Saloni Dhingra’s Kaalindi — An Urban Legend tells the story of a Yamuna in waiting

For centuries, Delhi grew around the Yamuna. Kingdoms settled on its banks, palaces drew from its waters and communities depended on its flow. Yet for many residents today, the river exists largely as a polluted backdrop to the city. Through her animated short Kaalindi: An Urban Legend, Saloni Dhingra asks viewers to imagine the Yamuna differently — not as a river, but as a woman waiting to be remembered.

Saloni Dhingra discusses her award winning animated film Kaalindi

Kaalindi unfolds through a conversation on a boat between an impatient young man and an elderly boatwoman. As she listens to his complaints about waiting, the woman begins to narrate the story of Kalindi — a personification of the Yamuna who waits for people to notice her plight and restore her former glory.

Dhingra, an alumna of Delhi’s University of Design, Innovation and Technology (formerly IIAD), created the short film as her graduation project in 2025. Since then, it has earned recognition at film festivals in India and abroad, including the Best Fiction Award at the Earth Stories Film Festival in England this year, recognition from the UNFCCC Youth Climate Report and and a special mention at IGNCA's 6th Nadi Utsav Documentary Film Festival.

Talking about the film's recognition, Dr. Jitin Chadha, Pro Chancellor of UDIT, says, "Some of the most powerful stories are the ones that remain deeply rooted in a particular place. Kaalindi is unmistakably a story about the Yamuna and Delhi, yet its themes of memory, loss, belonging and our relationship with the natural world resonate far beyond the city. What makes Saloni's film particularly meaningful is not simply that it has travelled internationally, but that it demonstrates how creative practice can make complex issues feel immediate and personal."

The film began with Dhingra’s interest in exploring Delhi’s history. During her research, she found that the Yamuna is omnipresent in nearly every chapter of the city’s story. “Delhi has been centred around Yamuna. It was built around Yamuna. But when I saw it today, I realised that Yamuna is almost now in the backdrop,” notes Dhingra. “People do not realise how important it has been for the city.”

Finding Kalindi

Rather than creating a documentary built around facts and statistics, Dhingra turned to folklore. Drawing from mythology, history and environmental concerns, she imagined the river as Kalindi — a forgotten figure whose story mirrors Delhi’s relationship with the Yamuna.

“If I portrayed Yamuna as a river, the impact on the audience would have been lesser as compared to what they feel now — seeing Yamuna as a human,” says Dhingra. “The audience will be able to relate to human emotions and, in turn, relate to the river and its current state.”

The choice was also rooted in the cultural significance rivers hold in India. Often worshipped as goddesses and revered as maternal figures, rivers occupy both ecological and emotional spaces. Through Kaalindi, Dhingra highlights a contradiction: people continue to invoke the river’s sacred status even as they neglect its condition.

As the story unfolds, Kaalindi falls in love with a king who builds his home along her banks and cherishes her presence. But the arrival of another ruler, driven by greed and power, transforms that relationship. Gradually abandoned by both the rulers and the people, Kalindi’s fading spirit mirrors the river’s decline from a life-giving presence at the heart of Delhi to a neglected waterway on its margins.

The city’s changing relationship with the Yamuna is traced through the two kings who symbolise contrasting attitudes towards the river. One represents rulers who built cities around the Yamuna and recognised its value. The other reflects the colonial period, when the river was increasingly treated as a utility and pushed away from the city’s centre.

In the film, this shift becomes a story of growing distance and neglect. Kalindi’s wait becomes a metaphor for a river longing to be seen, valued and cared for once again. “She has almost turned grey and she’s still waiting,” Dhingra says.

Love, loss and a waiting river

Inspired by depictions of the river goddess Yamuna, Dhingra combined collage, mixed media and animation to create a visual style rooted in folklore and oral storytelling traditions.

Through themes of love, abandonment, hope and waiting, Dhingra believes environmental concerns become meaningful only when people feel emotionally connected to them. “One can only understand environmental issues if they are empathetic,” notes Dhingra. “Otherwise, people will only look at it as another environmental issue — just another problem.”

For all its historical references, however, Kaalindi ultimately looks towards the future. The film ends not with despair but with hope. Dhingra recalls speaking to a priest by the ghats of the Yamuna who told her that during the Covid-19 lockdowns, the river had briefly shown signs of recovery.

“She is still waiting and hoping that someone will give her the same respect she once received,” says Dhingra. “Then she will flourish again. But until then, she has to wait.”

This article is written by Adithi Reena Ajith