The Hungry Tide

by Amitav Ghosh

  Meanwhile, Fokir had dropped to his haunches and seized a pair of oars. The current had already carried the boat several hundred feet from the creek where the dolphins had been foraging. Now Fokir began to heave at the oars, turning the boat from one creek into another, laboring to lengthen the distance.

  After some twenty minutes of furious rowing they came to an inlet that curved deep into the interior of a thickly forested island. Fokir kept the boat moving until they reached a spot where the boat was well sheltered from the currents of the main channel. Here, after dropping anchor, he tore off his drenched T-shirt and reached for a gamchha to wipe away the sweat that was pouring down his chest.

  After he had caught his breath, he glanced at Piya and said, “Lusibari?”

  Piya was only too glad to assent. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s head for Lusibari. It’s time.”

  Part Two

  The Flood: Jowar

  BEGINNING AGAIN

  I had thought that on the way to Lusibari my face would lose the flush it had acquired in Morichjhãpi: the brisk air of the river would cool my skin and the rocking of Horen’s boat would slow the pace of my heart. But no, exactly the opposite happened: with every turn a new vista seemed to open in front of me. I could not keep still. I put away my umbrella and stood up, opening my arms as if to embrace the wind. My dhoti became a sail and I a mast, tugging the boat toward the horizon.

  “Saar,” cried Horen, “sit down! The boat will roll over — you’ll fall.”

  “Horen, you are the best of boatmen. You’ll find a way of keeping us afloat.”

  “Saar,” said Horen, “what’s the matter with you today? You don’t seem like your old self.”

  “You are right, Horen. I am not my old self anymore. And it’s you who’s responsible.”

  “And how’s that, Saar?”

  “Wasn’t it you who took me to Morichjhãpi?”

  “No, Saar. It was the storm.”

  Forever modest, our Horen. “All right, then. It was the storm.” I laughed. “It was the storm that showed me that a man can be transformed even in retirement, that he can begin again.”

  “Begin what, Saar?”

  “Begin a new life, Horen, a new life. The next time we come to Morichjhãpi my students will be waiting. I’ll teach as I have never taught before.”

  “And what will you teach them, Saar? What will the lesson be?”

  “Why, I’ll tell them about —”

  And what indeed was I to tell them about? Expert boatman that he was, Horen had found a way of spilling the wind from my sails.

  I sat down. This was a matter that needed careful thought.

  I would start, I decided, with magical tales of the kind to which these children were accustomed. “Tell me, children,” I would begin, “what do our old myths have in common with geology?”

  This would catch their interest. Their eyes would narrow, they would puzzle over my question for a minute or two before giving up.

  “Tell us, Saar.”

  “Goddesses, children,” I would announce in triumph. “Don’t you see? Goddesses are what they have in common.”

  They would look at each other and whisper, “Is he teasing? Is this a joke?” Presently a small, hesitant voice would speak up: “But Saar, what do you mean?”

  “Think about it,” I would say, “and you’ll see. It’s not just the goddesses — there’s a lot more in common between myth and geology. Look at the size of their heroes, how immense they are — heavenly deities on the one hand, and on the other the titanic stirrings of the earth itself — both equally otherworldly, equally remote from us. Then there is the way in which the plots go round and round in both kinds of story, so that every episode is both a beginning and an end and every outcome leads to others. And then, of course, there is the scale of time — yugas and epochs, Kaliyuga and the Quaternary. And yet — mind this! — in both, these vast durations are telescoped in such a way as to permit the telling of a story.”

  “How, Saar, how? Tell us one of these stories.”

  And so I would begin.

  Maybe I would start with the story of Vishnu, in his incarnation as a divine dwarf, measuring out the universe in three giant strides. I would tell them about the god’s misstep and how an errant toenail on one of his feet created a tiny scratch on the fabric of creation. It was this pore, I’d tell them, that became the source of the immortal and eternal Ganga that flows through the heavens, washing away the sins of the universe — this was the stream that would become the greatest of all the earth’s rivers.

  “The Ganga? Greatest of all rivers?” They would rise, provoked beyond endurance by my mischievous phrasings. “But Saar, many rivers are longer than our Ganga: the Nile, the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Yangtze.”

  And then I would produce my secret treasure, a present sent to me by a former student — a map of the sea floor made by geologists. In the reversed relief of this map they would see with their own eyes that the Ganga does not come to an end after it flows into the Bay of Bengal. It joins with the Brahmaputra in scouring a long, clearly marked channel along the floor of the bay. The map would reveal to them what is otherwise hidden underwater: and this is that the course of this underwater river exceeds by far the length of the river’s overland channel.

  “Look, comrades, look,” I would say. “This map shows that in geology, as in myth, there is a visible Ganga and a hidden Ganga: one flows on land and one beneath the water. Put them together and you have what is by far the greatest of the earth’s rivers.”

