Book excerpt: In the verdant tea plantations of Assam, Roop Sharma, the daughter of an impoverished tea planter, tries to take her life, but is saved by the river that flows past her town. Then an unexpected friendship blooms between her and Miss Vikranta Barua, the scion of a wealthy tea plantation family, who arrives as a temporary teacher at her convent school. Their intimacy grows and they find happiness as together they battle life's blows, including the insurgency that casts its shadows over the entire state. But their friendship is tested when Vikranta sides with her paramour, who is implicated in harming Roop's family. Set against the backdrop of the militant secessionism in Assam, Then Came the River is about friendship and intimacy, the thin line between love and friendship, and the agony of loving and losing a friend.