If you ask me why take on a river journey on a country made craft powered none other than by a shallow water pump; that too on a river route unfamiliar to all of the journeyers, bereft of any life preservers and that too by the mighty Brahmaputra; you would be confronted with my stern expression. Guys like me are not too uncommon these days. Anything goes for a man like me and certainly for Amitabh KK, Pranay Bordoloi, Nayanjyoti Das, Syed Miraz Ahmed and co. But hidden in my expression there is a little story.

June 26, 2006. Barpeta Road HQ of the Project Tiger Manas. I was surprised by a chance discovery or call that a recovery of a hoary old map made by the Survey of India. It lay in perfect condition inside the drawer of an unused table. The text told you that it was made during 1932 and the proud owner of the four-miles-to-an-inch-scale map was some British Conservator of Forests whose water-sodden signature appeared like that of Rowntree Sahib. But I could not be sure. The official stamp on the map showed that it had been a property of the Office of the Conservator of Forests, Shillong!

Most of today's wildlife sanctuaries and the National Parks were marked as the reserved forests therein. Some, like the Pabitora WLS was nonexistent on the map. What attracted my attention was the clear dotted line amidst the Brahmaputra running west to east that was marked as the steamer route. Well, if the navigation over Brahmputra was so easy those days, I would be damned. For, I knew perfectly well that there are confusing channels in the mighty river these days that can make any journey pretty harassing.

So, if I hooked up my laptop with a global positioning system and loaded a moving map system, I would know my real time position and can tell you how much the British Raj map has changed in the river way! I had a Zodiac boat with a powerful outboard motor. There were Govinda and Kashinath who could as capable boatmen tell apart the shallow water from the deep. So, why not board a journey from the Beki Ghat to Guwahati and then to Orang National Park?

But I had to wait till the year 2009. There were too many hurdles on the way. Sometimes the time was not right and sometimes the money was not available.

“Sir, a mechanized country boat is being delivered from the Beki Ghat to the Orang National Park by a party of boat pilots and helpers. It is stopping at Guwahati. So hop in if you want to go to Orang by river route. But, there is a catch; the party has no experience about the route to your destination,” Sukumar Momin, the DFO of Mangaldai Wildlife Division told me over phone.

After a long wait, the boat, made of poma wood married to a 10-HP shallow pump machine, made its appearance at the Pandu Ghat. The unique blend of the wood and the balanced design gave a good speed to the boat, even going upstream. It was on the next day (March 3, 2009) that our journey would begin.

Meanwhile, our preparations, man to man, began in earnest. I had the electronic JPG image of the said map stored in the hard disk of my laptop. All I did was to calibrate the same so that when you moved the cursor anywhere over the map you got the accurate latitude and longitude of the place in the screen. Hooked up to the Garmin GPS 72 via a connector to the USB port of the laptop would give real-time position on the map. That is, a cross-hair position would indicate the position of the boat. As it moved along, leaving behind a trail of magenta coloured path it covered would be the track of the trip and tell you the story later. The laptop would be powered by a Maruti 800 car battery via a cigarette lighter adaptor as the journey would be very long: approximating 14 hours. Amitabh KK Sharma, my friend and the treasurer of the Explorers club of Guwahati, readied the rations and the other cooking paraphernalia up to the minutest details. Everybody else charged their batteries of the electronic equipment and rechargeable batteries and got their variety of cameras ready. Not a moment to lose in this memorable journey.

So, on the next day, the boat journey on an uncharted course began. The time was 10:10 in the morning. The weather was cool and clear with no hint of sand or dust storms in the vicinity. The computer showed its starting position as N26011´11.06´´ E091044´35.68´´. The new diesel-run shallow water pump engine was cranked to life and it started to thud in a steady rate. We started from where the luxury boat Jalporee lies moored. We cleared the Umananda river island keeping it to our starboard and kept on increasing our speed. The speed was displayed by a window in the GPS compass page: 8.00, 8.70, 9.00, 9.80... we were picking up upcurrent ground speed stabilizing at 10.32 km per hour. The magnificent riverfront of Guwahati was now glistening in our view. Looking at the screen, I whooped in joy. I had segmented our journey into 17 parts, each one ending in points like Charlie 1, Charlie 2 and so on, which appeared pre-programmed on the map. This time we managed to touch Charlie 1 marker! This indicated that the system would not lie in navigation.

The Kharghuli hills, the Sector III area were crossed within an hour. At the end of the first hour, we were near the bank of the Chunsali TE area. The distant Chandrapur hills were visible; the Hiloikhunda Pahar was just a blur. Suddenly, the course took a navigable channel to northeastern heading of 47 degrees after crossing Charlie 2. The shallow starboard water presented an unhabited char area with lots of ducks wading in the water. These were mostly Brahminy ducks (Tadorna ferruginea). The mallards and other ducks took to flight as an unidentified raptor bird started swooping down. The cross-hair position indicator showed that we are nearing Kuruwa hills. The navigable channel ignored the Chrlie 3 point. After Kuruwa hills a buoy came up and coincided with Charlie 4 and we were opposite Panikhaiti marked on the map on the south bank of the river. Till Kirakata char, we mostly utilized the old steamer route and by the time of sunset crossed Kajolimukh. The erosive process of the river made our journey even better. Where according to the old map there were habitable areas, now there lay water channels. And where the channels should have been is now pure terra firma! So, the programmed point Charlie 6, 7 got ignored and we, as the moon came out, halted in Bon Tapu char (N26019´52.03´´ and E092002´12.85´´).

