ENVIRONMENT

A RIVER In Distress 

By: Nasser Yousaf

Da Landai uba hagha ganra Khushala

Che yadegi pa Janat ke jooey da sheer

(O Khushal treat the water of Landai as the one

 Which is referred to as the milk in a stream in the heaven)

(Khushal Khan Khattak)

Pashtun warrior poet Khushal Khan lived in the 17th century in Akora Khattak, not far from the River Kabul. The verse quoted above from one of his poems is thus more than 300 years old. 

Landai is a pet name for the River Kabul. People in the riparian villages and towns in the erstwhile Frontier lovingly call River Kabul as Landai. 

River Kabul springs from the Tirich Mir mountains in Chitral. It traverses the picturesque Chitral valley before its ingress in Afghanistan at Arandu. Till this point, the River is named after Chitral.

Crisscrossing the length of Afghanistan, the river gets its popular name after the capital city of Kabul. Carrying myriad stories in its lap enroute its tumultuous journey, River Kabul re-enters the Pakistani territory at Shalman in the tribal area of Khyber.

At Shalman the river suddenly comes to a standstill as if for a breather and to ponder the journey ahead. The encounter with the river at this point is breathtaking. 

During a visit to Shalman one found a flood of colours across the river on the Afghan side. Poppy crop was in full bloom.and ripe for harvest. 

Incidentally, the defunct Soviet Union during its invasion of Afghanistan had chosen both Arandu and Shalman, the exit from and reentry of the river from Pakistan, for aerial bombardment.

Every few days during the conflict with the Afghan fighters, Soviet planes would intrude into the Pakistani airspace and pound the two places with impunity.

But we were talking of the River Kabul and its long journey ahead. 

Unfortunately, It's not known since how long has this river been flowing on its present route. Nevertheless, we know about its trajectory since the times Khushal lived in its vicinity. 

Khushal used to swim in it also. In a word, Khushal was the river and the river was Khushal (Khushal means happy). No wonder then that Khushal called the water of River Kabul as heavenly milk.

Considering the fact that the water had flowed from the Tirich Mir mountains, also called the abode of fairies, Khushal's metaphor could not be said to be farfetched.

The water must have been in its pristine state for pretty long. But as we find it now in the areas where it is called Landai, River Kabul appears to be in distress. 

In fact, the river is but a shadow of its glorious past. Greedy hoteliers and land grabbers have turned the river into a garbage dump. One could literally see waste from septic tanks flowing into the river.

We hear that there is an authority for the protection of rivers in Pakistan. If so, this authority like many other authorities including of course the health regulatory authorities has miserably failed in the discharge of its assigned job. 

Tirich Mir Chitral pictures by Taj Chitrali

River Kabul pictures as it flows through Nowshera by Tariq Kachkol