by Amitav Ghosh
“And who are these cousins of yours?” said Kanai.
“My mashima’s daughters,” Piya said. “They’re younger than me; one’s in high school and one’s in college — both really bright, smart kids. They had a car and driver and they said they’d take me wherever I wanted to go in Calcutta. I guess they figured that I’d want to buy some souvenirs or something. When I told them where I wanted to go, they were like, ‘The Botanical Gardens! What are you going to do there?’”
“I can see the point of that question,” Kanai said. “What do the Botanical Gardens have to do with dolphins?”
“Everything,” said Piya. “You see, in the nineteenth century the gardens were run by some very good naturalists. One of them was William Roxburgh, the man who identified the Gangetic dolphin.”
It was in Calcutta’s Botanical Gardens, Piya explained, that Roxburgh had written his famous article of 1801 announcing the discovery of the first-known river dolphin. He had called it Delphinus gangeticus (“Soosoo is the name it is known by among the Bengalese around Calcutta”), but the name had been changed later, when it was discovered that Pliny the Elder had already named the Indian river dolphin, as far back as the first century C.E. — he had called it Platanista. In the zoological inventory the Gangetic dolphin had come to be listed as Platanista gangetica (Roxburgh, 1801). Years later, John Anderson, one of Roxburgh’s successors at the gardens, actually adopted an infant Gangetic dolphin. He kept it in his bathtub, and it lived for several weeks.
“But you know what?” Piya said. “Although he had a dolphin in his bathtub, Anderson never found out that Platanista are blind — or that they prefer to swim on their side.”
“Is that what they do?”
“Yes.”
“So did you find the bathtub?” said Kanai, reaching across the table for the rice.
Piya laughed. “No. But I wasn’t too disappointed. It was good just to be there.”
“So what was the next station in your pilgrimage?” Kanai said.
“This one will surprise you even more,” said Piya. “Salt Lake.”
Kanai’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean the Kolkata suburb?”
“It wasn’t always a suburb, you know,” Piya said, peeling another banana. “In 1852 it was just a wetland with a few scattered ponds.”
In July that year, Piya said, an unusually high tide caused a sudden surge in the rivers of the delta. The wave traveled deep into the hinterland, flooding the swamps and wetlands that surrounded Calcutta. When the tide turned and the waters began to recede, a rumor swept the streets of the city: a school of giant sea creatures had been stranded in one of the salt lakes on the city’s western outskirts. The then superintendent of the Botanical Gardens was one Edward Blyth, an English naturalist. The news worried him. The year before on the Malabar coast a stranded whale, a full eighty-eight feet in length, had been dismembered by the local people: they had set upon it with knives, axes and spears and hacked it apart. A nearby English clergyman was shown the meat, both dried and fresh, and was told that it was “first chop beef.” What if these creatures were cut up and consumed before they had been subjected to a proper examination? The thought of this sent Blyth hurrying across town to the salt lake.
“It wasn’t that he cared about their being killed,” Piya said. “He just wanted to do it himself.”
The marshes were steaming under a blazing sun and the water had fallen back to its accustomed level. He arrived to find some twenty animals floundering in a shallow pond. Their heads were rounded and their bodies black with white undersides. The adult males were over thirteen feet long. The water was too low to keep them fully submerged and their short, sharply raked dorsal fins were exposed to the sun. They were in great distress and their moans could be clearly heard. Blyth was inclined to identify the animals as short-finned pilot whales, Globicephalus deductor. This was a common Atlantic species, named and identified some six years before by the great British anatomist Henry Gray.
“Of Gray’s Anatomy?” Kanai said.
“That’s the one.”
A large crowd had gathered but somewhat to Blyth’s surprise they had not set upon the whales. On the contrary, many people had labored through the night to rescue the creatures, towing them through a channel into the river. Apparently these villagers had no taste for whale meat and no knowledge of the oil that could be extracted from the animals’ carcasses. Blyth learned that many whales had been saved and that the twenty remaining ones were the last of a school of several dozen. With the rescues proceeding apace, there was clearly no time to be lost. Blyth chose two of the best specimens and ordered his men to secure them to the bank with poles and stout ropes: his intention was to return the next day with the implements necessary for a proper dissection.
