Bagmati flows through the Kathmandu Valley, marking the boundaries of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. With many temples and holy shrines along its banks, the river is sacred for both Hindus and Buddhists and many people depend on it for their livelihood.
Bagmati stretches 19 miles within the valley. However, as the pristine Bagmati flows down from Sundarijal, in the north-east outskirts of the Valley, through the growing urbanscape of the capital city, it undergoes a rapid and unfortunate metamorphosis.
It turns into an unregulated dumping site. Everything is dumped into the Bagmati– from untreated domestic sewage to hazardous hospitals waste and unprocessed industrial discharge; from remains of slaughtered animals to wastes produced by landless squatters living in slums on its shores, everything gets dumped here without a second thought. The results of such blatant disregard for the lifeline of the city are hard to escape.
With what the modern civilization has done to it, the holiness of the Bagmati is questionable, as it exits the valley at Chobhar.
Bagmati flows through the Kathmandu Valley, marking the boundaries of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. With many temples and holy shrines along its banks, the river is sacred for both Hindus and Buddhists and many people depend on it for their livelihood.
Bagmati stretches 19 miles within the valley. However, as the pristine Bagmati flows down from Sundarijal, in the north-east outskirts of the Valley, through the growing urbanscape of the capital city, it undergoes a rapid and unfortunate metamorphosis.
It turns into an unregulated dumping site. Everything is dumped into the Bagmati– from untreated domestic sewage to hazardous hospitals waste and unprocessed industrial discharge; from remains of slaughtered animals to wastes produced by landless squatters living in slums on its shores, everything gets dumped here without a second thought. The results of such blatant disregard for the lifeline of the city are hard to escape.
With what the modern civilization has done to it, the holiness of the Bagmati is questionable, as it exits the valley at Chobhar.
Bagmati flows through the Kathmandu Valley, marking the boundaries of Kathmandu and Lalitpur. With many temples and holy shrines along its banks, the river is sacred for both Hindus and Buddhists and many people depend on it for their livelihood.
Bagmati stretches 19 miles within the valley. However, as the pristine Bagmati flows down from Sundarijal, in the north-east outskirts of the Valley, through the growing urbanscape of the capital city, it undergoes a rapid and unfortunate metamorphosis.
It turns into an unregulated dumping site. Everything is dumped into the Bagmati– from untreated domestic sewage to hazardous hospitals waste and unprocessed industrial discharge; from remains of slaughtered animals to wastes produced by landless squatters living in slums on its shores, everything gets dumped here without a second thought. The results of such blatant disregard for the lifeline of the city are hard to escape.
With what the modern civilization has done to it, the holiness of the Bagmati is questionable, as it exits the valley at Chobhar.
