Expedition Successfully Finished
In the morning we moved from our floating home in Namkhana towards the main shipping channel that connects Kolkata to the Bay of Bengal. As we went past the Sagar Island and Diamond harbor, we stopped on the open sea for a little ceremony that has become a hallmark of all the river expeditiond lead by Andee.
The river that originates as a trickle from the eternal ice-fields of holy Mount Kailash in Tibet, after traveling through the Tibetan plateau and gorges, mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, plains of Assam and Delta in Bangladesh; finally as a huge waterway merges in the sea here in the bay of Bengal. We tied our three boats together to float for a while. There were rounds of high-fives for having completed our expedition and Andee poured the water he had taken almost three thousand kilometers upstream at the source, into the sea; thus connecting the two ends of the river. The expedition was over and joy splashed all around as one after the other members jumped in the water.
Onward journey to Kolkata through the Hoogly River was on familiar waters as most of the team members who had been on the Ganga expedition last year had entered Kolkata through this route only. Soon we zipped into Kolkata with the historic city peering at us from its two bridges, boats, ships, ghats, crumbling colonial buildings and new multistoried mansions.
Tomorrow we meet the press at the Kolkata Press Club and later take leave from the river, as we proceed to our respective homes; but memories of Brahmaputra will travel with us forever.