“But when he came back the next morning,” said Piya, “they were all gone.” The chosen animals had been cut loose by the bystanders. But Blyth was not easily thwarted and managed to get hold of two of the last remaining whales. These he quickly reduced to perfect skeletons. After a prolonged examination of the bones, he decided that the animals were an unknown species. He called it the Indian pilot whale, Globicephalus indicus.
“I have a theory,” Piya said with a smile, “that if Blyth hadn’t gone out to Salt Lake that day, he’d have become the man who identified the Irrawaddy dolphin.”
Kanai was licking a grain of rice off his forefinger. “Why?”
“Because six years later he made a terrible mistake when he found the first specimen of Orcaella.”
“And where did he find it?”
“In a Calcutta fish market,” Piya said with a laugh. “Someone told him about it and he went running over. He gave it the once-over and decided it was a juvenile pilot whale like the animals he’d seen out near the Salt Lake. He couldn’t get those creatures out of his head.”
“So he wasn’t the one who identified your beloved dolphin?” Kanai said.
“No,” said Piya. “Old Blyth missed his chance.”
A quarter of a century later, another carcass of a small, roundheaded cetacean was found at Vizagapatnam, four hundred miles down the coast from Calcutta. This time the skeleton found its way to the British Museum, where it occasioned much curiosity. The anatomists of London saw what Blyth had failed to see: this was no juvenile pilot whale! It was a new species, a relative of none other than the killer whale, Orcinus orca. But where the killer whale grew to lengths of over thirty feet, its cousin rarely exceeded eight; while the killer whale liked the icy waters of the subpolar oceans, its cousin preferred the warmth of the tropics and appeared to thrive in both fresh water and salt. Compared to the mighty orca, this creature was so mellow as to need a diminutive: it became Orcaella — Orcaella brevirostris, to be exact.
A puzzled frown appeared on Kanai’s forehead. “So this killer-ella of yours was first netted in Calcutta and then in Vizagapatnam?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is it known as the Irrawaddy dolphin?”
“That’s another story,” said Piya.
The name was the doing of John Anderson, she said, the very one who’d tried to rear a Gangetic dolphin in his bathtub. In the 1870s Anderson accompanied two zoological expeditions that traveled through Burma to southern China. While sailing up the Irrawaddy, Anderson found no Orcaella in the lower part of the river. In the upper reaches, on the other hand, they were present in great numbers. There appeared also to be a few small anatomical differences between the animals that lived in fresh water and those that lived in salt water. From this Anderson drew the conclusion that there were two species of Orcaella: to Orcaella brevirostris he awarded a cousin, Orcaella fluminalis. This, he decided, was the Irrawaddy dolphin, the true inhabitant of Asia’s rivers.
“The name stuck,” Piya said, “but his conclusions didn’t.”
The great Gray of London examined several skeletons and handed down a definitive judgment: Orcaella was one species, not two. It was true that there were coastal populations and
riverine populations, and it was true also that the two did not mix. But anatomically there was no difference. In the Linnaean bestiary the animal’s name became Orcaella brevirostris (Gray, 1886).
“And you know what the real irony was?” Piya said. “Poor old Blyth was wrong on all counts. Not only did he blow his chances of identifying Orcaella; he also misidentified the stranded whales of Calcutta’s Salt Lake: they were just short-finned pilot whales. Gray showed there was no such thing as Globicephalus indicus.”
Kanai nodded. “That’s how it was in those days,” he said. “London was to Calcutta as orca to Orcaella.”
Piya laughed as she carried her plate to the sink. “Are you convinced now? About Calcutta being a center of cetacean zoology?”
Piya raised her hand to her earlobe in the gesture that Kanai had noticed before. That movement made her seem at once as graceful as a dancer and as vulnerable as a child, and it made Kanai’s heart stop. He could not bear to think that she would be going the next day.
