Hazarika is struck that those championing various anti-erosion strategies rarely ask the people living on the islands and river banks for their opinions. It’s not just about people of course, he says. “We must be mindful of one simple issue: we are only one of the many species living in these ecosystems, privileged to share space with them.”

Payeng later tells me of a Mishing folk story, Patukari Tuyub, the Dolphin Maiden. One version has a young girl, Yakasi, being drowned by her neighbours: dressed in black, a wooden pestle attached to her back, two brooms tied to her hands, she is pushed into the river. She returns as a dolphin, the story goes, those brooms became her fins. And so the Mishing see the river dolphin as their long-lost daughter, to be revered and protected at all costs.

As we watch another dolphin somersault alongside the boat, Yakasi is still with us. But her future and the future of her people depends on decisions made on the mainland. Onto to the next sapori we go. We have no map to guide us, but Payeng will surely get us there. Today, there is safety in the river’s serenity, and security in this knowledge of his. And despite our fears for the future of the Brahmaputra and its people, that will have to do for now.

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