Darya Panth
(Path of the River)
by Ahmed HasanDarya Panth (Path of the river), is a series of essays and travelogs that follow the path of the Sindhu (River Indus), focusing on the plight of the river; on slow violence and water politics; on communal memory, and native stories, beliefs, and wisdom. These writings are a record of my time spent with farmers, fisherfolk, poets, political activists, and common people fighting for the water’s rights. It traces the changes they have seen in the climate of their waters and glaciers.
For a decade, I have been travelling and walking along this sacred Sindhu. My project rejects colonial methods of recording and archiving, which are extractive in nature. Rather, my “field work” emerges from friendship and community, not the tools of anthropology, science, or academia. This particular essay is about the lives of Mohanas, their relationship to water; about Khwaja Khizr, the saint of the river for Hindus and Muslims alike, and the rituals that surround him.
Sukkur: The city of Mir Bahar
6:50 am. Foggy morning.
I am walking along the river bed with my host in Sukkur, Abdul Malik. We have been walking for sometime, and no sign of a Mir Bahar* or the river. Has the river already died? Was it always like this, or have the dams and barrages stolen water from the great Sindhu? I keep picturing the glory days of the Sindhu, wanting to feel and see those days.
I am here to ask the Mallahs* about their past, and maybe in my imagination, relive the times when the river was healthy, and the people living in it were wealthy. But what is the point?
Abdul Malik sights a few Mallahs who have just retired from their early morning catch, and asks them if they have seen Iqbal bhai, a Mir Bahar we are here to meet.
A silhouette appears in the distance, conjoined with the mist. I am filled with awe and fascination each time I see these river guardians, and the sheer, unbelievable balance with which they stand upon water. Baans (bamboo oars) in hand, boats moving flawlessly toward the bank…. It is Iqbal, and yes, he says, he will talk to us. Malik and I climb onto his boat, and I set up my sound equipment.
(*Mallah, or Mir Bahar is a caste. They used to all be fishermen, but in recent years, because of the river drying up and other politics, many have taken to other professions.)
Iqbal must be in his late 40s. He has just returned from his morning expedition to catch fish. Immediately, he starts speaking about the scarcity. “Pehlay hum aik dou mann macchi iss hi darya se le aatay thay. Ab dou se teen kilo bhi mil jaave tou bari baat hai. Ab darya jab bhar jaawe tou aadh man bhi aaye tou buss iss se zyada kuch nahin. Ye qismat wala din hai.” We used to fish 1 to 2 tonnes of fish from this water. Now we’re lucky even if we get 3 or 4 kilos. Now even when the river is full, maybe half a tonne, nothing more. And even that would be considered a blessed day.
Iqbal gestures towards his son, sitting at the bank waiting for him.
“Iss ko nahin sikhaya macchi pakarna,” he says. “Ye buss kabhi kabhaar jaal uthaane aajata hai aur iss ke bachon ko tou darya ke qareeb bhi nahin aane deta. Ke parho.” I haven’t taught him how to fish. Sometimes he comes to pull the nets. But his kids? I don’t even allow them near the water. I tell them to study.
Iqbal says he is done with the profession, and with living on the river bank. And it is not just that the violence has been climatic, he explains. The violence is also political; the violence is social and capitalist.
“Hum tou darya mein khush tha. Ab ye bijli pole ke peechay seth ki malkiyat hai. 2 meel tak. Seth ko saal ka dedh dou laakh deta hoon aur buss rozi karta hoon. Daaku aadmi ka kya karein? Badamashi hai, badmaashi hai.” We were happy in the river. Behind this electric pole, for two miles, it’s contractor’s water. I pay him 150,000 rupees per year and earn my living. What can we do about the state's dacoits? They are lawless and wicked.
There is silence between us. I hear the distant honks of trucks on the Sukkur bridge. Iqbal’s hopelessness gives way to moments of silence, and in these moments I look around at the inactive river.
It has only one other boat floating in it. I think about what Iqbal said at the beginning of our conversation, “Kam se kam… 1000, 2000 beryaan meri jawani mein iss darya mein hoti theen.” In my youth, the river had at least 1000, 2000 boats.
