Then, there was the view of the actual river. There's nothing to be proud of, Bombay. Call it eyesore, swollen gutter, nullah to nowhere, anything that suits the season, really. We might as well build shanties, glass façade offices or apartments [whatever springs up quicker] over the last remaining exposed parts of the water body. I shudder to imagine what might become of this area in the next five years, or if we believe Greta Thunberg, even sooner.

Monday and Tuesday had passed, by Wednesday the drive on the connector drilled home the point even more. I spotted landfills as big as football grounds on the BKC side of the connector; here, cranes and contractors whirred around doing their jobs. Life seemed to be carrying on as if it was just another day. Climate change can wait.

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Sometime back, I came across an interesting extract about this area in Heritage of Mount Mary Bandra, a book by Monsignor Francis Correa. Here, he explains in detail about a time almost a couple of centuries ago, when vessels would move about along the river from the harbour of Bandra. The polluted slushy stream that we see today has phased out the brooks that gushed down the slopes of the Mahakali, Marol, Kurla and Ghatkopar hills, and even from the slopes of the hills in faraway Powai. Water at high tide rose high enough to enter the flow of this river. The sweet water thus used to turn salty and this flow was known as the 'Mithi' river (from a Marathi context, not Hindi), referring to the nature of the water that is salty and not sweet (meet: salt in Marathi).

By Thursday, when this extract came back to mind, it was like rubbing salt on our wounds (pun fully intended). In fact, the stench worsened on the return ride home. As if the river with no voice was trying to send out a signal to the harried commuter zipping past above her, and by default, to her city. It was her home ground before anyone else's, remember?

By Friday, I tried a bit of Utopian imagery as a possible distraction. Imagine a riverside promenade that would line the stretch all the way up to Mahim Creek, where one could buy fresh catch, straight from a fisherman, and have it cooked on a boat kitchen as it set sail down the river. No stench, only savoury aromas. Allepey and Kumarakom have been celebrating their backwaters for decades, why can't we do the same with our salty river?

And by Saturday, I had exhausted every trick in the book as we climbed the connector. Then, like a sign, I spotted a massive flock of egrets rise like a carpet of white over a marshy isle in the middle of the river. They soared skyward unfazed by the glasshouse buildings and concrete universe around them. They had survived this mindless onslaught, and the Mithi was still their sanctuary. In that frame lay a message – the Mithi is our lifeline, and we as a city ought to keep whatever that's left of her safe before she goes under, forever.

mid-day's Features Editor Fiona Fernandez relishes the city's sights, sounds, smells and stones...wherever the ink and the inclination takes her. She tweets @bombayana
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