Monday

The Ferry Rides

While discussing with a friend today about things unimportant and trivial, we happened to come across some old memories. Old college memories. He, of IIT Bombay with its panthers and crocodiles and snakes and crappy food and dingy hostels and fun life in general. I, of IIT Guwahati with its snakes and crocodiles and crappy food and fun life and those ferry rides across the Brahmaputra.

For the uninitiated, Brahmaputra is one of the most important and mighty rivers of the Indian subcontinent. Originating near Mount Kailash in Northern Himalayas, it traverses the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in North East India before joining the Bay of Bengal. Although to the general public, the river is known more for its depth, its flow, its width etc., for the students of IIT Guwahati first year, the river is known more for the notoriety which it showed when it so mercilessly separated the college from human civilization on the North.

The bus, which plied between our college and the city, although the prudent option, nevertheless, lacked the excitement of a ferry ride across the Brahmaputra. So more often than not, we used to cross the river on a boat. My old memories are especially vivid and dear of those days when the weather used to be overcast. I used to cycle my way from the college to the ferry ghat on the mud path which traversed through a thicket of coconut trees and adjoining straw huts like a snake in a forest. Especially during those rainy days, I relished the touch of the cold moisture laden air, the view of the distant cloud covered mountain tops, the smell of the slightly moistened earth indicating an impending downpour and the sound of chirping birds in the adjoining undergrowth.

The ticket for the ride used to cost about 1.5 rupees (about 3 cents!). The boat had wooden benches to sit and those were covered with a thick tin sheet on the top. I always used to sit on the top where it was open to fresh, cold air and vast, uninterrupted sights. It generally took about 20 minutes for the motorboat to cross the width of Brahmaputra. With the distant sights of shops and houses dotting the North Guwahati shore, the ferry ghat and miles and miles of green forests on the other shore, a faraway, lonely, majestic bridge, an isolated, slightly confused island in the middle of the river, birds trying to compete with the speed of the motorboat just above the water surface, the smell of rain hanging in the air, the taste of wet and dripping, subdued and afraid sunlight, the all pervading noise of complete silence, only broken incidently by the soft touch of cold air on my ears, I could not think of anything non-consequential like the struggles, sorrows and rewards life. I just used to curl up my legs and hold on to my jacket a bit more tightly to counter that ever penetrating cold. But my eyes were always looking into the distance, trying to absorb as much as possible.

4 comments:

Amit said...

Factual Mistake: It was the Rs 5 (about 9 cents) ride which you talking about here. There also used to be a Rs 1.5 ride which was on the big steel ferry ship which didn't have thick tin sheet but an open area.

Ankit said...

bingo! I made the mistake... yes it was Rs. 5... but I never used to pay for it! I always found someone who would pay :-)

Anurup K.T said...

@Ankit : Aha the trait was not a acquired one then!!

But isnt it ironical when we sit in the most comfortable enviorns of our sophisticated existence now, we feel so nostalgic of something that is so far removed from our present.

Imagine if you were carrying your laptop,Ipod,mobile,chronograph etc etc during the boat ride :)....

Ankit said...

I was born with the trait :-)...

and you are right boss... technology, more often than not, only serves to distance us from everything that is natural and pure and in a big sense consequential. It surely does make our life easier (or does it?) but at what cost?

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Like a particularly notorious child's tantrums, a mountaneous river's intemperance, a volcano's reckless carelessness and the dreamy eyes of a caged bird, imagination tries to fly unfettered. Hesitant as she takes those first steps, she sculpts those ambitious yet half baked earthen pots.