But today the river is alone and aloof. No kings and queens steering proudly on her. The Mirs’ lives are stories from the past, and the only activity is the sound of distant traffic. The great river is chained and caged, and the Mallahs, growing more hopeless each day, are migrating and leaving behind the water. The few left behind, like Iqbal, are waiting for a chance to leave and take up a different way of earning for their family.
The sun is out and the fog has disappeared. It is still cold and Iqbal is silent again. I break the silence with a question, “Saeen, pehlay waqton mein darya ka paani peetay ho ge?” Friend, in the old days, did you drink the river’s water?
He says, “Darya ka pani abhi bhi peeta hun ab b’dboo hai is main wo maza nahin raha.” I still do. I still drink the river’s water, but it doesn’t bring the same joy. Now it stinks.
*
Sitting at a chai dhaba on the chowk (intersection) across from the Mir Bahar Colony.
Over tea, Malik says we might find chacha, who hangs out at this dhaba and might agree to talk to us about the old days of Sindhu. Almost immediately a thin man in his 80s probably appears, walking slowly towards our bench.
Malik asks him in Sindhi if he would be willing to answer some questions about his life, and if I could record the conversation. Chacha comes and sits right next to me. I ask if we can go to the river instead, and talk there. He agrees.
Holding on to Malik’s hand, chacha walks slowly over to the boat in the bank. We enter the river, and my feet touch the sacred waters for the first time this trip. It’s a bit cold, but nothing compared to what I experience in the mountains.
I ask, “Saeen, iss darya se muhabbat karte ho?” Do you love the river?
His eyes glow, and he looks straight into mine. His face lights up when he speaks. Everything he says is in Sindhi, but it is like poetry to me.
He says, “Iss darya jo mohabbat hai, paida jo huai issi pe. Shadi bhi beri pe hui issi pe khele kooday issi pe rahay. Achay waqton ke kiya sunaun.” Of course I love this river, I was born and even got married on the boathouse. We used to play and live in the boats. Sigh, what do I tell you about the good days?”
But then his expression changes, and his eyes turn sad.
“Bas phir daku beri lai gaye phir police agayi tng karne lagi. Bas ye qyamat qareeb hai saeen. Darya sukhda javay, sukh javay tou qyamat hai na saeen? Magar sab Allah ka hukm hai. Lateef saeen darya se hum kalam ho kar kehtay hain Imam Hussain ke pyas kahay na bujhayi tu ne darya. Darya kahay hai Allah ka hukm nahi hua tou saeen ye jo sukhda javay hai Allah ka hukm hai. Saeen purana waqt muhabattan wala waqt hai. Mele ganay machi khushhaali sab hai. Ab kia hai? Kuch nahin!” …But then the dacoits took our boats. And then the police came after us*. As the river is drying we are nearing doomsday. When the river dries, isn’t it the end of the world? But this is God’s will. Shah Lateef, while conversing with the river, asked her why didn’t you quench the thirst of Imam Hussain? The river replied that God hadn’t ordered her, so then isn’t the drying of the river God’s will? My friend—older times were times of love and compassion. Festivals, songs, abundance of fish! But now what do we have? Nothing!
(*"And then the police came after us": Rivers have kaccha area (jungles and land between the flowing river). The dacoit used such spaces as their hideouts and would steal and even forcefully take away their boats. The police blamed fishermen for being part of the dacoit gangs and would arrest them and harass them which also forced a lot of fishermen to migrate from the river.)*
The river god
The following afternoon we went to the asthana* of Khwaja Khizr, the lord of the river. I wanted to gather some stories of Khizr, and of the Sindhu, but there was no one on that small island except the boat-boy mallah, and me and Malik. I remembered chacha had said, “Ye darya jo nabi hai na saeen.” He is the river’s prophet.
I believe he was referring to Khwaja Khizr.
(*Asthana - resting place or abode of a holy saint / a place where a saint is buried or said to have stayed a long time.)Khwaja Khizr, or Jhule Lal, or Darya Shah, or Zinda Pir, or Odero Lal, is the combined river saint and saviour for Hindus and Muslims. This asthana, kept under a Muslim sajada nasheen*, was once a combined praying space for both Hindus and Muslims, but at some point Hindus separated and went to the bank of the river and made their own mandir for Jhule Lal. This doesn’t mean they don’t visit the island anymore. The asthana is still as sacred to them as it was, and Hindus come often. When I visited the mandir and asked the pandit about “Khwaja Khizr,” he interrupted me saying, “Alai Salam”— I was struck; to them he was the Lord of water, and gave him the status of a Muslim prophet.
