It was then late fifties, my grandfather liked very much if I accompanied him bathing and swimming with him. I could learn breaststroke, butterfly and underwater swimming. On the way he used to help me recognising wild plants, herbs and shurbs of Bangla.

One day he narrated to me that this Ichamati river was vital to the English indigo planters.Sadhupara,our heart and abode was once famous for Indigoplantation.Not far from our house in Sadhupara I saw many boats loaded with jute and rice bound for unkown destination in 1960 along the Ichamati.

Still today one finds remnents of the Nilkuthi(Estatehouse for the indigoplanters) in Sadhupara on the bank of river Ichamati. He said to me the Englishman had built London almost exclusively from the money earned from Indigo produced in Bangla.

In late teenage, of my father I got a birthday present of Tagore' s famous book Chinnopatra(Glimpses of Bengal). here I liked Tagore's description of Ichamati river. I memorised them word for word, of course in Bangla.

Thirty years later, I bought Tagore's book in Swedish "Glimtar från Bengalen" from a jewish antiquarian,and a friend of mine, in Stockholm. It was, nevertheless, translation of Glimpses of Bengal(Chinnapatra) translated to swedish from english by Hugo Hultenberg in 1921. In my early 40-ies it did take long time to memorize them in Swedish.

I take the pleasure to reproduce them for the Swedish speaking people and for the English speaking people my own translation has been presented:

På vägen till Pabna, den 9 juli 1895
Jag glider fram genom den smala, slingrande Ichamati, regntidens lilla strömdrag. Med sina rader av byar på stränderna, sina fält med jute och sockerrör, sina vassbeväxta ställen, sina gröna badsluttningar liknar den några rader av en dikt, ofta läst och läst med förtjusning. Man kan icke minnas en stor flod som Padma,men denna lilla slingrande Ichamati, vars stavelsers flöde regleras av regnens rytm, gör jag mer och mer till min egen....