Dream river... Review on Brahmaputra, The - Arup Kumar Dutta

As a kid, whenever I would cross Brahmaputra river  by train, I would ask my mother to tell me when the bridge is over as I would either sleep or pretend to sleep whenever we reached near the bridge as I felt half-dead on just watching the vastness of river, I used to think if I ever opened my eyes while the train was on bridge, I would drop in the river and die or else train would drop in river!Once when I was a bit elder, I decided to give it a try and watch the river no matter what and then what I saw was heaven, I saw blue hills, blue sky, white clouds here and there and flowers of heavenly colors, I thought may be I have landed in a fairyland and may be it’s a dream…I dozed off and when I woke up, the dream was gone.For the later part of my life, I assumed it was a dream, but when I saw a picture in Arup Kumar Dutta’s THE BRAHMAPUTRA, I realized it wasn’t a dream, it was Brahmaputra itself.

Brahmaputra river is the only river in the world which is so wide that one kilometer bridge has been built on it.It has seen so many histories develop, flourish and destroy that Assam has become an amalgam of sort in terms of culture.Brahmaputra brings so much of alluvium with itself always that anything flourishes in it even if it falls in its land accidentally, therefore a native Assamese says ‘Lahe, lahe…”which means slowly, slowly because there is nothing to worry about, it explains their easy going and tolerant nature which was recently reflected in Debojit’s stance recently when he was accused of taking help from Naxalites in Zee TV’s Sa Re Ga Ma Challenge.He forgave other participants owing to this Assamese generous nature.

I have spent some of my childhood in Assam and never knew many things about Assam and Brahmaputra which I got to know from this book.Its an excellent book and Arup has painstakingly gathered all information about this wonderful river and its adjoining areas.

Brahmaputra also exists in China and Tibet with different names.It was route for trade of Silk and the famed ‘Silk route’ term comes from it.In Greek, Silk is called Ser and the word *sari *comes from there.I don’t think many people know Sari is not a Hindi word.

We lived in an Air base called Chabua which drew its name from Cha boa which means grow tea, little did I know The tea gardens I saw everyday around myself has origins of name of this place.Earlier no tea was grown in Assam, it was grown in China and finding an excellent land for Tea planting, Britishers started growing tea in Assam.When a native man told them, there was a wild variety of tea exclusively in Assam, the point was noted, but the native was hanged on some false charges!Such was the treachery of Britishers then.

This book is full of such valuable information, but I will conclude with one example only as the word limit would exceed.I found one information very amusing, little was known about this river and adjoining mountains, so Britishers would send their gurkhas or trekkers in the disguise of Pandits who would not be questioned then by Tribals or else they would be murdered!

Thanks for reading my review.