Yamuna Gently Weeps – 2006
The Yamuna Pushta settlement in Delhi, one of the oldest and largest slums, in India, was home to nearly 40,000 families, which housed more than 1,50,000 people.
In 2004, the slum was viciously demolished, in a matter of weeks, leaving children, old people, pregnant women, those ailing and bed ridden, to the mercy of the streets or on a barren piece of land, bereft of home, shelter, water, electricity and a source of livelihood.
Neither the Judiciary, those in Power nor the implementing agencies, had heard of a concept called, REHABILITATION.
Ruzbeh N. Bharucha, journalist, author and documentary filmmaker, takes the reader into the lives of those poor families, whose past, present and future, were brutally demolished.
The author, present throughout the demolition process, as well as a witness to the heartlessness of those in power, through interviews with slum dwellers and politicians; eminent town planners, environmentalists and activists ; as well as through the eyes of those who lost it all, tells a heartrending tale of tears, courage, determination and most importantly, bring to light, the hollowness of the system and all that, which once was held, sacred and beyond reproach.