Ravi: Flowing through poetry and pain

Col Satish Singh Lalotra

madhu28lalotra@gmail.com

Flowing through myriad names the kind of which most of Indians may not be even aware of viz, Vedic Parushni, Puranic Irvati, Greek Hydraotes, river Ravi is one such water body of our sub-continent which is arguably the most talked about, referred as well as venerated that meets its more than equal in the form of the Indus. It is not for nothing that the ubiquitous phrase-' Heth Vage Ravi Darya' or 'Below flows the river Ravi' became the sine quo non in most of the songs and stories of Punjab both past and contemporary. Most of the contemporary writers and poets of Punjabi language lament that Punjabis have always written poetry and even prose around their rivers that have been left back in Pakistan. Whereas Pakistan, on the other hand thinks most of the Punjab's rivers have been left back in India. This is true more so in case of river Ravi, unlike other rivers of the Indus basin.

The precursor to this write up of mine stemmed from my recent train journey ( Rajdhani Express) while coming back from my home town Jammu to Delhi and crossing the river Ravi that has been the traditional boundary between the erstwhile state of J&K and Punjab for centuries. The sight of still damaged Madhopur barrage on this river wrought by last year's torrential rains in August 2025 jolted me back to the stark realities of today's Geo-political situation as it confronts our sub-continent. The fact that Pakistani side of Punjab was as badly affected by this river's raging waves last monsoon as was the Indian side needs no elaboration. That river Ravi stood at the cross roads of all major historical events of this sub-continent dating back to the Indus valley civilization circa 3300-2800 BC, so central that the first phase of 'Harappan urban development' has been aptly named as 'Ravi phase' is in itself a statement that needs no further elucidation. The fact that even the British placed this water body in the 1846 'Treaty of Amritsar' as a vital geographical and political boundary to define the newly formed borders of the Dogra princely state of J&K under its suzerainty marking the region's official transition from Sikh rule to Dogra ownership underscores Ravi's relevance across myriad time lines. As if this was not enough, astounding discoveries talk of rosewood and deodar logs floating down the river 5000 years ago. Fish caught in its paleo channels forming an important part of the diet and surprisingly advanced urban development adapting to floods rather than merely fighting them, Ravi has much to offer to its admirers cutting across myriad time lines. The fall of urban Harappa is also traced to the decisive avulsion of the river away from the settlement. As river 'Parushni' in Rigveda, circa 1500 BC, Ravi's banks were the battleground for 'Dashrajna' or the war of the 'Ten kings'. Indira , the lord of the free flowing rivers is described as crossing the 'wooly foam' of Parushni. And even today, Gaddi shepherds set off on their long remembered migratory routes with wooly sheep along this river. Somewhere around 5th century BC, ancient grammarian 'Yaska' recorded that the Parushni of Rig-Veda is same as 'Iravati'. It is Iravati that is found in Ramayana and Mahabharata, where Sita found refuge in its forested banks. Yaksa says-'They call it Iravati as Parushni; a mountain river with a sinuous path'.

In the headwater forests deep in the valleys of Himachal Pradesh are found the conifer trees going by the name -'Rei', and hence the name of Ravi . In the 4th century BC, Alexander of Macedonia sailed the Ravi several times, forded it and as was his habit, drove the native tribes to a bloody battle. The Greeks recorded the river as 'Hydraotis' or Hyarotis at that time. If one goes further upstream in Himachal Pradesh , the headwaters of Ravi were always the lifeline of the relatively isolated Chamba kingdom. The river system connected high mountain passes and fierce deities with the capitals of Bharmour and Chamba. The ancient Manimahesh Kailash yatra still traces its origins from this venerated Ravi. In the 9th century , the 'Minjar' festival unique to the Chamba region began with the victorious king 'Sahil Varman' crossing the Ravi. Till date the festival commences with immersion of fragile 'Minjars' ( corn tassels) into the flow of Ravi . While coming down to the plains of Punjab, 16th century saw the rise of Sikhism on the banks of Ravi, with Guru Nanak sahib having spent 18 years here and established 'Kartarpur Sahib' on the right bank. It was only now after centuries that both India & Pakistan decided to step forward and put this sacred shrine of the Sikhs as a hallmark of 'religious tolerance' and 'sub-continental bonhomie 'across the 'Radcliff line'. Ravi was also the final resting place of Guru Arjan Dev who said-' A virtuous soul must be a courageous soul'. The 17th century saw some of the earliest canal systems on this river. 'Shah Nehr' which was later re-instituted as UBDC( Upper Bari Doab canal) was an extensive canal built on Ravi from the present Madhopur Barrage , which is visible as one crosses over from Jammu and Kashmir into Punjab. The ancient engineers knew better than to build a dam at a place where river deposited huge amounts of silt each monsoon. The broken Madhopur barrage which I mentioned in the previous paragraphs today stand testimony to this fact.

The 'Shah Nehr'( UBDC) took water over 150 kms to Lahore irrigating the Shalimar gardens, that are now a pride of place of Pakistan's urban landscape. The 'Shah Nehar' including various other canals of Ravi were not only for irrigation; they were a place for lovers meetings, immortalized in several Punjabi songs. One such place of historical importance on river Ravi was 'Pul Kanjri' , a bridge built by Mahraja Ranjit singh for his beloved. Lahore which now seldom sees water in its river ( Ravi) owing to the temporary scrapping of the IWT by India in the wake of last year's dastardly terrorist attack at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir was once a hub of progressive literature too. Works like Gulzar's short story 'Ravi Paar' ( across Ravi) , Amrita Pritam's 'Ajj Aakhan Waris Shah Nu' bear witness to the partition pain and consequent strife that followed. Poems of Punjab changed colour then, from love they spoke of separation as has been found written in the world famous book -'Train to Pakistan' a 'Pulitzer prize' winner book by the only one of its kind on the Punjabi literary firmament-Khushwant singh. His main protagonist of the story-'Jugga' epitomizes what both Punjabs (east & west) endured those horrendous times of partition. 'Akhtar Sheerani' who died in Lahore in September 1948 just weeks after partition wrote-' Kis rang ka hai Dariya-e-Attock, Ravi ka kinara kaisa hai'.

And today, after the long winding road through history of place and time, we have returned to square one. The headwaters of Ravi are fettered in cascade of hydropower projects. Yet these power projects are held hostage to the Geo- strategic brinkmanship as witnessed between the two Asian nuclear powers of India and Pakistan that remind us time and again-that these rivers of Punjab have long been extinct from their primary objective. The objective of being a 'primary care giver' to countless of its citizens who have made the banks of these rivers as their homeland. Though almost all major river systems of the world have innumerable stories hidden deep within their recesses impacting the mankind in ways yet to be deciphered, the countless stories which Ravi has been carrying through times of yore cannot be appropriated by a mere 78 years of conflict narrative between India and Pakistan. That I was prompted to write this column for the Daily excelsior has already been conveyed in the preceding paragraphs, but yet no write up will be ever complete on an important topic like Ravi, unless ended with the famous couplet of Allama Iqbal-' Kinare Ravi, sukoot-e-sham Mahav- e- sarod hai Ravi, Naa pooch mujhse jo hai kafiyat mere Dil ki.

(The writer is a retired army officer)