There are several river points in Pune where the old city and the new, divided by rivers are connected by various bridges. The phrases ‘nadi cha tya baju la’ and ‘nadi ja hya baaaju la’, are common in the language,” says Abhay Kanvinde, a Pune-based interior designer whose photographs of people standing on these bridges and silently watching the river, were recently shared along with his note on the website of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP).

Kanvinde, 39, who takes the photographs on his phone, and clarifies that he doesn’t step out with the intention of taking them, says they were clicked over a period of five years. “When I saw them, a pattern emerged and I realised that there were these people who were just sitting and watching the river. What they were thinking, I don’t know. I don’t even wish to ask them,” he says. What Kanvinde did notice is that the people who stopped at the river, communing with it, were not the ones dumping trash in it. Those were the hurried people, walking past.