RED RIVER

Sumana Roy

Bifurcation
Photo : Nitoo Das

Until I chanced upon the Brahmaputra, I did not believe in love at first sight. Water is a secret weakness – perhaps more so because I do not know how to swim. On the Brahmaputra at night, I discovered the imagined narrative of surrender. Waking up to it the next morning, I wanted to be a prophet – I wanted to walk on water. Not having lived with it for a significant period of time, my love for the man river has still not been domesticised. I wanted to begin the year’s Tin Trunk by swimming upstream.

And so an excerpt from Indira Goswami novel, The Bronze Sword of Thengphakhri Tehsildar, in Aruni Kashyap’s translation.

Janice Pariat’s Brahmaputra is a well-kept secret, one that she shares with us in her essay Folk Song and a River.

Tanmoy Sharma takes us to the man who gave the old man river a home in his voice – Bhupen Hazarika. Whether you hear him sing alone or with the river, Sharma’s remarkable essay traces the cultural life of the Brahmaputra.

KVK Murthy aligns his life with the river, a four decade old relationship, in his poem, Dibrugarh 1974 – Bangalore 2014.

Nitoo Das captures the Brahmaputra like water inside her throat, capable of journeys in two directions. Here is her photo-essay, Conversation with Crows.

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