  And, to follow this, I decided, I’d tell them the story of the Greek goddess who was the Ganga’s mother. I would take them back to the deep, deep time of geology and I would show them that where the Ganga now runs there was once a coastline — a shore that marked the southern extremity of the Asian landmass. India was far, far away then, in another hemisphere. It was attached to Australia and Antarctica. I would show them the sea and tell them about its name, Tethys, in Greek mythology the wife of Oceanus. There were no Himalayas then and no holy rivers, no Jamuna, no Ganga, no Saraswati, no Brahmaputra. And since there were no rivers, there was also no delta, no floodplain, no silting, no mangroves — no Bengal, in other words. The green coastline of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh was then a frozen waste with ice running to a depth of two hundred feet. Where the southern shore of the Ganga now lies was a length of frozen beach that dipped gently into the waters of the now vanished Tethys Sea.

  I would show them how it happened that India broke away 140 million years ago and began its journey north from Antarctica. They would see how their subcontinent had moved, at a speed no other landmass had ever attained before; they would see how its weight forced the rise of the Himalayas; they would see the Ganga emerging as a brook on a rising hill. In front of their eyes they would see how, as India traveled, the Tethys shrank, how she grew thinner and thinner as the channel closed. They would watch as she withered, the two landmasses finally colliding at the expense of the mother ocean; they would see her dying but they would shed no tears, for they would see also the birth of the two rivers in which her memory would be preserved, her twin children — the Indus and the Ganga.

  “And do you know how you can tell that the Sindhu and the Ganga were once conjoined?”

  “How, Saar?”

  “Because of the shushuk, the river dolphin. This creature of the sea was the legacy left to the twins by their mother, Tethys. The rivers nurtured it and made it their own. Nowhere else in the world is the shushuk to be found but in the twin rivers, the Ganga and the Sindhu.”

  And if their interest wandered, I would tell them, in the end, a love story, about a king called Shantanu and how, on the banks of the great river, he spotted a woman of dazzling beauty. This was, of course, none other than the Ganga herself, but the king had no knowledge of this. On the banks of rivers even the most temperate men lose their heads. King Shantanu fell in love wholly, madly; he promised the river goddess that he would grant her whatever she w
anted; if she chose even to drown her own children, he would not stand in her way.

  A single besotted moment beside a river, and thus was launched a parva of the Mahabharata.

  Why should a schoolmaster deny that which even the old mythmakers acknowledge? Love flows deep in rivers.

  “Children, this is the lesson; hear it in the words of the Poet:

  “To sing about someone you love is one thing; but, oh, the blood’s hidden guilty river-god is something else.”

  LANDFALL

  AT THE START, with the currents flowing in the wrong direction and Fokir laboring alone at the oars, the going was painfully slow. Piya was not surprised when after an hour of rowing she checked the boat’s position on the GPS and found that they had traveled only two miles. It struck her then, belatedly, that Fokir might have yet another pair of oars. On signaling the question, she was glad to discover he did: they were stowed underfoot in the boat’s bilges.

  The oars were no less crudely crafted than the boat itself — they consisted of two oblong pieces of wood nailed awkwardly to a couple of shorn mangrove branches. There were no oarlocks on the gunwales and the handles had to be engaged in little protrusions of wood. When Piya dipped the oars in the water the current twisted them around and nearly tore them from her grip. It took her a while to grow used to the feel of them, but with two of them rowing the pace quickened.

  As the hours wore on, Piya found it increasingly difficult to keep going: a crop of blisters appeared on her hands, and her face and neck seemed marbled with salt. Toward sunset she pulled in her oars and yielded to the temptation to ask how much longer it would be before they arrived at their destination. “Lusibari?”

  Fokir had been rowing almost without a break since morning, but she was still unable to see any signs of tiredness in him. Now, pausing briefly to glance over his shoulder, he pointed to a tongue of land just visible in the distance: its deforested shoreline marked it out from the other islands in the vicinity. It was heartening to have the place finally within sight, but Piya knew it would be a while yet before they made landfall, and she was right.

  By the time they had moored the boat and collected their things, the sun had set and darkness was closing in. Fokir picked up one of her backpacks while she carried the other, and they set off in single file with Tutul in the lead. Piya’s attention was focused on keeping the two of them in sight, and she took nothing in of the surroundings until Fokir came to an abrupt halt and pointed ahead. “Mashima,” he said, and she saw he was gesturing toward a flight of steps that led up to a closed door.

  Was this it? She was wondering what to do next when he lifted the backpack off his shoulders and handed it to her. Then both he and the boy withdrew a little — Fokir with his catch of crabs rolled in a length of netting, and Tutul with a bundle of clothes balanced on his head. Fokir motioned to her again to step up to the door and Piya sensed now, from the incline of their bodies, that they were poised to turn away, leaving her where she was. Suddenly she was panicstricken. “Wait!” she cried. “Where are you going?”

  She had envisaged many possibilities, but not this — not that they would just walk away with nothing said, not even a goodbye. Nor had it occurred to her that the prospect of their departure would result in such an icy feeling of abandonment.

  “Wait. Just a minute.”

