He is a river! Unlike other rivers known to me, it is not feminine. Not knowing rather not bothering about why is it so, I am moved by this mighty river’s limitless beauty and infinite mystery. Along his two sides, jungle-filled hills rise towards the sky. In rainy days, he hugs those nearby hills from their feet up to their knees. The feeling of this embrace probably would have been unfulfilling for them! But the on-lookers get overwhelmed by a sense of ultimate fulfillment of this divine manifestation of affection. The deep and dense forest begins exactly from where the river waters end at the bank. And it spreads to the head and probably up to the life-key hair (ayusha bala; the hair on the head of a demoness whose uprooting causes her death, as described in the mythology). Folk lore says, the water of Brahmaputra is linked with the netherworld or Patala (a mythical world below the earth). Thus an eternal and rare relationship connects the deepest of the earth to the boundless sky; the river water, the jungle in the bank, the hill and the sky. How dedicated a role the Kamakshya hill has been playing for the sacred meeting of the earth and the sky, is beyond my small world of comprehension!

In the time of rain, the bank of Brahmaputra remains non-existent, so to say. With the receding river, the huge and beautiful stones emerged from water. Those were formed by the continuous penance of the river water to bring out the beauty from those wild stones. They seem to invite the chisel of some sculptor in order to fulfill their wishes to become a pyramid, a temple or something of that genre. Their feet in the water and the rest of the body is white-washed by the clay. Thanks to Brahmaputra for carrying those mud through his journey from the other side of the Himalayas! The tiny waves of the river caress them like a pristine tribal (adivasi) girl.  

The dusk descends there. A golden pillar is seen spreading above the water and standing on the yellow setting Sun at the horizon and heading towards the earth. Connecting the mainland to the seven states (Assam, Manipur, Meghalay, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Nagaland, sometimes called the seven sisters) of my country, stands the great Sharaighat bridge like a meditating devotee (samadhistha). Looking at the festive birds in the sky over the bridge, I wonder the Saraighat is a misnomer of Charaighat, which means a place of birds. Few dolphin-like fishes play with small leaps on the river surface. Those happen to be the only reason that is capable of disturbing a spectator, immersed in the ambience of oneness. Fishermen brothers return with their hully dingha (small wooden boats which is run manually) along the bank. Neither that dingha hurts the innocent Brahmaputra like a technology driven motor boat nor does it pollute the crimson silence.

The golden pillar slowly transforms itself into a temple- ephemeral yet real. The temple starts to dissolve. I feel the fire catching the temple and the golden temple starts melting. The chirping birds return to their homes after finishing the last rites of that dying temple. But the pyre still burns. Its height diminishes from the shikhara (temple-top). By the time the pyre douses, it would be complete dusk. The mighty Sun looks like a mere fire ball. The burning temple has now disappeared into nothingness. The red ball of fire diffuses in the river water. From the smoggy horizon, the king of darkness charges in with his army.

I feel cold.

 The appearance at the distance disappears.

I feel the tender press of someone’s palm on my left shoulder. “Come. Have you been unmindful about the unfinished struggle for a life? I mean to say the pursuit undertaken for securing a better life - the research! "

The author was a research scholar when the article was written on 13 January 2002 (the popular Assamese festival of Maghabihu)