For most Lucknowites, the Gomti is simply part of the city’s landscape. We cross it on our daily commutes, stop by its ghats and watch the city grow around it. But for radio jockey Prateek Bharadwaj, the river became something much more personal.

It was during a difficult phase in his life, when an accident kept him away from his radio show for nearly a month, that Bharadwaj went to the Gomti looking for some peace. What he found instead was a river surrounded by liquor bottles and garbage. It reminded him of childhood visits to the river with his Nana ji, when the Gomti was cleaner, and its fish could be seen clearly.

That moment eventually became Go For Gomti.

What began in 2023 with fewer than 10 people has now grown into a volunteer network of nearly 8,000 people. The initiative recently completed its 177th consecutive Sunday clean-up, with volunteers gathering at Kudiya Ghat and other stretches of the Gomti to spend their morning picking up waste.

And this isn't just a one-off campaign. Earlier reports on the initiative documented volunteers cleaning multiple ghats, including Kudiya Ghat, Peepe Wala Pul, Mankameshwar Ghat, Jhule Lal Vatika and Shyam Mandir. In 2024, the group said it had already removed thousands of tonnes of waste from these stretches.

What makes the story particularly Lucknowi is its simplicity. There is no elaborate setup. On a Sunday morning, people turn up with gloves, rakes and cleaning equipment and simply get to work. The volunteers have ranged from students and corporate professionals to senior citizens.

The scale of Go For Gomti has changed, but the idea remains remarkably simple: if this is our river, keeping it clean cannot be someone else’s job alone.

For a city that has always shared a cultural and emotional connection with the Gomti, perhaps that is the part worth remembering. A cleaner river doesn't begin with one grand gesture. Sometimes, it begins with showing up on a Sunday morning.