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Hope rides on the river

The River…the river…the river…you have to see it to understand the enormity of it….and how insignificant I and you are before this vast stretch of water…. Still as a glass.

Mine was a study trip to the island of Majuli. I had never been to the north-east and this was my first visit. I was going alone. I did not know the language. I had no friends or relatives anywhere there. Yes,  like most others in the rest of India, I had never consciously thought of the north-east and there was the usual matter of ignored identity. There were also the newspaper headlines of the floods and riots which cast long shadows over the picture of Mary Kom on Time magazine cover. But yes, there was that inspiration, if she could do it, so could I. If nearly two million flooded out people could reb againuild year after year, if the grass in the Kaziranga park could stand tall again and, so could I.

The Centre for North East Studies was not part of my plan, although a few years ago, it had facilitated a fellowship for me for conflict studies. It just took an e- mail from Sanjoy Hazarika to Riturekha Barua in Jorhat for me to be able to go through Jorhat and see what is popularly known as the ‘Ship of Hope’.

The hospital boat is steady as any house could be, people coming in and crowding the starboard, the voices of the busy GNMs could be faintly heard. The S S Nahor  is getting ready for an assessment by a visiting National Rural Health Mission team. I will be going on to the island and will not be on the boat going from sapori to sapori, but I understand what it would be like, district programme officer Ritu and general nurse and midwife Elizabeth take me on a conducted tour, explain it all to me, as does the boatmaster.

Anganwadi worker Deepti Mili would be crossing over to Gormur in Majuli on the crowded ferry boat, which provides only four crossover services in the day from Nimatighat. It is three hours on the river. She holds my hand and tells me how the Boat Clinic has made a great difference to all the char or sapori, inhabited mud flats, on the river in lower Majuli area, where the boat clinic service is provided. “To convince people to go for immunisation for the children still remains a problem”, Deepti says. Just like elsewhere in rural India.   If I fall flat on my face on the slippery fine muddy banks of the Brahmaputra, I actually have nothing to fear. The boats are full of friends! The Mishing know, the boat clinic is there for them.

There is no one at the port side, its the quiet back of the boat …under sunshine though ..where I sit wondering and asking why and how…the water is still…and so high the sapori is barely inches above the waterline, the silt lurking just under…even the boatmaster is not sure where it is…so much for guesswork and not running into one while navigating. Just two weeks ago this was the water that displaced  almost two million people…today it sleeps like a baby…the erosion on the banks immense and for the world to see. The biggest island is slowly falling away, bit by bit.

There are no waves in the Brahmaputra and the still placid surface tempts one to walk over…first drop your shoes, then drop  the ipad,ipod,ebook, datacard…pen,paper, everything…..just be without anything….just the place to vanish….watching the ring of ripples as one by one these attachments disappear….
and then I know the xihu (hihu) is waiting at the centre of the ripple….asking me to dive in and follow him upriver to his wonderful kingdom.

  On the Majuli island, the temples are like tapovans, roadless and remote and shaded by tall shonaru and shilikha , Bel, bakul, banana groves,  I walk over flowers, goat kids trail me to my sleeping quarters, angry geese bar my way, the sound of music –khol,taal–wakes me and puts me to sleep… they bring me payesh, prasad from the temple in bucketful… my first cup of tea. My monastery hosts ensure that I don’t miss any of ‘bhawna’ recitals and they want me not to to leave, the monastery  has five hundred young acolytes…i am stunned by the kindness and caring of strangers…they didn’t know me a few days ago but they protect me as though I was as precious as their sashipats.

Work cannot always be an escape….freedom is when you leave the city and its heartache behind…freedom is to be able to be in the back of beyond where no one knows you, …ride with the xihu  on the boat of hope watching a golden moon playing on the wide, wide river Brahmaputra.

–Papri Sri Raman

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