LAHORE, Pakistan – Abuzar Madhu sits by the Ravi, a storied river that begins in the Himalayas of northern India and crosses into Pakistan. Madhu, an artist and environmental activist, embraces an ancient South Asian tradition of river worship. "She's a mother," Madhu says. "She's also a God."
Ships once sailed the broad and wide Ravi. Hindu and Muslim saints lived by the banks and people still worship at shrines built in their honor. But the river flowing past Madhu is not the Ravi of history. It is now a stinking, dirty ribbon flowing between dusty banks, a dump for industry, agriculture and sewage, one of the world's most polluted bodies of water.
