Cancer courses through the Ghaggar

Suresh Kumar’s eyes sparkle as he recalls his childhood days spent in the Ghaggar river’s clear waters, catching fish, and soaking up the sun with friends. “We’d spot fish swimming; it was crystal clear,” he exclaims, still in awe. This was back when the intermittent, monsoon-fed river was the heartbeat of Mallewala village in Haryana’s Sirsa, around 250 kilometres west of Delhi.

Staying a stone’s throw away from the river that primarily flows through parts of Haryana and Punjab, Kumar, a primary school teacher in his late 40s, remembers Ghaggar once buzzing with life: kids bathing, women washing clothes, and farmers leading their animals to drink from its waters. His college friends would marvel at the river’s beauty when they’d visit him from Hisar and he’d take them on impromptu boating trips.