Dastan-e-Dilli

Travelling back to the Delhi of the 60s when summers meant regattas, orchards, and simple joys

- Sohail Hashmi

Enjoying the hot summers in Delhi, till as recently as the early or mid-1960s, a mere 60 years ago, used to be very different from how we see the summers today.

For one thing, the natural and artificial lakes and ponds, the Jamuna, and all of its tributary streams, called “nalas,” still had relatively unpolluted water and supported a large variety of fish, providing excellent opportunities for activities around the water bodies.

This was before we had three consecutive crop failures and had to import American wheat, which brought the parthenium and water hyacinth spores. The latter was to clog our lakes, ponds, rivers and streams, including the Jamuna, at several barrages in the following decades. Meanwhile, parthenium spread over the land as a noxious weed playing havoc with our natural vegetation.

The city and its population continued to grow, and the wastewater from unplanned residential and factory areas flowing directly into these water bodies succeeded in polluting and eventually killing all the tributary nalas and the Jamuna.

But before all that happened, the Najafgarh Nala had water flowing. My old friend, Vijay Kalia, who was to get actively involved with the Jan Natya Manch, used to while away his summer vacations fishing in the Nala. Fishing also happened at several points all along the course of the Jamuna as it did at Jahangirpuri, Naraina Jheel, the Shahdara Jheel, the Model Town Jheel, Neeli Jheel, Chiragh Dilli Nala, Barapullah Nala, Okhla Barrage and in scores of other natural and artificial water bodies spread across the city.