Dear readers,

This edition of Question of Cities flows from our last one, much like the rivers and their rhythms that we highlighted. “There was a time when people asked ‘which river do you come from’ instead of names,” goes a line in a verse while another asks, “Who will remind us this is home?” We have poetry on rivers and cities, we take a long hard look at why the Mithi in Mumbai is still choked and silted 20 years after the devastating floods, we walk down the Hooghly memory lane, and we bring you voices on the Yamuna in Delhi and the Tietê in São Paulo. The urgency to reimagine the place of rivers in our cities, recognise their ecology, and restore them has never been greater. This edition of Question of Cities bears witness.

The lead essay by QoC Founder Editor Smruti Koppikar and Multimedia Journalist Jashvitha Dhagey traces the Mithi as it winds through the city of Mumbai. Twenty years after the July 2005 deluge in Mumbai, the Mithi, pivotal to drain the rain, is still choked, silted and disconnected from the city despite thousands of crores spent to clean it, build embankment walls and sewage treatment plants. Slum rehabilitation is a distance away, the Supreme Court committee recommendation of a 50-metre buffer zone has gone unheeded, and construction continues. What lies at the core is Mumbai’s land-water relationship. The Mithi has been restricted by design. It must be recognised as a river with a thriving ecosystem and made ecologically sustainable. Read it here.

The iconic river, Hooghly, immortalised in cinema, songs and art, hardly has a happy relationship with the city, writes independent journalist Anasuya Basu. Visible for barely 1.5 kilometres, its banks and the ghats have garbage, debris, faecal matter, crumbling structures of the British era, derelict factories. Only the working-class people commuting by ferries and street dwellers use the Hooghly; the rest of Kolkata merely passes by it. Plans to clean and develop its banks are many but the government’s piecemeal approach means the river’s disconnect with the city continues. It’s as if the Hooghly hides in shame. Read it here.

“The Mithi,” wrote the legendary poet Eunice D’souza, “will carry you on a raft of garbage to a dying sea.” As rivers in our cities turn into receptacles of waste and victims of poor planning, the loss of what they meant to us and the nature, the pain of watching them become ghosts of themselves, and the imagination to see them anew is captured by five poets in this mini anthology curated by poet, editor, and educator Yashasvi Vachhani with verse by Ishan Sadwelkar, Athira Unni, Aswin Vijayan, Kinjal Sethia, Pervin Saket, and illustrations by QoC’s Nikeita Saraf. What we have done to our rivers might be a reflection of what we have done to the world and to one another. Read it here.

The Yamuna is being choked, artificial grass is being watered with ground water, ornamental plants and bamboo trees planted, the riverbank has red coarse sand, and of course, construction continues on the floodplains. “If you let a river flow, it will repair itself. The Yamuna cleans itself every monsoon but things go back to square one after these two months,” says well-regarded environmental activist Bhim Singh Rawat in this interview, calling for a consistent bottom-up approach and independent committees for the river’s restoration. Read it here.

São Paulo and Mumbai are similar in that the cities have seen massive urbanisation at the cost of rivers. The Tietê and Pinheiros rivers, in the Brazilian city, and the Mithi in Mumbai are choked by myopic policies and apathy. “We need to move beyond the utilitarian vision and ask ourselves, what is the role that rivers can play as active participants in the city…rivers can be choreographed and managed, but not controlled and dominated,” says Ecuadorian architect Felipe Correa, who visited and studied the Mithi, in an interview to Question of Cities. Read it here.

In our regular News Digest, read about curated items from across the world, including the ecological cost of the mining project in Chhattisgarh’s Hasdeo; International Court of Justice urges wealthy countries to comply with treaties or pay up; China records rise in hot days.

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Thank you,
Shobha
July 25, 2025