If water bodies around dwellings are dirty, it indicates that people living there are 'dirty', according to Centre for Science and Environment director, Anil Agarwal.

People are dirty in the sense that they produce effluents through their activities and dump the wastes in the river without a second thought, Agarwal said at the release of the supplement Gobar Times of the magazine Down to Earth.

The supplement meant for children would contain articles on environment, science and technology, and various Indian traditions. The first edition has been devoted to the neglect and degradation of rivers in the country, especially Yamuna, realization of their worth and an effort to see them as living entities.

Normally, cynics would be heard saying how the world talks nothing but gibberish. So, here is some more. But it is 'gobar-ish'----not gibberish. And this is not to run down anybody's brilliant, innovative, creative idea. Hang on to the suspense.

Gobarish is actually all about cowdung. Smell of earth…takes you back to your roots? "Be involved" because the propagators are a bunch of serious environment-friendly souls supremely concerned about the environment-the air we breathe, the water we drink…

The future is up for grabs. We are on the thin line between making it livable or the kingdom of choke. Now is the time to be gobar or be faced with waste and dry dust….

Lest you are wondering what this is all about, grab a copy of "Gobar Times" and kill your curiosity and turn Brown from Green. Well, "Gobar Times" is a special supplement for children circulated free with "Down to Earth" magazine of the Centre for Science and Environment. It is a different 'ecomag' for kids which seeks to teach them "some other things about the environment some other way". The publishers are clear about their ideas and have even released an appeal to the government for having a "Gobar-Mantri". Not to demean but to look at gobar----it is so cheap, so sustainable. It is used as fuel, fertiliser and much more. It is woven into the daily goings-on of millions of Indian lives.

In fact, say environmentalist, gobar is the perfect metaphor for what environment should mean to all of us. Can we teach ourselves the principle of efficiency the gobar embodies? Can the ecolingua be gobar-sustainable in place of sustainable development?

The friends of earth at the Centre have also woven a few rhyming lines which reads as follows---- "Gobar Times is an ecomag without the usual green /But with things like gobar and vanishing genes/ Jungles on platters/and countries on barter/Someone else's decisions on our matters/So…/You want to be different from the herd?/Be savvy on earth -matter? Be not a- feared/With dirty tales of politics green/Where none's really bothered to keep the earth clean/Where forests are fenced/On which people depend…/Read GT from DTE to see what it means…

If that lures you, surely there would be much more to chew from inside the pages of "Gobar Times". It contains hot news and cold facts on environment, wisdom of pandit gobar-Ganesh and much more. Go grab the 'survival guide' if you really are concerned about your future, your friends and families and planet's too.

In what might be a refreshing change from the usual, sporadic 'Green Delhi' and 'Plant a Tree' slogans which set hordes of school-children to plant saplings wither in the scorching sun, the Center for Science and Environment is launching Gobar Times, a children's supplement of the environment magazine Down to Earth, at India Habitat Center on Sunday, 3rd May, 1998, at 6:30. Conceived as an interactive, participatory, hands on magazine, the first issue will feature environment on Delhi's murky waters, gathered by a team of young 'Yamuna Investigators'. It will also have 50 children display their impressions to the Yamuna Yuk!-ride. Gobar Times promises to be "An ecomag without the usual greens/But with things likes gobar and vanishing genes/Jungles on platters/and countries on barter/Someone else's decisions on our matters…" If it is even a little of all that, Gobar Times should be a welcome graft!

One of the youngest participant of the Yamuna Yuk ride, organised by the Centre for Science and Environment, shares her opinion with us about the river

On 2nd May (1998) I went on a boat-ride to see Yamuna. Can you imagine that it was black as coke! The first feeling I got was a really shocking feeling. When I saw people swimming, I was even more depressed. I felt that the water is so very filthy, and children are swimming in it. I couldn't believe that they drink, bathe, wash clothes in the same water that we have sometime ago bathed and washed our clothes in. Not just that, it's sewage water. Some people living near Yamuna said their children go into the water even while they tell them they'll get skin diseases from the water.
All the way through, there was a stink. In some corner we saw bubbles coming out because there are harmful gases trapped in the water. Scientists with us on the boat told us the gases were poisonous, and could kill. I wondered how people manage to live in such a situation. We also went under the Phantom Bridge. It was so low that we had to bend our heads!
Do you know that there is a power plant right next to the Yamuna. When the coal is burnt, the ashes fly into the river water. And this is how the river gets dirtier.
I also saw a little baby who had died and was wrapped up in a red cloth, and was put in the Yamuna. I felt sad for it and thought why are they putting their precious child in this dirty and unhealthy water.
We saw two 'boats' made from plastic-bags. People stuff a large plastic sack with many smaller plastic bags, switch it up, sit on it and float away, rowing it with a single oar. The person on this 'boat' also wants the Yamuna clean and to make some money he makes a boat out of plastic bags and sails into the river to collect more plastic bags. He gets out the plastic bags, washes them with the same dirty water, and sell them! He also puts tall wooden sticks into the water so that the plastic bags gather around them. I felt that they were doing some good. I hope they carry on like that!

(Mimansa, ClassV, Mirambika School)