(*A sajada nasheen is a caretaker-inheritor of the shrine. This is an official position, passed down through lineage.)A few devotees had arrived at the island, and we were going back to our boat. I saw the boat boy holding plastic bags full of rose petals which the devotees would presumably shower on the Sindhu.
I loved the idea of some fragrance for the dying river. For the river, the god, the prophet which was filled with human filth… some relief in the form of fragrance. I followed the ritual the next day when we visited the island again, to talk to the caretaker faqeer (a holy man). I closed my eyes, offered the river fragrant rose petals, and prayed for her healing.
At the asthana, the faqeer refused to talk about Khwaja and kept saying everything was written on the qatba outside.
A nabi, a god, a saviour, a navigator, a river— and everything about him was contained in a few sentences?
I felt fulfilled by my ritual at the asthana, and did not dig further.
*
Jhule Lal Temple
Babla Ram, the sweet man who says Alai Salam after Khwaja Khizr’s name, agrees to sit down and speak to me. I want to know stories about Jhule Lal. He starts telling one about a mohana whose boat was drowning, but then he stands up again and excuses himself, saying he agreed to talk but it just struck him that it’s Friday and there is a pooja at night. He invites us to come.
It is a dream come true. I had always heard of rituals at the river, but this would be my first time attending one.
At 9pm at night, we return to the mandir. There is music. People are sitting in the hall, facing the huge statue of Khwaja Khizr sitting on the palla macchi, ruling the river. Palla macchi, which is Khwaja’s mode of transport (they say), doesn’t reach the waters of Sukkur anymore, thanks to the Kotri barrage. The sight takes me back to the conversations with mallahs from two days ago; they told me how, when there were hundreds of boats, everyone was catching palla, and it was the most expensive fish. Palla was like man o salwa for the Sindhis, and travelled all the way from the Arabian Sea to unite with the murshid in Sukkur.
As one mallah said, “Palla ke ta’beer apne murshid Khwaja Khizr ke pas Sukkur main hoti hai.” A palla reaches its final form only when it reaches its God near Sukkur, Khwaja Khizr.
I see the river god sitting on a fish which does not live in the river anymore. I ask myself: what about the god? Is he still there in the river? Or has he moved too, like the Mallahs?
But then, the night is filled with songs praising Darya Shah. It is soothing; it is spiritual; it affirms my feelings of treating the river as a living being. For me, it started with the glaciers. The ones I have been visiting and trekking on for many years. With time, they have started to feel alive, sometimes growing, sometimes receding. The Raikot glacier of the naked Nanga Parbat, my eyes say it has receded with time… the Ghulkin glacier, where I live half the year, I have seen transform with its walls breaking, crumbling, deteriorating. Within one week’s gap, the course to cross it changes. I have seen thick walls turn to hollow tunnels, I have seen the tunnels fall to pieces. Maybe it’s all a natural speed…. But no. For years I have crossed glaciers to reach the remotest of places. I can see past the size and history of each glacier marked on the mountain itself. Yes, they are meant to melt, but glaciers are more than the singular story of just melting…
Still they breathe, they arrive, they heal, they break, they retrieve, and they talk. “Glaciers are wild beasts… They breathe… they move… they rule[d].. they struggle.” *
(*from The Secret Lives of Glaciers by M. Jackson)Every time I step on a glacier, I have a ritual of asking permission in my mind. And every time I cross it, I apologize for the destruction this world has chosen for them.
The ritual of the pooja, then, was the right channel for me to connect with the living god – the river. I did not feel like a stranger there, and they made sure I did not feel like one. If anything, the ritual felt like a homecoming. Having grown up in a Shia community, that night felt a lot like one in my village 94-6/R on the 7th of Muharram, carrying Qasim’s mehndi with the diyas and charhaway on the chowkis. The burning lamps were being swirled in circles in front of the lord of the water sitting on his palla; a dholki was beating with steel percussions; and the songs and bhajans were being sung by everyone in full force.
