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TANGENTS

Three Rivers

BY IHTISHAM KABIR
It all started with a photograph of the Kushiara river I saw on Facebook. The photographer, Farida Nasreen, told me that it was taken where the river enters Bangladesh.
I became curious and asked someone who has travelled far and wide through Bangladesh. My uncle Shafi Chacha instantly recognised the place - he had been there. It was the junction of three rivers near Zakiganj in Sylhet.
The river Barak starts out nearTipaimukh in the mountains of Manipur and flows south through Mizoram and Assam. At the Bangladesh-India border, it bifurcates into the Surma and the Kushiara. Kushiara flows south and then east, hugging the border. Surma makes a U-turn and heads north-west.
So early one morning I found myself on the road to Zakiganj from Sylhet. Taking a sharp left after crossing the new Surma Bridge, the road headed east taking me through Golapganj, then Biani Bazar. After some time, the mountains of Assam loomed on the left.
Two hours from Sylhet, at Barathakur, we took a small detour from the road and arrived at "teengang" (three rivers.) What a sight! The Barak flowed down forcefully - wide, deep and fast - from India. After splitting, the right branch continued southward. The left branch made a U-tum. Kushiyara and Surma had begun their magnificent, life-giving journey.
It was a vision of primeval force - the big river hurtling down, then making this abrupt, ferocious U-turn. The water was turbulent and muddy.
The area receives much rain due to the proximity of the mountains and rainclouds had been gathering at the horizon. As I started walking along the banks
of the Kushiara, it started raining. I took shelter in a tiny bamboo grove. The rain, though heavy, was short.
I decided to proceed further south towards Zakiganj town and stopped near a village market straddling two villages: Pallakandi and Rahimpur. The river flowed along both these border villages. At Pallakandi 1 walked to its bank. It was much broader here. This being a border river, there was little river traffic. Occasional small fishing boats plied the river, crossing to the halfway point and turning back.
The third drenching of the day started and I took refuge in a village home. Talking with the owner, I learned there are big fishes in the river - rui and katla - but the largest is baghmachh. Sometimes the fishermen dive for fish. Baghmachh hides under rocks at the riverbed. To catch it, the divers dive in with a fishing line, find the fish, insert a hook into its tail, and return to their fishing boat. They play the fish until it exhausts itself. Recently they had caught a 28-kg baghmachh using this tactic.
After the rain, I walked through the village. The homes had backyard gardens, emerald green, with banana, shupari, aamra and other trees. The village cemetery was on the riverbank, tombs sheltered by large trees.
It was time to return. Walking up to the car, I saw a vendor selling bananas from a tall cluster (kadi.) I bought four for three taka each.
In the car I realized my mistake. 1 should have bought the whole kadi, for they were the sweetest bananas I ever had.
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