We had driven to Kurigram, a small town tucked away by the Dharla and Dhudhkumar (also known as the Teesta in India) rivers, after an exhausting week on the river and the Bay of Bengal, on a small vessel. After returning to Dhaka, we travelled all day to get to Kurigram, a sleepy, uneventful, very warm and dusty place. We were to reach there by late afternoon, and decided to take a brief detour to Chilmari, a river port that was once a major trading centre. At one time Chilmari had welcomed British steamers and deep draft vessels bearing silk and jute as well as tea and foodgrains to its shores. Now the river’s constant buffeting and resulting erosion had reduced the port to a short stretch of sand where small fishing boats plied.

Chilmari was a place I had visited two times earlier for my field research for the migration project and I thought it would also be a good site also to film.

After looking around the area briefly, Jahnu, cinematographer Sudheer Palsane (him of the thin frame, untrimmed beard and studious, lost look) and I decided that we would return very early next day to capture the awakening of this river village.

As producer of the film, it was my special responsibility to ensure that crew members were awake on time, that tea was served, packed lunches ready and vehicles primed to roll out from the guest house where we were located. This meant that I had to get up at 3:30 a.m., to ensure that everything was in order. The lot of a small filmmaker is a thankless one; with a very tight budget, we had to complete a number of shooting schedules in North-East India and Bangladesh, and finally cross the Himalayas into Tibet during our quest for the Brahmaputra. Every moment counted and it cost cash. A delay of an hour or two meant cost escalation down the line.

Of course, everyone had to be fed (and fed on time—there are specified times for breakfast, lunch and dinner breaks, according to trade union regulations in the film industry—otherwise the unions could give producers a tough time later); they needed decent accomodation and were not to work beyond a certain number of hours per day. The Brahmaputra unit was a remarkable one—it maintained the rules as much as possible. But when necessary, the unit members took physical risks, endured long hours, worked tremendously hard, and made quick decisions on their own at difficult times.

The making of the film and our accompanying travels are separate stories, with different characters, for another telling.