Chorgalia is a small village at the foot of the rather less prominent Shivaliks in the Kumaon Himalayas, close to the city of Haldwani. A somnolent settlement at the mouth of a pass where the Nandhor river bounces off the hills into the open countryside of 'Bhabar', it was the only irrigated pocket in the entire eastern Bhabar region during British rule and now constitutes the grain bowl of the state of Uttarakhand. The waters of the Nandhor have been brought to the gradually widening expanse of green fields by numerous channels still constituting the lifeline of Chorgalia and scores of other settlements that have cropped up around it over the decades. The rich flora and fauna harboured around its banks, the alluvial soil it would invariably bring during the rains and off-load into the paddy-fields; the rich piscine-stock it once had and the sustenance it gave to those who chose to settle, live and die along its course had earned for it a mother's respect and affection. Septuagenarian Janki Devi still remembers the peaceful days when ritual worship was offered to 'Jhupua', the local river god, to protect the village from the wrath of flash-floods that at times swept the new cultivation along the banks of the river. No one worships 'Jhupua' now. Nandhor - the 'bestower' as it were-has now earned the reputation of being a harbinger of prosperity for the corrupt government departments and a handful of high-ups in Chorgalia. The fear of floods is exploited here to bring a windfall of annual government grants for building boulder spurs, retentions, bank pitching, revetments and a host of other flood control devices that are often swept away in the first downpour of the monsoon. The river is abused for the whole year for petty personal gains. In the past ten years around Rs 250 million have reportedly been spent by departments like watershed management and forest and irrigation under the pretence of flood control on a stretch of a few kms downstream from the point called Machali-Bandh at Chorgalia. Running parallel to the Chorgalia market towards the Shivalik range, the bed of the river widens and starts bifurcating itself into two distributaries by the names of Kailash and Devaha. For the past few decades much of the water of Nandhor has been flowing towards the Kailash side, offloading the gravel and sand towards the Devaha side. Old-timers of Chorgalia say the river has a history of shifting in its bed (which widens gradually as it flows downstream) towards one side or the other after every ten to twelve years. The new settlers in connivance with corrupt government officials and politicians have encroached upon the bed of Nandhor, which lies within the precincts of a reserve forest. "Upholding the cause of these encroachers," says G C Sharma an archaeologist and painter from Chorgalia, "the government officials make huge proposals every year and the politicians ensure that they are cleared well in time." It is interesting to note that previously over Rs three crore have reportedly been spent in the pre-monsoon season for erecting boul