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a secret mission, snow fields and an Iridium that didn't work...
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Pot smoking Sanyasis, millions of Shiva lingas and a stranded barge ...
A Gupt Kashi

Royal Enfields, Pilgrims, Yoga & the Techno Baba
High & Dry

And had I not been sitting for two days at a warf in the west Assam town of Dhubri, right at the border with Bangladesh, listlessly awaiting the arrival of a boat named "Kailash", that was suppoed to ferry me up to Guwahati, the capital of the east Indian state. My answer would have also been "nothing". 
But, buy the time, the floating abode of Shiva, the "Kailash" finally docked, three days behind schedule. I was feeling no different from the tramps of "Waiting for  Godot". 

However unwelcome, the delay proved to be a necessary prelude to the sedate nature of riverine travel. Besides, watching the constant traffic of boats pulling in and out of the Ghats introduced me to the considerable role of the Brahmaputra in that region. Moreover, with my aim of re-enacting at least a part of the medieval riverine pilgrimage route of the Brahmaputra as elucidated in the 9th century Tantric Hindu text the Kalika Purana, the anticipation was a small  price to pay. 

The "Kailash" proved to be a small wooden river trawler manned by a  crew of four, which normally hauled cargo from Dibrugarh to Pasighat, in  the eastern sections of the river. 
Refuelling and loading food supplies, and the cargo (in this case myself), the crew wasted no time and the boat was soon back in the greyish-brown  midstream of the Brahmaputra. Before long, the golden dome of the  historic Guru Tek Bahadur Gurudwara, Dhubri's tallest riverside landmark became just a mere glint in the mid-day sun. 

The progress was reasonably fast as  instead being powered by the ubiquitous  irrigation pump's diesel thumper, the boat was powered by a unit from a TATA  truck, the mover of the omnipresent "OK, BLOW HORN's" of Indian roads . However  the din of the motor and the jarring feeling of sitting inside a  moving truck's bonnet took away much of the initial elation of boarding the vessel. 
Distancing myself from the racket, I roosted atop the pilot's cabin and dedicated myself to the task of watching the transient banks, while the boat gently but powerfully made its way upstream. 

A few nautical kilometres onwards, the riverine channels narrowed down and the boat started meandering in and out of the alluvial maze of "Chars" the omnipresent sandbanks . 

The Brahmaputra at Guwahati effects a very wrong perception of being a singular broad stream of water. As through most of its passage through the plains of Assam and Bangladesh, it splits into numerous channels amidst these plateau-like alluvial islands and sandbars. With their  seasonal existence and the inconstant shapes these riverine deposition comprise of sediments of no less then three countries India, Burma and China. 

Depicted as faceless islands on maps, only when seeing them up close, is  their diversity realised. Some are over 20kms long with huge trees and cultivated fields, with a dense population of "minorities" bearing remarkable likeness to the people of Bangladesh; others are barren sand dunes with constant dusty winds. Again some are part mud and part silt or sand, but almost all are populated by various species of water birds, which I discovered don't always look like ducks or geese. 

The true scenic splendour of the Brahmaputra surfaced only towards the end of the day. When the setting Sun become a bright ball of fire rapidly transforming from fiery orange to a dull red as it sped towards the horizon, chased by a flaming tower reflected on the water.  The river too appeared to mellow down and the water now glided in a silvery sheen, swaying in gentle rhythms, each swell mirroring the azure and scarlet hues of the afternoon sky. 

After the sunset, the river acquired a placid glasslike property and in every direction the distant horizons seemed to be separating two mirrors. Each reflecting a strip of hazy purple followed by a band of pink dissolving into a shade of bluish-grey. 

The first night was spent near the "Naranarayan Setu" at Jogighopa. The bright glare of the bridge's Sodium vapour lamps and the passing trucks eliminated all novelty of sleeping on the boat and sparing the lapping waves, it felt more like a Mumabi footpath. 

We set sail early the next morning and within an hour were crossing the Surya Pahar range of the south-bank.  A series of low hills which nestle in its folds, some of the oldest traces of civilisation in Assam. Extensive  ruins and rock sculptures of the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions. Shimmering above the northern horizon were the outlines of snowy Himalayan peaks. 

As we continued east,  the human presence on the river radically decreased. There were fewer fishing boats and hardly any habitation on  its sides. The only objects not lacking in men were the occasional motorised countryboats functioning like buses on that stretch. Overloaded to such an  extent that one can't help wonder which law of Physics kept them afloat. 

Yellow-white sand dunes covered both the banks and the "chars" and  the rivers appeared to be passing through a desert, with the dancing heat waves supplementing the mid-day glare. With no landmarks or  villages on the river edge, one could only guess the boat's whereabouts. Besides distances on the river, I found out were measured  by the number of days it took from one major Ghat (warf) to another. 

The second nightly stopover, somewhere in the Barpeta district, compensated for the first. The absense of any sound caused a loud ringing in the ears, especially after being subjected to the TATA's tumult for two continuos days. The sky lit up with a million specs of light, while sporadic meteors criss-crossed the heavens. 

Fog on the river is invariably accompanied by an eerie stillness, both descending without any notice. Suddenly visibility lowers, everything turns grey and the temperature plummets. The Sun becomes a ubiquitous luminescence, while the water turns dark, stagnant and lifeless, the boats engine a muffed thud. It was on the third morning  before reaching Guwahati that we hit a fog bank. The worst part of the  trip, it took three hours to break free from its clammy cold grasp. 

Guwahati's diesel and vehicular fumes could be smelled when we were still 20 km away.  Before long the Saraighat Bridge loomed in the horizon and soon the boat was passing below the Nilachal hill, the abode of the mother  goddess Kamakhya, heading towards the islands of Karmanxa, Urvasi and Umananda. The latter two containing remnants of ancient temples, the one at Ummananda, a living shrine while Urvasi with its plethora of rock carvings and sculptures goes under water for half a year. 

At the end of the 400-km journey, I had to admit that my primary objective of undertaking the trip had not been met. As sparing the outlines of the Goalpara hills and the Guwahati shrines, I had failed to discover any ancient landmark mentioned in the 9th century Tantric opus. Nothing prepared me for the vastness of the riverine system and seeing the futility of the task, I simply forgot all about it. 
Enthralled by its natural splendour, I could only perceive that even in the days of the Kalika Purana, the Brahmaputra was more than a mere waterway or a mythical entity. It was the timelessness, which it evokes that must have constituted the essence of the Kalika Purana's  pilgrimage.