The Hungry Tide (27 page)

To my surprise, I found she already knew about the settlers and their arrival: she had heard about it in Kolkata from bureaucrats and politicians. The government, she said, saw these people as squatters and land grabbers; there was going to be trouble; they would not be allowed to remain.

“Nirmal,” she said, “I don't want you going there. It's not that I have anything against the settlers. I just don't want you to be in harm's way.”

I realized at that moment, with a great sense of sadness, that from now on my relationship with Morichjhãpi would have to be conducted in secret. I had intended to tell her about the feast of the next day but now said nothing. Knowing Nilima as I did, I was sure she would find a way to prevent me from going.

Yet I would not have lied had she not pressed me. She saw me packing my jhola and asked if I was planning to go somewhere.

“Yes, I have to leave tomorrow morning.” I made up a story about visiting a school in Mollakhali. I knew she didn't believe me, for she looked at me closely and said, “And who are you going with?”

“Horen,” I said.

“Oh?” she said. “Horen?” And the inflection of her voice as she said this was enough to make me fear for the safety of my secret.

Thus was sown the seed of our mistrust.

But to the feast I went — and it proved to be one of the strangest days of my existence. It was as if, on the eve of my retirement, I had been presented with a glimpse of the life I might have led if I had stayed in Kolkata. The guests who had been brought in from the city were exactly the people I would have known: journalists, photographers, well-known authors; there was the novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay and the journalist Jyotirmoy Datta. Some of them I even recognized for I had known them back in the university. One of them — we used to call him Khokon in those days — had once been a friend as well as a comrade. I observed him from a distance, marveling at how well he looked, at the bright effulgence of his face and the raven-black hue of his hair. Would this have been me had I stayed on, living the literary life?

I became aware as never before of all my unacknowledged regrets.

I
hun
g
back
,
followin
g
a
t a
distance
,
a
s
th
e
settlers
'
leader
s
le
d
th
e
guest
s
o
n a
tou
r
o
f
th
e
island
.
Ther
e
wa
s
muc
h
t
o
sho
w —
eve
n
i
n
th
e
shor
t
whil
e I
ha
d
bee
n
away
,
ther
e
ha
d
bee
n
man
y
additions
,
man
y
improvements
.
Sal
t
pan
s
ha
d
bee
n
created
,
tub
e
well
s
ha
d
bee
n
planted
,
wate
r
ha
d
bee
n dammed
fo
r
th
e
farmin
g
o
f
fish
, a
baker
y
ha
d
starte
d
up
,
boa
t
builder
s
ha
d
se
t
u
p
workshops
, a
potter
y
ha
d
bee
n
founde
d
a
s
wel
l
a
s
a
n
ironsmith'
s
shop
;
ther
e
wer
e
peopl
e
makin
g
boat
s
whil
e
other
s
wer
e
fashionin
g
net
s
an
d
cra
b
lines
;
littl
e
marketplaces
,
wher
e
al
l
kind
s
o
f
good
s
wer
e
bein
g
sold
,
ha
d
sprun
g
up
.
Al
l
thi
s
i
n
th
e
spac
e
o
f a
fe
w
months
!
I
t
wa
s
a
n
astonishin
g
spectacl
e —
a
s
thoug
h
a
n
entir
e
civilizatio
n
ha
d
sproute
d
suddenl
y
i
n
th
e
mud
.

After all this came the feast, done in the old style and artfully arranged, with banana leaves set out on the earth and the guests seated in the shade of murmuring trees. Among those who were serving I spotted Kusum, who showed me the massive dekchis in which the food had been cooked. There were gigantic prawns, both golda and bagda, and a fantastic variety of fish: tangra, ilish, parshey, puti, bhetki, rui, chitol.

I was amazed: knowing that many of the settlers went hungry, I couldn't understand how this show of plenty had been arranged.

“Where did all this come from?” I said to Kusum.

“Everyone contributed what they could,” she said. “But there was not much to buy — only the rice. The rest came from the rivers. Since yesterday we've all been out with nets and lines, even the children.” She pointed proudly to the parshey: “Fokir caught six of those this morning.”

My admiration was boundless. What better way to win the hearts of these city people than by feeding them freshly caught fish? How well these settlers understood their guests!

Kusum urged me to sit down and start eating. But I could not bring myself to sit with the guests: I was not of their number. “No, Kusum,” I said. “It's better you feed those who can spread the word. This is precious food — it would be wasted on me.” I hung back in the shade of the trees, and from time to time Fokir or Kusum would bring me a few morsels wrapped in a banana leaf.

It was soon evident that the occasion had served its purpose: the guests were undeniably impressed. Speeches were made extolling the achievements of the settlers. It was universally agreed that the significance of Morichjhãpi extended far beyond the island itself. Was it possible that in Morichjhãpi had been planted the seeds of what might become, if not a Dalit nation, then at least a safe haven, a place of true freedom for the country's most oppressed?

When the day was almost at an end, I went up to Khokon, the writer I had once known, and stood silently in his line of sight. He glanced at me without recognition and went on with his conversation. In a while I tapped his elbow: “Eijé. Here, Khokon?”

