Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide

And so to Kumirmari. That day, I heard for the first time of the events unfolding at Morichjhãpi. The islands were close by, and in the school I was visiting there were many teachers who had witnessed the progress of the exodus: they had seen tens of thousands of settlers making their way to the island in boats, dinghies and bhotbhotis. Many of their own people had gone off to join the movement, drawn by the prospect of free land. But even as they marveled at the refugees’ boldness, there were those who predicted trouble: the island belonged to the Forest Department and the government would not allow the squatters to remain.

I thought no more of it; it was no business of mine.

At midday there was a meal and shortly afterward Horen and I set off to return to Lusibari. We were on the river, heading home, when the wind suddenly started up. Within moments it was on us — it attacked with that peculiar, willful malevolence that causes people to think of these storms as something other than wholly natural. The river had been calm minutes before, but now we found ourselves picked up and shaken by huge waves. Before, Horen had been sweating to make the boat move — now we were being swept along against our will.

“Are we going to be finished off this time?” I said.

“No, Saar,” he said. “I’ve lived through much worse than this.”

“When?”

“In 1970, Saar, during the Agunmukha cyclone. If you had seen that, this would not seem like a storm at all. But that’s too long a story to tell to you now. What’s important for us at this minute is to go ashore.” He pointed to his right.

“Morichjhãpi, Saar. We can take shelter there until the storm subsides.”

There was nothing more to be said. With the wind behind us we were driven quickly to the shore. I helped Horen push his boat up the bank, and after he had secured it, he said, “Saar, we have to take shelter under a roof.”

“But where can we go, Horen?”

“Over there, Saar. I see a dwelling.”

Without another question I set off after him, running through the pounding rain. With water streaming down my glasses, it was all I could do to keep my eyes on Horen’s back.

Soon we were at the door of a small shack — of the usual kind, made with bamboo and palm-leaf thatch. At the door, Horen shouted, “ Eijé — ké achhish? Anybody home?”

The door sprang open and I stepped in. I was standing there blinking, wiping the rain from my glasses, when I heard someone say, “Saar? Is that you?”

I looked down and saw a young woman kneeling in front of me, touching my feet. That I could not identify her was no more a surprise than that she should know me: if you have been in one place long enough as a schoolteacher, then this happens with almost everyone you meet. Your pupils grow up and your memory fails to grow with them. Their new faces do not match the old.

“Saar,” she said, “it’s Kusum.”

Of all the people I might have expected to meet in that place, she was surely the last. “Impossible.”

Now that my glasses were dry I noticed there was a small child hiding behind her. “And who is that?” I said.

“That’s my son, Fokir.”

I reached out to pat his head but he darted away.

“He’s very shy,” said Kusum with a laugh.

I noticed now that Horen had not entered the dwelling and I realized that this was probably as a show of respect to me. I was both pleased and annoyed. Who, after all, is so egalitarian as not to value the respect of another human being? Yet it seemed strange that he did not know of my aversion to servility.

I put my head around the door and saw him outside, waiting patiently in the pouring rain. “What’s the matter with you, Horen?” I said. “Come inside. This is no time to be standing on ceremony.”

So Horen came in and there ensued a silence of the kind that often descends when people meet after a long time. “You?” said Kusum at last, and Horen answered with one of his customary mumbles. Then she pushed the boy forward and said, “Here is Fokir, my son.” Horen ran his hand through the boy’s hair and said, “ Besh! Good.”

“And what about your family?” she said. “Your children must be quite grown now.”

“My youngest is five,” said Horen, “and the oldest is fourteen.”

She smiled, as if to tease him: “Almost of an age to be married, then?”

“No,” said Horen with sudden vehemence. “I would not do to him what was done to me.”

I recount this only as an example of the way in which, even in extraordinary circumstances, people will often speak of the most inconsequential things.

“Look at you,” I said. “It’s Kusum who’s been away for all these years — and here we are talking about Horen and his children.”

There was a mat on the floor and I sat down. I asked where she had been and how she had ended up in Morichjhãpi.

“What can I tell you, Saar?” she said. “It would take too long to tell.”

The wind was howling outside and the rain was still pouring down. “There’s nothing else to do now anyway,” I said. “So I’m ready to hear whatever you have to say.”

She laughed. “All right, Saar. How can I say no to you? I’ll tell you how it happened.”

I remember that her voice changed as she was recounting her story; it assumed new rhythms and distinctive cadences. Is it merely a trick of memory? It doesn’t matter: her words have come flooding back to me in a torrent. My pen will have to race to keep up: she is the muse and I am just a scribe.

“Where wa s m y mother ? I onl y kne w wha t I’ d hear d — fro m Lusibar i I wen t a s i f t o th e dark: sh e ha d bee n taken, the y said, t o a tow n calle d Dhanbad. I aske d a fe w question s an d foun d ou t wher e t o go; switchin g fro m thi s trai n t o that , I mad e m y wa y there.

“At the station it struck me: what would I do now? It was a mining town, the air was filled with smoke; the people were strangers, I’d never known their like; their words were like iron, they rang when they spoke; when their gaze turned on you, their eyes smoldered like coal. I was on my own, a girl dressed in a torn frock; I’d had no fear till then — now my courage ran dry.

“But I was fortunate, although I didn’t know, a blessed power was watching: she showed me where to go. There was a man at the station selling ghugni. I spoke to him and found he was from the tide country! His house was in Basonti, his name was Rajen; his people were poor and he had left home as a boy. He had been lamed in Calcutta by a speeding bus; he’d started selling food in stations and on trains. Chance had brought him to Dhanbad, where he’d found a shack; it was in a bosti right beside the rail track. When he heard why I was there, he said he would help, but in the meanwhile what would I do with myself? ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘You will be fine in my shack. Like you, I’m on my own. There’ll be room for us both.’ I followed him there, along the graveled rail track. I was fearful when I entered: would I be safe? All night I lay awake and listened to the trains.