When they opened the windows of the hall, you could see the dark waters of the Sindhu, and Khwaja Khizr’s asthana in the middle. The fire lamp swirled in circles facing Khwaja/Darya Shah/Sindhu, the chanting got louder, and the crowd moved into the next room which was filled with more framed photos and smaller gold statues of Jhule Lal. Finally, the crowd moved to the main mandir, which was under construction, and then to the mysterious basement, where there was water.
They say that the water in the basement rises and falls according to the rise and fall of the Sindhu. When the Hindus abandoned the asthana for various reasons, the river moved with them, and showed up in the basement, blessing their relocation with its own journey.
The day before, one of the devotees had told us that it is Khwaja Khizr himself who tells his people what to do: “Jab inn ka hukm ho tou hum darya chorr ke kinaare pe aagaye. Saeen pehlay bathroom wahaan tha, phir saeen ne hum ko bataya issko side pe karo, aur ab bathroom yahan hai!” When he ordered us to do so, we left the river and came to its banks. Before, the bathroom was over there. But then he told us to build it on the side, so now the bathroom is here!
After the basement ritual, came the one I had been waiting for anxiously—the ritual by the river. A devotee told me that in the past, instead of the five-minute walk we were taking, even in the winters, the river used to be just across the road. They could do the rituals from the stairs; the water would be close enough. But now, “Darya sookh raha hai.” The river is drying.
I thought of what chacha had said, “Darya sukh jaaway tou qayamat hai na saeen.” If the river dries, isn’t it doomsday?
Barefeet, we walked towards the river, the dholak beating and young men singing with their full strength. Women followed the procession. At last we were facing Sindhu, the great provider, home to Jhule Lal.
Offering my heart, I conversed with Darya Shah.
And then food was offered to the god. Fruits, rice, daal. The god’s sacred water was sprinkled on us. Seeing this took me back to the morning’s visit to my favourite mandir in Pakistan, Sadh Belo, standing tall in the middle of the Sindhu. I had spoken to Ashok ji and asked him about the Sadh’s connection with the Sindhu. And he had said that most pilgrims chose the riverbanks for spiritual reasons, and showed me a painting of a great meeting of sadhus at the banks of the river.
When I asked him about the mandir’s connection with Jhule Lal, he smiled and said, “Saeen ye jo langar banta hai har roz sab se pehle darya ke nazr kiya jata hai jhule lal ke nagri main phir panchi ko diya jata hai iske baad insaanon ka haq hai is langar pe.” The food which is prepared everyday, first of all, is offered to the river in the realm of Jhule Lal, then to the birds, and in the end to the visitors of the temple.
At the pooja, too, the langar was being offered to the Sindhu, to Khwaja Khizr/Jhule Lal, while the chowkis with oil lamps were respectfully floating away on the water. There they went, fading into the dark, as someone started reciting a prayer in Urdu. I closed my eyes, trying to communicate with Sindhu Ma. The voices in the background were fading, and I moved further into the water, dipping my feet with a question:
“Will you heal?”
There was no answer and the praying voice of Babla Ram came back to me: “Hindu dharam, musalmanon aur panchi ke raksha kar.” Protect Hindus, Muslims, and birds, O Lord.”
He was asking the dying river to protect all of us. Sindhu has been providing for centuries, but now it demands some giving back from us.
Are we ready to give back? The thought stirs me. The Sindhu in my feet is cold, and saying something which I cannot understand. I bow down to touch the river god.
“May you heal, and may the capitalist world collapse to its core.”
I go back unanswered.
Ahmed is a writer and traveller whose long-term project Darya Panth (Path of the River) follows the Sindhu (Indus) through essays and travelogues. For over a decade, he has walked with the river and lived with her people, bearing witness to their struggles with climate change, dams, migration, and eroding livelihoods, while also recording the myths, rituals, and oral traditions that keep the Sindhu alive in memory.Back home, he is a co-producer and field sound recordist for Amrit Pyala, a project of wandering, recording, filming, and documenting Sufi and Bhakti music. With this project, they hope to offer a different imagination of our past, present, and future in light of the rising violence in the name of religion in both India and Pakistan.
Ahmed also co-runs Khanabadosh Baithak—a commune space. The word Khanabadosh comes from khana (home) and badosh (on the shoulder). This commune is also a gathering (baithak) for artists, musicians, dreamers, and do-ers; where stories are told through travel interspersed with writing, drawing, music, film, design, and performance arts.