He was annoyed at being addressed so familiarly by a stranger. “And who, moshai, might you be?” he said.

When I told him who I was, his mouth fell open and his tongue began to flop around inside it like a netted fish. “You?” he said at last. “You?”

I said, “Yes. It's me.”

“You haven't been heard from in so long, everybody thought —”

“That I was dead? As you see, I'm not.”

On the brink of saying “It would have been better so,” he cut himself short. “But what have you been doing all these years? Where have you been?”

I felt then as if I had been called upon to justify the entirety of my existence, to account for the years I had spent in Lusibari.

But what I had to say in answer was very modest: “I've been doing
schoolmasteri
in a place not far from here.”

“And your writing?”

I shrugged. What was there to say? “It's a good thing I stopped,” I said. “My work would have been put to shame by yours.”

Writers! How they love flattery. He put his arm around my shoulders and led me off, indulgently lowering his voice, as an elder brother might with a younger. “So, Nirmal, tell me, how did you get mixed up with these settlers?”

“I know a couple of them,” I said. “Now that I'm almost retired, I'm thinking of doing some teaching here.”

“Here?” he said dubiously. “But the problem is, they may not be allowed to stay.”

“They're here already,” I said. “How could they be evicted now? There would be bloodshed.”

He laughed. “My friend, have you forgotten what we used to say in the old days?”

“What?”

“You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

He laughed in the cynical way of those who, having never believed in the ideals they once professed, imagine that no one else had done so either. I was tempted to tell him what I thought of him, but it struck me with great force that I had no business to be self-righteous about these matters. Nilima — she had achieved a great deal. What had I done? What was the work of my life? I tried to find an answer but none would come to mind.

It
i
s
afternoo
n
no
w
an
d
Hore
n
an
d
Kusu
m
hav
e
gon
e
t
o
se
e
i
f
the
y
ca
n
fin
d
som
e
fish
.
Foki
r
i
s
sittin
g
her
e
wit
h a
cra
b
line
,
wha
t
i
s
calle
d a
don
in the
tid
e
country
,
an
d
a
s I
watc
h
hi
m
pla
y
wit
h
it
,
m
y
hear
t
spill
s
over
.
Ther
e
i
s
s
o
muc
h
t
o
say
,
s
o
muc
h
i
n
m
y
head
,
s
o
muc
h
tha
t
wil
l
remai
n
unsaid
.
Oh
,
thos
e
waste
d
years
,
tha
t
waste
d
time
. I
thin
k
o
f
Rilk
e
goin
g
fo
r
year
s
withou
t
writin
g a
wor
d
an
d
then
,
i
n a
matte
r
o
f
weeks
,
producin
g
th
e
Duino Elegies
in a
castl
e
besiege
d
b
y
th
e
sea
.
Eve
n
silenc
e
i
s
preparation
.
A
s
th
e
minute
s
pass
,
i
t
seem
s
t
o
m
e I
ca
n
se
e
ever
y
objec
t
i
n
th
e
tid
e
countr
y
wit
h a
blindin
g
brightnes
s
an
d
clarity
. I
wan
t
t
o
sa
y
t
o
Fokir
,
“D
o
yo
u
kno
w
tha
t
ever
y
do
n
ha
s
on
e
thousan
d
morsel
s
o
f
bait
,
tie
d
a
t
gap
s
o
f
thre
e
arms
'
length
s
each
?
Tha
t
eac
h
lin
e
i
s
thu
s
equa
l
t
o
th
e
lengt
h
o
f
thre
e
thousan
d
arms?
”

How better can we praise the world but by doing what the Poet would have us do: by speaking of potters and rope makers, by telling of

some simple thing shaped for generation after generation until it lives in our hands and in our eyes, and it's ours.

CATCHING UP

A
FTER HER SHOWER,
Piya sank into the chair by her window and found she could not get up again. After days of squatting and sitting cross-legged it was strange to have a support behind your back and to be able to swing your legs freely without worrying about tipping over. She could still feel the rocking motion of the boat in her limbs, and the sighing of the wind blowing through the mangroves was still in her ears.

The feeling of being back on the boat suddenly brought back the terror she had felt that morning. It had happened so recently that the sensations seemed still to be present, unprocessed, in her mind — they had not yet been absorbed as memory. She saw once again the wrenching, twisting motion of the reptile's head as its jaws closed over the spot where her wrist had been: it was as if it had been so certain of its aim, so sure of seizing her arm, that it had already launched into the movement that would drag her out of the boat and into the water. She imagined the tug that would have pulled her below the surface and the momentary release before the jaws closed again, around her midsection, pulling her into those swift, eerily glowing depths where the sunlight had no orientation and there was neither up nor down. She remembered her panic in falling from the launch, and it made her think of the numbing horror that would accompany the awareness that you were imprisoned in a grasp from which there was no escape. The overlapping of these images created a montage of such vividness that her hands began to tremble. And now, with Fokir absent, the experience seemed even more frightening than it had been at the time.