As the thick cover of dirty yellow and pale orange almost blocks the morning sun from shining through the window on the left wall of Sikander's two-room hut, he shifts on his cot that creeks with every slight movement. These last few years have been hard on him. Waking up each morning is no longer as mechanical and easy as it used to be. No morning does he sit up straight on his bed like he once used to, as an excruciating pain ripples through his limbs and joints. The first time it happened was during the winter and so he convinced himself that it was due to the cold, but as months turned into years the pain became a frequent visitor, until last year when it became his permanent roommate. Lying on the bed he rubbed his legs while his eyes wandered over the nylon fishnet hanging from a rusted nail on the door. Compared to every other thing in the shabby hut, this was the one thing that stood out amongst Sikander's possessions. He had received this in dowry from his in-laws. Though the net had aged, Sikander had tried his best to keep it in shape by adding new strings to places that had worn out with time. Gazing at the fishnet he remembered the days when that net caught for him catches that did easily for a week's expenses something which had lately become a rarity.
Climbing out of the cot, he wrapped a lungi around his waist and proceeded to take his net and a pack of bidhis before he headed out to the Yamuna to bathe and fish. Dusting the net for any dust that might have gathered over it overnight, Sikander swung it over his shoulder and headed out. The scent of fresh cow dung from the cowsheds of the neighbouring houses managed to pierce the overbearing stench of a yellow haze. It was the month of August and the weather was still pretty warm. The road from Sikander's hut to the Yamuna was lined with huts on both sides with small patches of trees and grass that could survive the raining ashes. A shortcut to the city that lay beyond the river, the road would sometimes have motorbikes and tractors pass through the village covering the already grey leaves with a fresh coat of dust. The sky was in its usual grey with patches of blue peeping through it. Lighting his bidhi, Sikander took in a deep long puff and began walking down the muddy road that led to the Yamuna which was not more than a mile away. Trails of urine from the cow sheds coursed through the road forming small puddles in every ditch that the road had. Sikander's gait had morphed quite a bit in the last couple of years, and he moved as if there were no joints in his legs. Despite his love for cows and their sacred urine that he would gladly bathe with when his pain became unbearable, Sikander was not short of cuss words for the animal if his feet got soiled with that same urine while walking on the road leading to the river. "Stupid cows, where am I supposed to wash my feet now!" he would shout at them shaking his feet to dry them.
The Yamuna passed through the north-east end of the village of Wazirabad as it entered Delhi to travel 22 kilometres from Haryana. With around 18 drains pumping the river with chemicals and waste as soon as it entered Delhi; the Yamuna skirted through the periphery of the village transforming itself from an emerald blue to slimy black. Sikander continued down the path puffing on his bidhi as he took a final right to walk past the low-lying huts preceding the bank of the river. The village had started to come to life as could be seen with the women milking the cows and crouching men rubbing miswak on their teeth. Apart from the dust and haze that was almost like an eternal fog, Sikander could feel a distinct heaviness as he breathed. He would sometimes cough for a long period of time making him breathless and would then suck on the bidhi harder as if the oxygen that he needed was buried in it and not in the air. In a distance, the sounds of machines waking up and generators kicking in could be heard as Sikander reached closer to the river.
Like other men of the village, Sikander upon reaching the bank of the river found a sneaky spot beside it and sat down to defecate. A sharp sting of pain coursed through his legs as he began to sit causing him to grind on his yellowed teeth to prevent a scream from escaping his mouth. Staying in the same position until the pain subsided, Sikander lit another of his bidhis. Making sure that no one was around and that his legs would not give up on him midway he put his net on the top of a halfdead shrub, lifted his lungi and began to lighten himself. Sitting there and drawing in on his bidhi his mind wondered to how he was supposed to attempt today's catch.
"Have I been staying closer to the bank lately? The fishes were not such a rarity here until recently," he thought as he drew in. The burning of the back of his throat was a welcome change to the constant suffocation that choked him when he was not smoking. "Maybe I am not going deeper into the river to cast the net. I think I have been staying in my comfort zone for way too long. I am not letting this pain pull me down. I am going to cast it further into the river. I just might get lucky," he hoped cupping the bidhi in his hands to take a final heavy puff from it before rubbing it down on the ground. Having defecated, he stood up slowly, easing into the motion, letting his legs adapt to the new position as he walked towards the river to take a bath.
Sikander and his family had always believed in the sanctity of the Yamuna. "It cleans you from all your sins and opens your path to heaven," his mother used to tell him. It was this very belief that his wife had internalised as well and so bathed in the waters of Yamuna each day during her period of pregnancy. Washing herself and drinking the water of the sacred river, she thanked the goddess for placing a child in her womb. Even on the day of her delivery she urged Sikander to take her to the river before they went to the government hospital but was silenced by Sikander. On the day of her delivery, the doctor informed Sikander and his family that God was a little too eager to meet his child and wife a little too early. As he spread the ashes of his wife in the same river, he made a vow to never miss a day to bathe in it no matter how much his joints hurt. Washing himself in the river with soap, Sikander took three dips in it, opening his eyes to a world that was dark and greasy. He came out of the river chanting some mantras and took the fishing net from the shrub that he had kept it on. Placing it over his shoulder Sikander walked into the Yamuna once again. His feet would fall out of balance as he slipped on God knows what that lay on the river bed, in his attempts to cast the net farther and deeper into it. After a good fifteen minutes of struggling with the net and the slithery waters of the Yamuna, he was finally able to cast the net and taking a line along with him out of the water Sikander sat on the bank and waited. More people came out of the water and setting their traps in the river, some at the same place that they always did, while others trying their luck by shifting a little from their usual places.