  Somewhere in the distance a generator was switched on, and a flood of light came pouring out of a nearby window. Piya’s eyes had grown unaccustomed to electricity and she was momentarily blinded by the bright, flat light. Blinking, she dug her fists into her face, and when she opened her eyes again they were gone, both of them, Fokir and the boy.

  She remembered that she hadn’t given Fokir any money for bringing her here. How would she ever find him again? She didn’t know where he lived — she didn’t even know his full name. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted into the darkness, “Fokir!”

  “Ké?” The answer was spoken in a woman’s voice, and it came not from ahead of her but from behind. Then the door swung open and Piya found herself facing a small, elderly woman with wispy hair and gold-rimmed eyeglasses. “Ké?”

  Collecting herself quickly, Piya went up the steps. “Please excuse me. I don’t know if I’ve come to the right place. I’m looking for Mashima.” She said this in a rush, not knowing whether she would be understood or not.

  There was an awkward moment during which Piya felt herself to be subjected to a shrewd and searching scrutiny: the gold-rimmed glasses rose and fell as they took in her salt-streaked face and muddy cotton pants. Then, to her great relief, she heard a voice say, in soft, fluting English, “You are indeed in the right place. But tell me — who are you? Do I know you?”

  “No,” said Piya. “You don’t know me. My name is Piyali Roy. I met your nephew on the train.”

  “Kanai?”

  “Yes. Kanai. He invited me to visit.”

  “Well, do come in. Kanai will be down any minute.” She stepped aside to let Piya through. “How did you find your way here? Surely you didn’t come alone?”

  “No,” said Piya. “I’d never have been able to find you on my own.”

  “Then who brought you? I didn’t see anyone outside.”

  “They left just as you opened the door —” Before Piya could say any more, the door swung open and Kanai stepped into the doorway, squinting in surprise. “Piya? Is that you?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “So you made it after all.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good!” He gave her a broad smile. He hadn’t expected to see her quite so soon and was flattered as well as pleased: it seemed like a good augury. “Well, you’ve had an eventful trip.” He looked her up and down, taking in her mud-splattered clothes. “How did you get here?”

  “In a rowboat.”

  “A rowboat?”

  “Yes,” said Piya. “You see, I had an accident soon after I met you.”

  In a few short sentences, Piya told them about the events that had led to her fall from the launch. “And then the fisherman jumped in after me — I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t. I’d swallowed a lot of water but he managed to get me back into the boat. But after that I decided it wasn’t safe to get back in the launch with that guard. So I took a chance and asked the fisherman if he knew Mashima. It turned out he did, so I said I’d pay him if he brought me to Lusibari. We would have been here sooner but we had some unexpected encounters.”

  “With what?”

  “First we met up with some dolphins,” said Piya. “Then this morning we had a brush with a crocodile.”

  “Upon my word!” said Nilima. “No injuries I hope.”

  “No,” said Piya. “But there could have been. He fought it off with an oar — it was incredible.”

  “My goodness!” said Nilima. “And who was this man? Did he tell you his name?”

  “Sure,” said Piya. “His name’s Fokir.”

  “Fokir?” cried Nilima. “Do you mean Fokir Mandol by any chance?”

  “He didn’t tell me his last name.”

  “Was there a little boy with him?” said Nilima.

  “Yes, there was,” said Piya. “Tutul.”

  “That’s him.” Nilima directed a glance in Kanai’s direction. “So that’s where he was.”

  “Were people looking for them?”

  “Yes,” said Kanai. “Fokir’s wife, Moyna, works at the hospital here and she’s been half out of her mind with worry.”

  “Oh?” said Piya. “It’s probably my fault. I kept them out there longer than they’d have stayed.”

  “Well,” said Nilima, pursing her lips. “As long as they’re back now — no harm done.”

  “I hope not,” said Piya. “I’d hate to think I’d gotten him into some kind of trouble. He saved my life, you know. And it wasn’t just that — he also led me straight to a pod of dolphins.”

  “Is that so?” said Kanai. “But how did he know you were looking for d
olphins?”

  “I showed him a picture, a flashcard,” Piya said. “And that was all it took. He led me straight to the dolphins. In a way, that fall was the luckiest thing that could have happened to me — I’d never have found the dolphins on my own. I really need to see him again. I’ve got to pay him, for one thing.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Nilima. “They live nearby, in the Trust’s quarters. Kanai will take you there tomorrow morning.”

  Piya turned to him. “It’d be great if you could.”

  “Yes,” said Kanai, “of course I will. But that can wait. For the time being, we’ve got to get you settled so you can change and rest up.”

  Piya had given no thought to what would happen next, and now, with the euphoria of her arrival beginning to fade, she was suddenly aware of a weighty backlog of fatigue. “Settled?” she said, looking around. “Where?”

  “Here,” said Kanai. “Or rather, upstairs.”

  She was discomfited to think he had assumed she would stay with him. “Are there any hotels around here?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Nilima. “But there’s a guest house upstairs with three empty rooms. You’re very welcome to stay there. There’s no one in it but Kanai. And if he bothers you, just come down and let me know.”