The Kali Bein too used to be a river. Guru Nanak bathed in it everyday for 15 years until one day, having surfaced from the river; he felt a deep churning and disappeared into the forests for three days. When he returned, he was ready to lay the foundations of Sikhism. In that time, the Kali Bein was alive. Then one day, in dustrialisation killed it.
The holy river in Sultanpur Lodi, a little distance away from Jalandhar, went on a rapid degeneration spiral in the 1960s. The river battled effluents and garbage, it battled mankind’s disrespect and it battled the apathy of administration In the ’90s it lost the fight. By then, Nanak’s river had turned into a gutter no spirit, only squalor.
Those who had watched Kali Bein's miserable capitulation were either without care or hope except one man Balbir Singh Seechewal. A college dropout, Seechewal had already given up the material world for “environmental spiritualism” and was known in the region as ‘Rodda wala Baba’ (Saint of the Roads) for his missionary zeal to make pathways and connect people When he heard of the river’s plight, he volunteered to battle on its behalf.
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