Every river has its own distinctive current, wave pattern, wind and tides. And rivers mean boats which predate the wheel, says anthropologist Swarup Bhattacharyya who has spent the better part of his academic life pursuing the saga of the boats of Bengal. If you wish to study the evolution of man in society in geographies where rivers predominate, a highly rewarding way would be to study the evolution of its boats which used the winds and the tides and the brawn of boatmen to get around the world long before mechanical boats arrived.
Riverine “Bengal”, as it was called before it was divided, resides in the delta that comes at the end of the north Indian rivers before they meet the sea. Its life is intricately linked with the boats that it has been using since prehistoric times to negotiate the rivers that criss-cross it.