Diving for dreams in a sacred river

Ramu, who goes to the river to hunt for coins and other valuables, pulling out a bag filled with plastic from the waters of river Yamuna in New Delhi, India. — Reuters

AT the crack of dawn, Ramu Gupta slings a blue bag onto his shoulder and heads to the Yamuna River in the Indian capital in search of his fortune.

The 67-year-old is one of hundreds of gotakhors, or divers, who go to the river to hunt for coins, trinkets, discarded bottles and shards of metal and wood that can be sold in Delhi’s booming scrap market.