Rising Shiva’s abode

From melt water
In the Himalayas
At Gangotrig we see
The mighty Ganga
Rise up on its journey to the sea
Through Bangladesh and India
This tumultuous display
Rolling ever onwards
To the great Bengal bay

Surrounded by so many people
1600 miles
At depths up to one hundred feet
Tribulations yes and trials
A great tran-boundary river
Holier than thou
Taken on the wretchedness
Of the thousands asking how
159 million litres
Of faeces from one drain
One billion gallons everyday
It just sounds insane

Unwholesomeness personified
Contagion infectivity
Insalubrious rat-infested
Carcinogenic and filthy
Nothing being monitored
Hospital waste and all
Heavy metals corrsosive forces
The pollution does appal

Pesticides and chlorofluorocarbons
Everything that can
Damage human systems
Ever since time it began
And in this massive medium
The people come to pray
To wash to bathe
To fish to die
Every single day

Practising their Moksha
On the kasi steps
They wait
And there the bodies laden
On these ghats they do cremate
Set alight a toe
And throw
The bodies thats their way
And their soul completes its journey
On any given day

“Dilution is a solution
To pollution” but sadly
Despite all of the promises
No one seems to be
Getting on with cleaning up the river
Any more
Its really filthy dirty
Filled up with blood and gore

They want to introduce turtles
Those that do eat meat
For all of those dead bodies
Out there in all the heat
I think you can imagine
The stench that people feel
And the dangers that are rising
From the perils that are real

And there is so much dishonesty
And corruption everywhere
No monitoring of poisons
Chemicals that scare
The living daylights out of us
All of it tipped into
The holy river Ganga
The goddess mother who
Protects who wondrous children
And keeps them all in view