Ira Sen Part 1 – Arrival in Assam The plane dipped low over the wide, lazy sweep of the Brahmaputra, and Devika pressed her face against the oval window. The river spread like a sheet of molten steel under the September sun, streaked with islands and sandbars, its surface broken now and then by the speck of a ferry or a line of fishing boats straining against the current. She had read about it countless times—this river that carried myths and nations on its back—but nothing prepared her for its vastness. It looked less like water and more like time…