The Braided River: A Journey Along the Brahmaputra
Asia's mightiest waterway deserves a storyteller as curious as Samrat Choudhury. In this absorbing account, the acclaimed journalist traces the Brahmaputra's serpentine route, beginning where it slips across the Tibetan frontier and concluding at its union with the Ganga deep in Bangladesh. What unfolds is far more than a simple geographic expedition. Choudhury encounters bristling border guards, hitches rides on unlikely vehicles, and visits sanctuary spaces sheltering orphaned rhinos and young elephants. Each riverside encounter yields rich human stories that anchor the narrative firmly in lived experience. Layered beneath these vivid moments lies substantial historical weight: the contentious sino-Indian boundary, the evolving sense of Assamese belonging (a question newly urgent given recent citizenship legislation), and the looming threat of hydroelectric projects. The result resists easy categorisation. It reads simultaneously as intimate memoir, historical inquiry and urgent environmental reckoning. Politics, ecology and personal reflection interweave throughout, creating something that feels both timely and enduringly important. You'll find yourself thinking about rivers, borders and identity long after finishing.
- Author: Samrat Choudhury
- Publisher: HarperCollins India
- Genre: Travel Writing & Guides
- ISBN: 978-9390327584
- Pages: 424 pages