiled a master plan for a complete makeover of the city by 2031, thus developing it as a tourist destination. A 30km Yamuna riverfront is the centrepiece of that plan. The soon-to-be-unveiled Noida International Airport in Jewar, which is barely 80km from Mathura, will only boost connectivity. The impressive Yamuna Expressway connects the two, making for a smooth ride. Meanwhile, a 70-storey ISKCON temple is also being built in Vrindavan, for around Rs684 crore, which is expected to further boost tourism and the local economy.