Waves of cold wind were blowing and promised a very uncomfortable night. The Hiloikhunda lay to the south. This place was about 11 km south of Mangaldoi town. The hurricane kerosene lamps were lit up and it was time to freshen up and rest. The whole eight hours I kept sitting in front of the laptop screen, monitoring our movements. The intrepid Amitabh went from place to place and reconnoitered the area. He even brought back some groundnuts grown nearby along with others. I decided to snooze off till the solitary cockerel cooked for 16 people was ready. The sleeping arrangement was wonderful for an outback like me. It was good padding of kohuwa (Saccharum procerum) grasses covered with a bedsheet. I snored away to glory till rocked to consciousness for dinner.

Intrepid indeed. Perhaps, our sleep would not have been possible due to mosquito bites and cold drafts had it not been for Amitabh. He foresaw the difficulties in the boat, and told me even before the journey that he plans to convert the whole boat to a comfortable tent. Using plastic sheets, he bargained on the other day, he covered up the empty air-passageways and voila... I woke up in the night feeling very very warm and suffocated. Amitabh's idea worked only too well; I had to let some air in to get a good sleep again. The next morning, I remembered it was my birthday. But I had to wait to break the news for a good effect. Pranoy Bordoloi of DY365 also had a nice sleep but was bothered by another co-snorer of yours truly. If my snoring that was of a roaring tiger's vocalization, the co-snorer kept up like a pali to an oja. He was Amitabh. He had no fear about what to eat on this day. Plenty of butter and buns were left and few hours of journey would not matter much. But there were lots of rice, oil, gourd and cabbages. The last item came from our brief halt at Kirakata char. Apparently, the seller took advantage of our helplessness at water.

Our boat engine thudded to life again at six in the morning. Our boat was moored opposite to Charlie 9. From the mooring point the navigable channel took us away from the old route. The ride was smooth. There were no disturbing cross gusts of wind or any tell-tale headwind like the day before. We are thankful to God that dust and sand storms did not materialize on this day too on the journey hours. The programmed points taken from Google Earth; Charlie 10 and 11 were just not approached. At Charlie 12 the track again touched the point. On day one, we travelled about 37 km, and on day two had more than that to cover. Suddenly, the youngest member, Nayanjyoti Das of Howly picked up an important data from the compass page window displaying ground speed. “Sir,” he reported, “we are doing an unbelievable speed upstream: 14.56 km per hour.”

All were making their time easy. Pranoy was sleeping with the cap on facing the sun. Sometimes he would read Mamoni Raisom Goswami's latest book and drift off to sleep again. Miraz and Nayan kept on photographing various aspects of river life. There was nothing to see and yet lot to see if you knew how to look.

Stunning were the patterns on the sand exposed by erosion. So were the cormorants fat with food in their stomachs. The Bahmaputra became wider and wider and suddenly we saw all white all over. A white out. The sky was whitish, the sand up to the horizon and the river, all contributed to this optical trick.

After Charlie 12, the major changes came along in the course and we were doing pretty well on this leg, averaging 10 kmph ground speed. Suddenly we realized, there remained only four Charlie points and the navigable channels enabled us to travel very fast in almost straight courses. With a little miss on the Charlie 15, we corrected our course and asked around to the local fishermen or boatmen about location of Orang. This was hilarious as the position was very near. To our great dismay, the car battery that powered my laptop drained out after ten hours of non-stop duty. Otherwise, it was an easy one. On board, we repacked our belongings. Only then I gave away my good news of my birthday. The guys cheered and proposed that it be celebrated in a befitting manner. Amitabh took out a bun and smeared a hell lot of butter to resemble icing of a cake. To my colleagues’ chorus of Happy birthday to Sir, I cut the bun with a Swiss army knife.

The eagle eyes of the crew detected the presence of two waiting forest guards of Hazarbigha camp by the side of a channel and we approached them. The guards had informed the range officer waiting at Gaspara camp over walkie talkie. My cell phone chimed to life. It was Jayanta Deka, the range officer of Orang. Through the binoculars, the waiting party on the bank was now visible.

The programmed point of Gaspara was now approaching, bit by bit. I took to 'measure distance' mode of the GPS: 300 m, 200m, 140 m, 100 m, 80 m, 30 m, …GASPARA! The journey came to successful end by delivering the boat to the Orang authorities. We travelled a total of 93.70 km in 11 hours 59 minutes and 12 seconds. The computer data showed the unnoticed maximum speed of 21.9 kmph upstream. Wow! Momin is going to be lucky.

What have we gained from the experience? A lot, we guess. Hmm, let me drop a hint: It has a great tourism potential for those who are willing to slog it out! And a charted route is all ready to serve you electronically. Last but not the least, the writer thanks every member of the crew and passengers and above all, the good old God for such a wonderful journey materializing.

Abhijit Rabha