Leaving his plate on the table, he went to the bathroom to wash his hands. A minute later, he came hurrying out and went to stand at Piya’s elbow, beside the sink.
“I have an idea for you, Piya,” he said.
“Yes?” she said cautiously, alarmed by the shine in his eye.
“Do you know what your expedition lacks?”
“What?” She turned away from him, pursing her lips.
“A translator!” Kanai said. “Neither Horen nor Fokir speaks English. How are you going to communicate with them?”
“I managed OK over the last few days.”
“But you didn’t have a whole crew to deal with.”
She acknowledged the truth of this with a nod: she could see that there would be advantages to having him along. But her instincts told her to be careful: his presence might lead to trouble. Playing for time, she said, “But don’t you have stuff to do here?”
“Not really,” said Kanai. “I’m getting to the end of my uncle’s notebook — and it doesn’t necessarily have to be read right here. I could take it with me. Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of this Guest House. I wouldn’t mind a little break.”
His eagerness was obvious and she was aware of a twinge of guilt: there was no denying that he had been very hospitable; she would feel more at ease about staying in the Guest House if she knew his generosity was not going to go unreciprocated.
“Well, then, sure,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “You’re welcome to come along.”
He made a fist and punched it into his open palm. “Thank you!” But this display of enthusiasm seemed to cause him some embarrassment, for he added, affecting nonchalance, “I’ve always wanted to be on an expedition. It’s been an ambition of mine ever since I learned that my great-great-uncle was the translator on Younghusband’s expedition to Tibet.”
DESTINY
Putting away my book, I said to Kusum: “What is this place we’re going to? Why is it called Garjontola?”
“Because of the garjon tree, which grows in great abundance there.”
“Oh?” I had not made this connection: I’d thought that the name of the place came from the other meaning of the word garjon, “to roar.” “So it’s not because of a tiger’s cry?”
She laughed. “Maybe that too.”
“So why is it Garjontola we’re going to? Why there and nowhere else?”
“It’s because of my father, Saar,” Kusum said.
“Your father?”
“Yes. Once, many years ago, his life was saved on this island.”
“How? What happened?”
“All right, Saar, since you asked, I’ll tell you the story. I know you’ll probably laugh. You won’t believe me.
“It happened long, long ago, before I was born; fishing alone, my father was caught in a storm. The wind raged like a fiend and tore apart his boat; his hands fell on a log and somehow he stayed afloat. Swept by the current, he came to Garjontola; climbing a tree, he tied himself with his gamchha. Attached to the trunk, he held on against the gale till suddenly the wind stopped and a silence fell. The waves were quieted, the tree stood straight again, but there was no moon and not a thing could be seen.
“Now, in the dark of the night he heard a garjon; soon he caught the smell of the unnameable one. Terror seized his heart and he lost all consciousness; he’d have fallen if the gamchha hadn’t held him in place. He dreamed, in his oblivion, of Bon Bibi: ‘Fool!’ she said. ‘Don’t be afraid; believe in me. This place you’ve come to, I value it as my own; if you’re good at heart, here you’ll never be alone.’
“‘When day breaks you’ll see it is time for low tide; cross the island and go to the northern side. Keep your eyes on the water; be patient and you’ll see: you’re not on your own; you’re not far from me. You’ll see my messengers, my ears and my eyes; they’ll keep you company till the waters rise. Then will you know that deliverance is at hand; a boat will pass by and take you back to your land.’”
Who could fail to be charmed by such a story, so well told? “I suppose you will tell me,” I said, smiling, “that this was exactly how it happened?”
“Why, yes, Saar, it did. And afterward my father came back and built a shrine to Bon Bibi on the island. For the rest of his life, every year we came here on this day, when it was time to do a puja for Bon Bibi.”
I laughed. “And the messengers? I suppose you will say that they were real too?”
“Why, yes, Saar,” she said. “They were. And even you will see them soon.”
