Channeling the Lata Mangeshkar/Mukesh song “Paani re Paani,” which asks

O Water, what color are you?

The reply: Whatever you mix me with, that is my color.

The song goes on: Some people in this world live by eating dry food and drinking cold water. One sip of you leads one to find heaven.

O Water, what color are you? I am like the hunger and thirst of one who is deprived of sustenance.

When you are mixed with the Ganga, you become holy. When you mix with the clouds, you become rainfall. The monsoon has come, and the rain dances rhythmically, almost like it has been adorned in fire. Thus is my youth melting. Somewhere, life has been made miserable by a leaking roof.

O Water, what color are you? It is the same as the One who created this world.

Whichever color you are mixed with, your presence glows. But when you wash away a person’s hopes, then your color becomes unfathomable, just like a blooming flower that remembers autumn is coming.

O Water, what color are you? I am like the hope of living a hundred years.

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For the people of the tattered tents and shattered windows in this apocalyptic storm:

Paani re Paani, what is your plan?

Have these people of faith not suffered enough?

At some point, we must refuse the fist of fate

It is not piety to refuse to mend what you have rended

It is not divine to bring down such a strong people.

Paani re Paani, Shiva has removed Ganga from His locks

And you have become a deluge of psychic material

Consciousness without the room for reflection

And the evil ones rejoice in such a confluence

Of nature’s imbalance with unchecked savagery.

Paani re Paani, does it matter that we are in anguish?

Or have we forever lost the right to appease you?

Do you hear our pleas above your own roar anymore?

Do you see how the innocent suffer for the sins of the wicked?

Why sing of Govardhan if we have lost all right to shelter?

Paani re Paani, for them, I will keep my beliefs

I beseech you to take on the color of calm

I invite you to lap at the edges of our consciousness

I join you in purifying our actions

Let us wash peace and justice onto the shores of the besieged.

Radha.