Karan Taneja, April 2, 2012

Talks of reinstating the “holy” status of River Yamuna gained an impetus when an accidental fall into the river changed the destiny of 11-year-old Magan. Yamuna, which has been lifeless for decades, was then stripped off its holy status disdainfully by the public. People were scared to jump into the river even to commit suicide. However, the incident has suddenly done much to improve the reputation of the river and move it closer towards regaining its lost glory. Here’s the story of what happened.

On March 30, Magan was walking on the “scenic” path along the banks of the Yamuna. On March 31, he had superhuman powers. He had inspired a whole generation to jump into the clean drain called Yamuna for its mutant effects. And now on April 1, scientific research on his body has given pollutants and dirty effluents the status of an “elixir of life”.

Magan was walking on the river banks, when, distracted by the sun’s glare reflected from the fluorescent green-tinged water of the river, he slipped over the muck covering the path. Magan fell into the river and got carried away by the strong current. He did not know how to swim, but luckily, he managed to float – thanks to the froth layer covering the surface of the water. Fortune favoured him when he accidentally got caught in the cleansing net of the YAFCA (Yet-Another-Fruitless-Cleansing-Attempt, supposedly part of the Yamuna Action Plan). The net was being operated by a five-year-old, the son of the civic body official in charge. The younger kid spotted the older kid and called his father, who was found smoking a beedi and watching a cricket match at a nearby tea shop.

Even though the other big particles (some bigger than Magan) caught in the net were fed back into the river as is the practice, Magan was rescued by the official. He was given a complimentary cup of tea to recuperate. The unimaginable happened and Magan reacted in an unforeseen manner to this. The way he looked scared the pyjamas out of everyone, including the constables at the tea shop. The constables had no other option but to take him to the police station. News travelled fast, and soon many mediapersons were seen questioning random people about Magan. Some of them had no idea at all who he was, but they still took up airtime.

The constable who captured the boy told us, “He scared the shit out of us. He looked like a devil, that boy. He spoke the abusive word I was going to say even before I said it!”

Taking into account the seriousness of the situation, the government has decided to move Magan to a secret research institute on the outskirts of Delhi, where he will be tested for his rumoured “mutant” powers. The tests were forcefully conducted on him and the results confirmed the rumour floating around in Delhi. We had a mutant among us.

Scientists said certain river effluents and/or the tea given to Magan (since it was found to be made from the Yamuna water itself) got mixed with his DNA and changed his whole structure. The effluents were a lot more toxic than the ones produced previously, which had killed all the marine life in the river. However, it was a miracle of epic proportions when the results of the various tests were checked. His bones are now 10 times stronger than an elephant’s and physically, he is up to 6′ 5″ and weighs 195 pounds. Add to that his ability to read minds.

As the mutant fever caught on in the capital city, many people jumped into the river. Some were comic book buffs, some were committing suicide, some were engineers who received no placement offers, and some were ordinary people fed up of troubles in their lives.

A government official spoke to us about this and gave us some inside views: “This is a blessing in disguise. Our voters were getting a little too aware of the situation the Yamuna is in and our next-to-negligible cleansing schemes were being criticised time and again. But that kid has changed it all. People are now appreciating that we kept the river dirty!”

It is unclear what the future holds for the mutant Magan, but rumours are strongly linking Ram Gopal Varma to him. Apparently, he wants to make a movie on him.