Amitav Ghosh - The Hungry Tide

And now, indeed, everything began to look new, unexpected, full of surprises. I had a book in my hands to while away the time, and it occurred to me that in a way a landscape is not unlike a book — a compilation of pages that overlap without any two ever being the same. People open the book according to their taste and training, their memories and desires: for a geologist the compilation opens at one page, for a boatman at another, and still another for a ship’s pilot, a painter and so on. On occasion these pages are ruled with lines that are invisible to some people, while being for others as real, as charged and as volatile as high-voltage cables.

To me, a townsman, the tide country’s jungle was an emptiness, a place where time stood still. I saw now that this was an illusion, that exactly the opposite was true. What was happening here, I realized, was that the wheel of time was spinning too fast to be seen. In other places it took decades, even centuries, for a river to change course; it took an epoch for an island to appear. But here in the tide country, transformation is the rule of life: rivers stray from week to week, and islands are made and unmade in days. In other places forests take centuries, even millennia, to regenerate; but mangroves can recolonize a denuded island in ten to fifteen years. Could it be that the very rhythms of the earth were quickened here so that they unfolded at an accelerated pace?

I remembered the story of the Royal James and Mary, an English ship making its passage through the shoals of the tide country in the year 1694. Night stole unawares upon the many-masted ship and it capsized after striking a sandbank. What would be the fate of such a shipwreck in the benign waters of the Caribbean or the Mediterranean? I imagined the thick crust of underwater life that would cling to the vessel and preserve it for centuries; I imagined the divers and explorers who would seek their fortunes in the wreck. But here? The tide country digested the great galleon within a few years. Its remains vanished without trace.

Nor was this the only such. Thinking back, I remembered that the channels of the tide country were crowded with the graves of old ships. Wasn’t it true that in the great storm of 1737 more than two dozen ships had foundered in these waters? And didn’t it happen that in the year 1885 the British India Steam Navigation Company lost two proud steamers here, the Arcot and the Mahratta ? And wasn’t the City of Canterbury added to that list in 1897? But today on these sites nothing is to be seen; nothing escapes the maw of the tides; everything is ground to fine silt, becomes something else.

It was as if the whole tide country were speaking in the voice of the Poet: “life is lived in transformation.”

It is afternoon now in Morichjhãpi and Kusum and Horen have just returned from a meeting of the settlers of this ward. The rumors have been confirmed. The gangsters who have massed on the far shore will be brought in to drive the settlers out. But the attack, they say, will likely start tomorrow, not today. I still have a few hours left.

WHEN DINNER ARRIVED, Piya had the feeling that someone had spoken to Moyna about her eating preferences. Today, apart from the usual fare of rice and fish curry, she had also brought some plain mashed potatoes and two bananas. Touched, Piya put her hands together in a namaste to thank Moyna.

Later, when Moyna had gone, she asked Kanai whether it was he who’d spoken to her and he shook his head: “No. It wasn’t me.”

“Must have been Fokir, then.” Piya served herself an eager helping of mashed potatoes. “All I’m missing now is some Ovaltine.”

“Ovaltine?” Kanai looked up from his food in surprise. “You like Ovaltine?” He began to laugh when she nodded. “Do they have Ovaltine in America?”

“It was a habit my parents brought over,” Piya said. “They used to buy their groceries in Indian stores. I like it now because it’s easy to carry and convenient when you’re out on the water.”

“So you live on Ovaltine while you’re tracking these dolphins of yours?”

“Sometimes.”

Kanai shook his head ruefully as he filled a plate with rice, dal and chhechki. “You go through a lot for these creatures, don’t you?”

“That’s not how I think of it.”

“So are they fetching, these beasts of yours?” said Kanai. “Do they hold one’s interest?”

“They’re interesting to me,” said Piya. “And I can give you at least one good reason why they should be of interest to you.”

“I’m listening,” said Kanai. “I’m willing to be persuaded. Why?”

“Because some of the earliest specimens were found in Calcutta,” Piya said. “How’s that for a reason?”

“In Calcutta?” Kanai said incredulously. “You’re telling me there were dolphins in Calcutta?”

“Oh, yes,” said Piya. “Not just dolphins. Whales too.”

“Whales?” Kanai laughed. “Now I know you’re pulling my leg.”

“Not at all,” said Piya. “Kolkata was once a big place for cetacean zoology.”

“I don’t believe you,” Kanai said flatly. “I think I’d know if that were the case.”

“But it’s true,” Piya said. “And let me tell you — last week when I was coming through Kolkata? I actually went on a cetacean pilgrimage.”

Kanai burst into laughter. “A cetacean pilgrimage?”

“Yes,” said Piya. “My cousins laughed too. But that’s just what it was, a pilgrimage.”

“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 gangeticu s (“ 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 gangetic a (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.”