Ancient lore, as Samrat lets us know, says that the river was actually a sea lying between India and Asia, when India was a separate landmass, until India crashed into Asia and formed the Himalayas the sea became a river. Ideally, they would have began in Chinese-administered Tibet, where the river is called Tsangpo, but unfortunately, it is not easily accessible for those from the North-East. He shanghais the photographer Akshay Mahajan into this adventure. As Samrat tells us, he had to quit his career in order to spend a couple of years travelling down the Brahmaputra: "I said yes without sweating the details, and plunged right in." Good decision. Perhaps, it is too much of a luxury for many of us. One ponders why there hasn't been more travels down this mighty river, a universe in itself that spans three nations the Ganga, for instance, inspired many films, songs and novels, most recently being Amitav Ghosh's Ibis trilogy. Samrat's book is more of a pilgrimage of Bistirna Parore, the Brahmaputra of the late Bhupen Hazarika's imagination, than it is travelogue.
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