“Even I?” I laughed louder still. “An unbelieving secularist? I too am to be granted this privilege?”
“Yes, Saar,” she persisted in the face of my skepticism. “Anyone can see Bon Bibi’s messengers if they know where to look.”
I took a little nap in the shade of my umbrella, and then woke to the sound of Kusum’s voice telling me we had arrived.
I’d been looking forward to the moment when I would be able to confound her credulousness. I sat quickly upright. It was low tide and we were becalmed in a stretch of still water; the shore was yet some distance away. There was nothing to be seen, no messengers nor any other divine manifestation. I could not help preening myself a little as I savored my triumph. “So where are they, Kusum,” I said, “these messengers of yours?”
“Wait, Saar. You’ll see them.”
Suddenly there was a sound like that of a man blowing his nose. I turned around in astonishment, just in time to see a patch of black skin disappearing into the water.
“What was that?” I cried. “Where did it come from? Where did it go?”
“Look,” said little Fokir, pointing in the other direction, “over there.”
I turned to see another of these creatures, rolling through the water. This time I also caught a glimpse of a small triangular fin. Although I had never before seen this animal, I knew it had to be a dolphin; yet it was clearly not the shushuk I was accustomed to seeing in our waters, for those had no fins on their backs.
“What is it?” I said. “Is it some kind of shushuk?”
It was Kusum’s turn to smile. “I have my own name for them,” she said. “I call them Bon Bibi’s messengers.” The triumph was hers now; I could not deny it to her.
All the time our boat was at that spot, the creatures kept breaking the water around us. What held them there? What made them linger? I could not imagine. Then there came a moment when one of them broke the surface with its head and looked right at me. Now I saw why Kusum found it so easy to believe that these animals were something other than what they were. For where she had seen a sign of Bon Bibi, I saw instead the gaze of the Poet. It was as if he were saying to me:
some mute animal
raising its calm eyes and seeing through us,
and through us. This is destiny…
THE MEGHA
IN THE MORNING Piya and Kanai hired a cycle-van to take them across the island to look at the bhotbhoti Fokir had arranged. On the wa
y, as they rattled down the brick-paved path that led to the village, Piya said, “Tell me about the owner of this boat. Did you say you knew him?”
“I met him when I came here as a boy,” said Kanai. “His name is Horen Naskor. I can’t really claim to know him, but he was close to my uncle.”
“And what’s his relation to Fokir?”
“Oh, he’s like an adopted parent,” said Kanai. “Fokir lived with him after his mother died.”
Horen was waiting at the foot of the embankment with Fokir at his side. Kanai recognized him at once: he was squat and wide-bodied, just as he remembered, but his chest seemed even broader now than before because of the substantial paunch that had burgeoned beneath it. With age the folds of Horen’s face had deepened so that his eyes seemed almost to have disappeared. Yet it was clear that the years had also added stature to his presence, for his demeanor was now that of a patriarch, a man who commanded the respect of all who knew him. His clothes too were those of a man of some means: his striped lungi was starched and carefully ironed and his white shirt was spotlessly clean. On his wrist was a heavy watch with a metal strap, and sunglasses could be seen protruding from his shirt pocket.
“Do you remember me, Horen-da?” said Kanai, joining his hands in greeting. “I’m Saar’s nephew.”
“Of course,” said Horen matter-of-factly. “You came here as a punishment in 1970. It was the year of the great Agunmukha cyclone — but you left before that, I think.”
“Yes,” said Kanai. “And how are your children? You had three then, I remember.”
“They have grown children of their own now,” said Horen. “Look, here’s one of them.” Horen beckoned to a lanky teenager who was dressed in jeans and a smart blue T-shirt. “His name is Nogen and he’s just out of school. He’s going to be on our crew.”
“Good.” Kanai turned to introduce Piya. “And this is the scientist who wants to hire the bhotbhoti: Shrimati Piyali Roy.”
Horen bobbed his head in greeting to Piya. “Come,” he said, pulling up his lungi. “My bhotbhoti’s waiting.”
