The Lost River Poem by Asit Kumar Sanyal

Three sacred rivers found in ancient India
Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati,
one died, one dying and one will die
within thousand years
the lost river is Saraswati
she disappeared in the age of Puranas
several thousand years before Christ's birth
now she is a myth
Rig Veda says in its hymes
Saraswati was the mighty river
and life line of the country
modern science says
she was the mother of Indian civilization.

Saraswati died but not forgotten
geologists, climatologists, archaeologists
naturalists, educators, administrators
civil and military officials, individuals
from India and abroad
trying to find out her early path of flow
from eighteenth century
they surveyed her left out paths
drilled her abandoned beds
and tested underground sediments
they analyzed satellite photographs too
and traced the location of ‘mystic river'
including the civilization watered by it.

She flown between Yamuna and Sutlej
from shivalik to Arabian sea
through banawali, Hanumangarh,
kalibangan, anupgarh, marrot
the seven sistered Sarasvati
was young when Rig Veda composed
and started dying
when Mahabharat was getting its shape
draught, earthquake and natural calamities
compelled the tributaries to left her
and feeder rivers to changed their courses
it's the reason she lost flow
started dying like today's Yamuna
first she disappeared at Vinashana
became broken from unbroken
and later her central basin gone dry
turned into seasonal river
renamed as Ghaggar, Hakra, Sarsuti ….