Spent my teenage years next to the Brahmaputra river. And then I had to attend college in the west of the country. I missed my friends, the hills, the abundance of greens but most of all I missed the river from my backyard. The might of the river has been lavishly written about. Her travel from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal is an adventure in itself. Her ever-changing forms imitate life. How she makes people feel is spun into poems and songs. I strongly believe that the river has a pull, an attraction, a gravity of its own which plays on people of all kinds – fisherfolk, farmers, dating couples, children, elders and on me. While identities of people in North East often clash in insider-outsider binaries, the river unifies. She connects the disconnected. She can bridge boundaries and borders. After studying and working across India, this enormity of the Brahmaputra pulled me back to her after 20 years. Now when I touch her waters, it feels as if I never left. She is the centre of my friendships in the city. She is my family here.