The Brahmaputra’s night ferries: the river boats that never stop

The night ferries of the Brahmaputra run on schedules that predate the city’s streetlights: diesel boats that carry nurses to island clinics, milk to markets and newspapers to villages that have no road.

The service is quiet, unglamorous and essential — and it is being modernised with GPS and weather alerts.

The ferrymen’s union keeps a simple rule: ‘The river never closes. Neither do we.’