Cancer courses through the Ghaggar

Suresh Kumar’s eyes shine as he recalls his childhood days spent catching fish in the clear waters of the Ghaggar river and sunbathing with friends. “We could see fish swimming; everything was crystal clear,” he exclaims, still in awe. This was a time when the intermittently monsoon-fed river was the heartbeat of Mallewala village in Haryana’s Sirsa, about 250 kilometers west of Delhi.

Located a stone’s throw from the river, which flows mostly through parts of Haryana and Punjab, Kumar, a primary school teacher in his late 40s, remembers Ghaggar as once full of life: children bathed, women did laundry and farmers took their animals to drink its water. When his college friends came to visit him from the Citadel, they would marvel at the beauty of the river and he would take them on impromptu boat trips.

Watch: Cancer courses via Ghaggar

| Video Credits: Muhammad Almas, Shashi Shekhar Kashyap