December begins the planning of an expedition that embodies the spirit of discovery and the purpose of ethnography. The ETHNOMAD River Transect will follow the Teesta River from its glacial birthplace high in the Indian Himalayas to its confluence with the Brahmaputra and on toward the Bay of Bengal. This is not only a geographical journey but a passage through living history, tracing how rivers shape the identity, faith, and survival of the people who live by them.

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The Teesta rises in the snowfields of North Sikkim, between the borders of Bhutan and Nepal, where the thin mountain air carries the scent of juniper and pine. Here, the Lepcha, considered the original inhabitants of Sikkim, call the river Rongnyu Chu, “the lifeblood of the land.” Their homes of timber and stone cling to mountain slopes above terraced fields of millet, cardamom, and buckwheat. Nearby, Bhutia and Nepali communities, including the Rai, Limbu, and Tamang, share in the highland rhythm of life where the cold wind dictates when to plant, pray, and travel. Each village has its own flavour, its own tea brewed strong and sweet, its own stories of mountain spirits and shifting glaciers.

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As the Teesta descends into West Bengal, the mountains give way to a wide, fertile plain. Here, the Santhal and Oraon tribes tend rice and maize fields while Rajbanshi families fish and farm along the muddy banks. Life revolves around the haat, the village market, where fish fry sizzles beside baskets of green chillies, hand-woven saris hang in the dust, and the smell of jaggery and betel leaf fills the air. Folk songs echo through the night, often sung to the rhythm of the madol drum, celebrating love, rain, and harvest.

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Crossing into northern Bangladesh, the Teesta becomes wide and restless, spreading into a delta of sandbanks and braided channels. The people here have learned to live with the uncertainty of water. Whole villages rise and vanish with the floods, only to be rebuilt again with bamboo and clay. Fishermen launch their narrow wooden boats before dawn, and women dry fish on woven mats beside the river. Boat-builders, potters, and weavers carry centuries-old skills that mirror the patience and precision of the river itself.

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Yet beneath this beauty lies fragility. Climate change is altering everything. Glaciers in the Himalayas are melting faster each year, and the river that once gave life now brings sudden destruction. Dams upstream, erratic monsoons, and soil erosion threaten livelihoods. In the charlands of Bangladesh, families move their homes again and again as the river eats away at the earth beneath them. The songs that once praised the river now speak of loss, migration, and memory.

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The ETHNOMAD River Journey will bring these stories to life through writing, film, and photography. It will capture the taste of river fish cooked over wood fires, the laughter of children bathing in the shallows, the quiet dignity of elders who read the water like a book. This is a journey of people who live in harmony with uncertainty, whose lives reveal what it means to belong to a river that never stays still. For the explorer and ethnographer alike, it is a voyage into the living heart of South Asia, where nature and culture flow as one.