Mangrove Chronicles - Part III

The lump in my throat was a lot more prominent now as I tried to feel the wooden platform beneath my numb foot. We were ten criminals on a dwindling ferry who could no longer face each other. Once again I thanked the fading lights. Everyone pretended to look into the dark, each one knowing the limits of his vision and morals. More than a minute had passed since the boy jumped into the tides. More than a minute had passed since we tried closing our eyes hoping that the world would turn blind. Every passing second made us believe that our tender offering had reached the predator.

I tried hard to spot any trifling signs of despair on Kashi da’s face. He stood still, like an old tree that didn’t bear new fruits or fresh leaves for anyone to read what it was going through. Ever since the boy met the tides, there wasn’t a single clamour that would suggest his condition. Our worst fears were coming true. Suddenly a hand appeared out of the rapid tides pleading for help. Kashi da didn’t waste a second to get his kin on board.

There was no warm clothing to offer to this panting, half-dead boy who was shivering with cold. His face shouted aloud the horror he faced in the swirling undercurrents. His breathlessness prevented him from realizing the attention he was receiving from the worthy city dwellers for the first time. He would have been too shy to notice anyways, as he avoided eye contact. “I was dead…I was dead” is all he could utter. Not a single leaf moved of the old tree.

The boy opened up a little once his shock gave away to the euphoria of being alive. The tide had greeted him with animal corpse and thick vegetation from the swamps that entangled his body. Something down there was making him choke. Something would not let him hold his breath. Restlessness kept growing on Kashi da’s face, a face that lacked the ability to portray compassion even if he was left with any. He wasn’t interested in the young boy’s stories anymore. Maintaining the fine balance of the shaky boat, Kashi da asked him to do the unthinkable.

With the tide reaching its full fury, and the constant fear of poachers, Kashi da would give it one last fight. He asked the young boy to give himself to the tides once again. This time he had to try and start the boat’s motor whose blades seemed to have been jammed. Did the ferocious predator rip his heart off during one of those seven encounters, and leave Kashi da’s body intact to decay among other living souls? While we made livid glances at him, his nephew looked at the full moon with blank eyes.

In the tide country, they don’t question the old and the experienced. Another big splash, another violent tremor and the countdown began. My count had reached close to eighty when I heard a thudding sound that gradually grew with each second. While most of us expected it to be a rescue boat having forest rangers, it turned out to be our own motor. The little boy had given it a new life while risking his own. As Kashi da helped him up, he looked happier despite the shiver in his teeth. He had successfully detangled a large fishing net trapped under the boat’s propellers. The boat had finally started, making the loud thudding noise of the motor perfect music to our ears.

As the boat finally cruised along, taking us back to safety, we spotted the natives of the delta waiting at the edges of their little islands. They constantly gazed at their large fishing nets, completely ignoring our presence. The nets lay submerged inside the water, with only large, dark, kerosene-jugs attached to the nets acting as the floating markers to be spotted. Strange how the full moon creates beautiful yet scary mirages in the water. The cigarette was lit again as the Gangetic dolphin debate resumed…