Life by the river

"আমায় ডোবাইলি রে আমায় ভাসাইলি রে
অকুল দরিয়ার বুঝি কুল নাই রে"

You drown me now and you let me float then (at your wish)/ This endless river knows no bound...

Ganga divides into Padma and Hoogly rivers upon entering this area and assumes its mighty form. In our country they call rivers "a mother". River valley civilisations are called নদী মাতৃক সভ্যতা (Civilisations around rivers as mothers), in Bengali. A river here is a mother who lets her children grow around her and helps them feed their own children in turn. However, this mother turns into the proverbial demon goddess when humans try to bind her in concrete. This free flowing spirit then takes violent twists and turns to not only change the course to submerge village after village, it also changes the course of the civilisation that it created in the first place. Murshidabad is a lesson for the human civilisation. It tells you what a mighty river can do when you try to interfere with its free will. Thousands of acres of cultivable land and human habitation now lies beneath Padma in Murshidabad. The river enters the district at its northern most point and goes out of the eastern border. This is also the border to Bangladesh. 

I had read several reports on how Padma was eroding the landmass of this district, however this time when I visited Jalangi Block what I encountered was something beyond my

imagination! I met people whose houses have been taken away by the water as many as 7 times. Most of the men travelled to Kerala to earn to rebuild their homes. Selina now lives in her 8th home. Her dialect reminded me of my childhood vacation time. A dragged accent that probably helped the people living near the river to reach out to their kins fishing or rowing boats in the river, to call their children from the ever available swimming pool. An accent that infused smiles into each word as they dragged you in a friendly embrace. It made you feel welcome! Selina's laughter will not help you appreciate that you are walking on the dried extension of the Padma River. She showed us in the water where they were before. The boats now row over the place where their houses once stood. Selina stretches her hand, "There....just there was the main road and the Police Station." She turns a bit towards her left, and shows "And there was a primary school." They say this year the water has not reached the danger point as we point towards the floating water-hyacinths.  For those uninitiated, floating water-hyacinths in the river are indication of floods in nearby areas. These only grow in still water and when the ponds or smaller canals get flooded by the river, these then can be seen floating in the river. It's a sign that flood is approaching. 

We met some more women from this area the previous day who came all the way (70 km) to Baharampur. It was raining heavily that day. They still came on time. We picked up some in our Van so that we could traverse the last bit together. We almost sat on each other as we tried to fit 4 more. They told us they had to come as they all had personal stories to share along with the stories of the child marriage that they had stopped, the trafficked women they brought back home. One woman was really frustrated with the administration and the marriage registrars. She said she is determined to get one of them caught red-handed. Other women said they would help too! As many stories of life of a child bride was shared one in particular kept us awake till late night. Shyamali* was a child bride whose husband left for work soon after her marriage and came back with HIV. She and her unborn child contracted the infection too. When her husabnd passed away due to AIDS, her in-laws felt she had no right to remain alive. She however came to the city holding her young child in her arms to get some treatment. She met Soma from the NGO we visited and got a manual job. With a little help, she could get ART and is alive today. Her young boy could not survive though. She was determined to live on for her older girl, who was all of 7 at that time. And she struggles everyday to live. Her smile and determination often do not reflect her tough life but makes one determined to fight a good fight. A river that has given birth to almost all the civilisations of the world, is turning human lives turtle, both literally and figuratively. 

Let me end with a story of hope. As hope is what I live by. Shyamali stopped her older girl from being married off as a child bride to a migrant laborer, recently. As the local administration at the Block level was too ready to believe her in-laws' version that her daughter is already married, she pushed them to actually go to the village and take an undertaking from the family members that they can not marry off a minor girl. Shyamali repeated again and again, "Tell me Didi! How can I let what happened to me happen to my daughter? How can I?" I wish all of us were as determined. 

*Name changed.