Image via Wikipedia

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Image via Wikipedia

A bunch of children in a   ferry boat, not on an impulse, for that was the mode of our regular transport to school. Only crowded parts of the town, a good five kilometers away availed of the service of launches and steamboats. Farther, there was a railway bridge also. This was used by us in bad weather.

Depending on the tide, the boat at times  sailed directly across, but most of the days it sailed parallel to the river bank, a few meters away from it and then gradually made for a diagonal turn ,at a tortoise like pace. The latter naturally delayed us from joining the school assembly. Being late for the school bus had its respective options, but missing the boat used to be a crime unpardonable. The victim used to gape balefully at the boat receding from sight to return home for a thorough sizing up. A child used to feign stomach ache most of the days and would return and end up polishing the floors of his house as a punishment. The   river bank was covered with thick vegetation of bamboo that cast a dark, gloomy green on the brownish waters. The water body could be related to a screen wherein slow motion spectacles appeared in turns, to add a dash of variety as it went its course.  Small curly waves glinting in the sun, waves which were those huge ones during high tides or gusty winds, ripples that receded at a distance were not the only things that we saw. Nymph like water hyacinths pranced along with their bulbous stems, only to get entangled at the   scaffolding of the jetty from where we alighted. We   were witness to some pathetic scenes also; of   a large number of bloated corpses bobbing, during a friction between   neighboring    countries. Some shark like fish , now and then, somersaulted in the water bringing about shock waves all around. They were called ‘sonse’ in the fishermen’s dialect. A couple of barges were regularly stationed at the jetty. These towed loads of jute to the nearest harbor. The boatmen who inhabited these barges cooked a meal with the’ sonse’ meat with oil from its body. This oil, they believed, had therapeutic properties especially for aches and pain