Documenting the Teesta Through Long Term Research, Visual Storytelling, and Human Connection.
For more than a decade, I have been documenting the Teesta River and the lives shaped by it across North Bengal, India. My work is driven by long-term field research, visual documentation, and close engagement with riverside communities whose knowledge, traditions, and everyday experiences often remain absent from mainstream narratives.
Rather than making occasional visits, I spend extended periods in the field-walking across riverbeds, travelling by country boats, living among local communities, listening to oral histories, and returning to the same places across different seasons. This long-term engagement allows me to document not only landscapes, but also relationships between people, water, memory, and change.
My documentation focuses on disappearing livelihoods, indigenous ecological knowledge, traditional fishing practices, seasonal mobility, river-based agriculture, buffalo herding culture, locally built boats, and the everyday adaptations of people living with an ever-changing river.
Many of these practices are rapidly disappearing as the Teesta transforms under environmental change and human intervention. Recording these stories has therefore become both a research commitment and an archival responsibility.
Photography, documentary filmmaking, field notes, interviews, maps, and sound recordings together form the foundation of my work. Every image on this website is connected to a wider story gathered through years of observation and trust.
Building relationships with communities has always been central to my research. Many of the people featured in my work are individuals and families whom I have visited repeatedly over many years. Their generosity, memories, and lived experiences have shaped my understanding of the Teesta far more deeply than any official document or secondary source ever could.
My first book, Tistabathan, emerged from this long-term engagement and documents one of the river’s disappearing pastoral traditions. It reflects my continuing interest in preserving cultural landscapes that are gradually fading from public memory.
Alongside research and writing, I am currently developing documentary films and building the Teesta Archive-an independent digital archive dedicated to preserving photographs, films, field recordings, oral histories, and research materials related to the Teesta River.
The archive is intended not only for filmmakers and researchers but also for students, educators, and anyone interested in understanding the river through the voices and experiences of the people who live with it.
My work has never been about documenting spectacular moments alone. It is equally about everyday conversations, ordinary journeys, forgotten practices, and quiet landscapes that reveal how rivers shape human lives over time.
Through this website, I hope to create an open space where research, documentary practice, photography, and storytelling come together to preserve the cultural and ecological memory of the Teesta.
I believe that some stories cannot be discovered from the riverbank. They can only be understood by living with the river.
Community Engagement
Beyond research and documentation, I have remained closely connected with the communities of the Teesta floodplains. Over the years, I have participated in small community initiatives, including winter blanket distribution, environmental awareness programmes, and educational interactions. These efforts reflect a long-term relationship of trust, respect, and shared experiences with the people whose lives continue to shape my work.
© 2026 Nilanjan Mistry. All rights reserved.
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