Cruising Along the BRAHMAPUTRA

THE BRAHMAPUTRA IS A MYTHOLOGICAL RIVER AND AN IMPORTANT FACET OF THIS RIVER IS THAT WHILE MOST RIVERS IN INDIA AND ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD ARE REGARDED AS FEMALES, THIS RIVER STANDS OUT AS THE ONLY MALE RIVER IN THE WORLD!

- SUBHAS CHAKO

Having been born and brought up in the gateway city of North East India – Guwahati still evokes images of the mighty Brahmaputra river meandering through much of the city and of those joyful days when as kids we would play beach cricket on the sandy stretches of the riverbank every winter. There was also a wild side to this river in that with the onset of the monsoon season, the river’s fury and turbulence would inundate large parts of the state of Assam, flooding almost all the riverside towns. The perennial problem of flooding of the Brahmaputra valley continues unabated despite the best efforts of the conservation authorities.

The Brahmaputra River is no ordinary river and based on the length of the river (2,900 kms.), it is one of Asia’s principal rivers and perhaps the most turbulent. It originates from the icy glaciers of the Himalayas, passes through much of Tibet, the NorthEastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam, and finally merges with the holy river Ganga and empties into the Bay of Bengal.

When it passes through Tibet, the river is known as the Yarlung Zangbo River, the stretch of the river as it passes through the mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh is referred to as the Dihang river and when it merges with the Ganga, it shapes up the Sunderban delta, which incidentally happens to be the world’s largest riverine delta that for centuries has been the exclusive preserve of the rare and endangered Royal Bengal Tigers.