All that was left to do was to wait now, something Sikander and others had grown used to. "How are you feeling today? How is that pain of yours?" came a familiar voice from the right of where Sikander had been sitting. "Baldev, my friend. I am good…good. How are you?" Sikander replied happy to see someone he could talk to. Baldev, forty was a father of two just a couple of years younger to Sikander.
Sikander and Baldev had bonded over the difficulties of life. It was Baldev who had helped him in the worst of his time and Sikander always felt indebted to him. "How is your little one doing, Baldev? Are his fits fine now?" Sikander asked holding on to the rope of his net to prevent it from flowing away with the current. "They have become less frequent that's the best I know of. I don't bother much about him. His mother brought him to this world, she is the one to look after that kid now," Baldev answered with a straight face. "You dumbass Sikander. Didn't you have something better to ask him about? The weather, his cows, anything but this," Sikander chided himself in his head realising that he had hit a raw nerve. Knowing no other way to handle the situation, Sikander took out a packet of khaini and started to rub it between his palms. The fog seemed to have lifted a little and the smoke from the chimneys of the factories on the other end of the river could be now seen snaking away into the sky. Taking out the chuna from the packet Sikander added it to the mixture on his palm and made two equal balls out of it. Throwing the packet into the river, he offered one of the balls to Baldev while he took the other one and placed in between his lower lip and teeth. "How has your catch been off lately?" Baldev asked after a considerable amount of time, while he sucked on the khaini. "Should I tell him the truth or not? I don't want to sound like a loser. I hate sympathy," Sikander thought before replying, "It's been fine. I hope we have a good one today as well." Baldev nodded and they both waited there, humming Bollywood songs from the 80s till noon. It was around one in the afternoon that Sikander's stomach began to grumble. He hadn't had anything since last night and there was almost nothing back home that he could eat. His monetary reserves had also depleted due to the lack of business in the last couple of days. Baldev by now had started to get up and pull out his net from the river. "It's shit again today," he said kicking his net and crouching down to light a bidhi. "Don't worry re Baldev. Tomorrow will be better," Sikander tried calming him down while masking the grumbling of his stomach with his voice. Baldev sat there in silence digging his feet into the bank of the river lost in thought. He broke out of his reverie with the bidhi burning his lip, "Aaah… bloody hell." Sikander watched Baldev stand up and stare at the pile of garbage and shit that was caught in his net who kicked the pile of plastic and shit in his net and dumped it back into the river and proceeded to wash the net. Wrapping it around his arm he began heading home only to stop and ask Sikander if he would like to accompany him. "Why don't you come home with me? Lunch would also be ready by now and we could have a game of cards as well," Baldev proposed. The idea of having a free lunch was almost mouth-watering for Sikander but he did not want to sound as if he was desperate and could not even afford a meal for himself. "I have lunch already prepared at home Baldev. I am sorry. Let's do it some other time, shall we?" Sikander excused himself. "Hmm," Baldev grunted and walked back home.
Sikander waited there for a while until he was sure that Baldev would have reached his home and then proceeded to retract the net from the river. As he pulled out the net, he could feel a slight resistance and the weight a little heavier. All the pain of his legs and the churning of his stomach vanished in the hopes of finding a good catch. He had finally found a moment of happiness in the entirety of the day. "Has the curse broken? This ought to be a big catch. I can feel it!" he murmured chewing on the khaini pulling the net out of the river with a smile that like the one on the face of someone who has not had food for days and now has finally hit a jackpot. This happiness, however, was short-lived. As soon as the net came out of the water his smile reduced to a thin line. Spitting out the khaini he was chewing into the river, Sikander's anger finally surfaced, "What is the point of trying to fish here anymore! All that is caught in my net is filth. There is nothing more than the garbage that comes out of fishing here. What good does praying to you do when you can't even give me something to eat? Every day I come here to pray to you, but you reward me with stupid garbage and shit. Is that all I am worthy of!! You are supposed to take away our suffering but all you have done is make things worse. I am sure I will earn more selling all this garbage than waiting for you to help me catch a fish!" Once he was done with his rant, Sikander sat on a nearby rock and thought about what had just happened. "It's not that bad of a plan," he told himself. "There might not be fishes but there is, sure enough, a lot of garbage around here."
The garbage from the river became his consolation. As they say capitalise on what you have, thus where everyone was searching for fishes who had long abandoned the river Sikander began collecting the one thing that the Yamuna had in abundance.