Death of a lifeline

The kingfisher was sitting lonely in the gathering dusk on a dead branch sticking out of tar black water. Our handkerchiefs were proving too inadequate to keep the stench out of our nostrils. With each stroke of the oar, a thick liquid similar to burnt lube oil splashed up. The sound of the oar was blunt and heavy, like hitting mud with a stick.

We were surprised at the kingfisher -- the first sighting of any bird that depends on water for survival. It means there must be fish too in this muck that we still call a river -- Buriganga. Our hope evaporated soon as the kingfisher dived and picked up an insect, looking like the ones you find in your septic tank. When fish is gone, sewage insects are the only feed.

For the last three hours we have been sailing through a river that resembles nothing but pure muck. From Bosila Ghat near the under-construction Third Buriganga Bridge up to as far as you may go towards Munshiganj, the river is just a flowing black sheet of sewage. The stench only increased when the propeller of passing barges whipped up the 'water'. The Buriganga river today is the most stunning monument to an environmental disaster where no vertebrate life form survives. It is a river without fish and water.