Bijoya Dashami on the Ichhamati

more photos by Antara Das Gupta

The Ichhamati river forms a part of the extensive border between India and Bangladesh. Our first field trip comprised a trip to Hasnabad-Taki on 6 October 2011 – Bijoya Dashami, the last day of the Durga Puja celebrations and the day the idols of Durga and her family are immersed across rivers in Bengal.

Bijoya Dashami is the one day in the year when border patrolling and control by the BSF (Border Security Force) from India and BDR (Bangladesh Rifles) from Bangladesh is relaxed. The river becomes crammed full of boats of all shapes and sizes – some to immerse idols, but most full of revellers from both countries. A day of celebration when this very questionable border blurs.

We had booked a small country boat that could accommodate up to 15 people from Hasnabad Ghat. This proved to be immensely sensible since, when we got to Taki by boat, all one could see along the banks of both countries was a sea of people. There was no way we could have descended to the ghat, let alone got on a boat without a veritable stampede. Hasnabad is on the Katahal river, a small tributary which opens into the Ichhamati as it takes a wide curve between the two countries. Moving upstream along the Ichhamati, India is on the left, Bangladesh on the right.

At about 3pm Hasnabad ghat too wore a festive look. The narrow street was full of people dressed in their best, vendors of all sorts selling paper trumpets, balloons, snacks and Heaven knows what else. The narrow Katakhal was jam-packed with boats flying the Indian tricolour. Bigger launches jostled with smaller country boats as people clambered on for the trip. Our boat was the smallest kind – a country boat built from slats of wood fitted with a noisy motor and manned by two boatmen – or rather one and half, since the one who sat in the prow and occasionally bailed out the water that seeped in was just a boy. A boy with incredible balance, I must add, since he ran nimbly along the narrow edge of the boat to and from the prow all along the journey without once seeming to notice the brown waters inches from his feet.

the view from Hasnabad Ghat - video

The docile Katakhal opened into the expansive Ichhamati as it curved around the Bangladeshi bank. At this point, this finger of Bangladesh strangely has India on both sides of it as the river curves back on itself. Far up stream we could see that the monochromatic waters of the river were suddenly a riot of colours. There – between Taki in India and Sripur in Bangladesh – the river was crowded with boats from both countries crisscrossing between the banks. The banks too were lined with thousands of people. We saw for the first time boats flying the Bangladesh flag – but apart from that, how on earth could we tell each other apart! Zipping through this veritable chaos was the occasional BSF or BDR motorboat and the large stately blue and red launches that connect Bangladesh’s many riverside locations.

A festive atmosphere is nothing new for India, and definitely not for Bengal. But to encounter this in the middle of a river was a different experience altogether. Vessels from the two countries are not allowed to land on the opposite banks, but apart from this it seems an explosion of emotion for both sides. A few smaller idols had descended into boats and were travelling up and down both the banks surveying and being surveyed by people on both sides.  Bangladeshis and Indians shouted and waved at each other from their respective boats throwing flowers and sweets for the other party to catch, traditional dhaak beats merged with the latest film music, and boatmen skilfully avoided each other by a hair’s breath with ease that would make any stuntman envious. Everyone has cell phones – but how does one deal with international roaming in such a situation and on such a border? My phone actually received no signal when we were towards the Indian bank, but had full reception when we were on the Bangladeshi side!

On the Indian side, we spotted people perched atop broken embankments – a reminder that this whimsical river is not always so kind and has the capacity to wreck havoc. As we coasted to the Bangladeshi side, we saw a large pandal set up with music blaring and some local heavyweight trying ineffectually to make announcements about the deep connection between the two countries. And among the mass of people thronging the bank, two families of Durga idols waited patiently for their turn in the immersion rituals. On the Indian bank too larger idols had begun to arrive, and the mother figures gazed at each other from two countries that came together annually on this once day. Perhaps it is only a mother that can bring together sundered siblings, if even for the shortest span of time. It was one of the most emotional and unforgettable experiences to be on that river among those thousands of people: complete strangers, and yet momentarily united in the aura of something larger than our individual selves, something larger that both of our countries, something intrinsically human and not a little divine.

The sun had begun to dip and the scene for the special immersion that Icchamati is known for was set, though the crowds of revellers are cleared from the river before this is allowed to begin in earnest. The idols are taken out to the middle of the river seated on a makeshift bamboo platform supported by two boats. Once in the deep waters, the two boats move away from each puling the raft of bamboos apart. The Goddess descends into the river vertically.

more photos by Antara Das Gupta

As darkness came on, fireworks began manned from an official barge towards the Indian side. Our boatman became anxious: not everything is as joyful and tension-free as it seemed. Apparently, as night falls over the river, the bigger boats purposely push past the small country ones – the kind we were on – in a dangerous game that under cover of darkness can go completely unnoticed by the patrol boats. We managed to avoid several such encouters by the skin of our teeth and dexterity of our boatman. There is complete absence of river traffic discipline of any sort, no one knows what dark shape will loom out from which direction, and by and large none of the boats have any lights. Every year there are accidents. Indeed, the day after the papers carried a report about an Indian boat that was capsized by a Bangladeshi boat. One person was lost in the waters, and his body was found washed up downstream somewhere in Bangladesh only a few days later. Doubly unfortunate is the predominant sense that the bigger Bangladeshi boats target the smaller Indian boats on purpose. People on the Bangladeshi side probably harbour just the opposite feeling.

A border once drawn is not something one can easily wipe away, even though the land and water bear no actual trace of it. When very young, I had once asked my mother why we just didn’t join the partitioned countries back together again. She replied with what I feel is a strong and most unfortunate metaphor. One can join together a piece of broken glass but the cracks will always be visible.