“When I was around 6, I remember going to Bagmati with a pot to fetch drinking water for our family. And I used to bathe here when I was 16. The water then was so clean!” reminisces Gopal Prasad Ghimire, 80, a resident of Bhaktapur. “Now, it is so disgusting I do not even want to touch it with my feet.”

 

 Back in 1940s, he remembers walking all the way from Bhaktapur to Pashupati to worship at the temple and just hang out with his friends. “I came here once every two days,” he recalls. Vehicles were extremely rare at the time, and Ghimire would rush to the road to see if one zoomed by. On foot, it took him an hour to reach Pashupatinath temple. “I used to gather 4-5 friends and we used to start at 4 am from Bhaktapur. We would be home by 8 am. Now, I try to come here once a month.”

 

 Kancha Shrestha, 72, who is originally from Ramechhap, migrated to Kathmandu in 1960. “At that time we used to wash our clothes using cooked ash mixed with water and take bath using red clay on the banks of Bagmati. Soaps were not available. Our clothes were clay dyed if we wanted some color in our clothing,” he says, remembering the “simpler times”.

 

 But, in recent times, unregulated ground water extraction for industrial and domestic purposes, along with unchecked waste disposal along the river bank, has greatly polluted the water of Bagmati. It has become unfit for human use and inimical for the survival of aquatic plants and animals.

 

 But there have of late also been some laudable clean-up efforts. With the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), local community clubs around Pashupati area are making an effort to clean up the sacred river. ADB’s ‘Bagmati River Basin Improvement Project’ focuses on better water resources management at the Bagmati River Basin. According to an ADB report, projected improvements include “an upstream water storage dam system to increase the river flow in the dry season and riverbed oxygenation weirs”.

 

 The Department of Irrigation has initiated the construction of a 24-meter high dam in Dhap area of Shivapuri. This dam is being constructed at the headwater of the Nagmati River, a tributary of the Bagmati River, in the Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park on the outskirts of Kathmandu.

 

 One community club involved in clean-up efforts of Bagmati in order to restore its recreational and cultural importance is the Nawa Amarkanteshor Youth Club-Pashupati.

 

 Treasurer of the club, Pralhad Lama, 29, says he grew up in the Pashupati area. Now he is a resident of the area around Guhyeshwari temple, a kilometer east of the Pashupatinath temple. “It was so clean before. Forget octogenarians! Even I remember swimming, taking bath and washing clothes in Bagmati. Now, there is no water to swim, just sewage.”

 

 But Lama says the condition is improving, “at least here in the Pashupati area due to our weekly cleaning efforts.” Lama’s club is involved in cleaning up the stretch of the river around Pashupati. (Other such clubs have the responsibility to clean up other sections of the river.)

 

 He grieves that even though there are fines for polluting Bagmati, some people still sneak at night to dump their waste into the river. “We need to somehow stop those polluting the river. Only then will the river become cleaner,” he says.