The Hungry Tide (35 page)

The tigers, alas, refused to cooperate: “Evidently they had no difficulty in discriminating between masks and faces.”

“So are you saying the tigers are actually able to think these things through?” said Kanai.

“I don't know, Kanai,” Nilima said. “I've lived here for over fifty years and I've never seen a tiger. Nor do I want to. I've come to believe what people say in these parts: that if you see a tiger, the chances are you won't live to tell the tale. That's why I'm telling you, Kanai, you can't go into the jungle on a whim. Before you go you should ask yourself whether you really need to.”

“But I'm not planning to go into the jungle at all,” Kanai replied. “I'm going to be on the bhotbhoti, well removed from any harm.”

“And you think a bhotbhoti is going to keep you from harm?”

“We'll be out on the water, well away from shore. What can happen there?”

“Kanai, let me tell you something. Nine years ago, a tiger killed a young girl right here in Lusibari. They found later that it had swum all the way across the Bidya's mohona and back again. Do you know how far that is?”

“No.”

“Three and a half miles each way. And that's not unusual: they've been known to swim as much as eight miles at a stretch. So don't for a moment imagine that the water will give you any safety. Boats and bhotbhotis are attacked all the time — even in midstream. It happens several times each year.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Nilima nodded. “And if you don't believe me, just take a close look at any of the Forest Department's boats. You'll see they're like floating fortresses. Their windows have steel bars as thick as my wrist. And that's despite the fact that forest guards carry arms. Tell me, does your bhotbhoti have bars on its windows?”

Kanai scratched his head. “I don't remember.”

“There you are,” Nilima said. “You didn't even notice. I don't think you understand what you're getting into. Leave aside the animals — those boats and bhotbhotis are more dangerous than anything in the jungle. Every month we hear of one or two going down.”

“There's no reason for you to worry,” said Kanai. “I won't take any risks.”

“But Kanai, don't you see? To our way of thinking, you
are
the risk. The others are going because they need to — but not you. You're going on a whim, a
kheyal.
You don't have any pressing reason to go.”

“That's not true; I do have a reason —” Kanai had spoken without thinking and cut himself off in midsentence.

“Kanai?” said Nilima. “Is there something you aren't telling me?”

“Oh, it's just —” He could not think of what to say next and hung his head.

She looked at him shrewdly. “It's that girl, isn't it? Piya?”

Kanai looked away in silence, and she said, with a bitterness he had never heard in her voice before, “You're all the same, you men. Who can blame the tigers when predators like you pass for human beings?”

She took hold of Kanai's elbow and led him to the door. “Be careful, Kanai — just be careful.”

MEMORY

A
fter we had spent a half hour with the dolphins, Horen began to row toward the shore of Garjontola. As we were drawing closer, Horen looked at me with a mischievous smile. “Saar,” he said, “now the time to go ashore is at hand. Tell me, Saar, bhoi ta ter paisen? Do you feel the fear?”

“The fear?” I said. “What do you mean, Horen? Why should I be afraid? Aren't you with me?”

“Because it's the fear that protects you, Saar; it's what keeps you alive. Without it the danger doubles.”

“So are you afraid, then, Horen?”

“Yes, Saar,” he said. “Look at me. Don't you see the fear on my face?”

And now that I looked more closely, it was true that I could see something out of the ordinary on his face — an alertness, a gravity, a sharpening of the eyes. The tension was of a kind that communicated itself readily: it didn't take long before I could say to Horen, truthfully, that I was just as afraid as he was.

“Yes, Horen. I feel it.”

“That's good, Saar. That's good.”

When the boat was some fifty feet from the shore, Horen stopped rowing and put away his oars. Shutting his eyes, he began to mumble and make gestures with his hands.

“What is he doing?” I said to Kusum.

“Don't you know, Saar?” she said. “He is a bauley. He knows the mantras that shut the mouths of the big cats. He knows how to keep them from attacking us.”

Perhaps in another circumstance I would have laughed. But it was true that I was afraid now: I did not need to feign my fear. I knew Horen could no more shut the mouth of a tiger than he could conjure up a storm — but I was still reassured by his meaningless mumbles, by his lack of bravado. His manner was not that of a magician weaving a spell: he was more like a mechanic, giving a spanner an extra turn in order to leave nothing undone. This reassured me.

“Now listen to me, Saar,” said Horen. “Since you haven't done this before, I must tell you a rule.”

“What rule, Horen?”

“The rule, Saar, is that when we go ashore, you can leave nothing of yourself behind. You cannot spit or urinate, you cannot sit down to relieve yourself, you cannot leave behind your morning's meal. If you do, then harm will come to all of us.”

Although no one laughed, I was conscious of a mild sense of affront. “Why, Horen,” I said, “I have done my business already. Unless my fear reaches such a pitch as to overwhelm me, I will have no need to leave anything of myself behind.”

“That's good, Saar. I just thought I'd tell you.”

Then he started to row again and when the shore had come closer, he leapt over the side to push the boat. To my astonishment, Fokir followed him almost instantly. Even though the water came up to his neck, the boy quickly put his shoulder to the boat and began to push.

No one else was surprised by the child's adeptness. His mother turned to me and I saw she was choking with pride: “See, Saar, the river is in his veins.”

What would I not have given to be able to say that this was true also of myself, that the river flowed in my veins too, laden with all its guilty burdens? But I had never felt so much an outsider as I did at that moment. Yet I was glad at least that my years in the tide country had taught me how to use my feet in the mud: when it came time to step off the boat, I was able to follow them ashore without difficulty.

We
heade
d
int
o
th
e
badabo
n
wit
h
Hore
n
i
n
th
e
lead
,
clearin
g a
pat
h
fo
r us
wit
h
hi
s
dá
.
Kusu
m
wa
s
behin
d
hi
m
wit
h
th
e
cla
y
imag
e
balance
d
o
n
he
r
shoulder
. I
wa
s
i
n
th
e
rear
,
an
d
no
t
fo
r
a
n
instan
t
di
d
th
e
though
t
leav
e
m
y
min
d
tha
t
i
f a
tige
r
wer
e
t
o
fal
l
upo
n
m
e
then
,
i
n
thos
e
dens
e
thicket
s
o
f
mangrove
,
i
t
woul
d
fin
d
m
e
al
l
bu
t
immobile
, a
cage
d
feast
.

But nothing untoward happened. We came to a clearing and Kusum led the way to the shrine, which was nothing more than a raised platform with bamboo sides and a thatched covering. Here we placed the images of Bon Bibi and Shah Jongoli, and then Kusum lit a few sticks of fragrant
dhoop,
and Fokir fetched some leaves and flowers and laid them at their feet.

So far there was nothing unusual about the ritual except its setting — otherwise it was very much like the small household pujas I remembered my mother performing in my childhood. But then Horen began to recite a mantra, and to my great surprise I heard him say:

Bismillah boliya mukhey dhorinu kalam / poida korilo jini tamam alam * baro meherban tini bandar upore / taar chhani keba achhe duniyar upore *

(In Allah's name I begin to pronounce the Word / Of the whole universe He is the Begetter, the Lord * To all His disciples He is full of mercy / Above the created world, who is there but He *)

I was amazed. I'd thought I was going to a Hindu puja. Imagine my astonishment on hearing these Arabic invocations! Yet the rhythm of the recitation was undoubtedly that of a puja: how often, as a child, had I heard those endless chants, rolling on and on, in temples as well as in our home?

I listened enthralled as Horen continued his recitation: the language was not easy to follow — it was a strange variety of Bangla, deeply interpenetrated by Arabic and Persian. The narrative, however, was familiar to me: it was the story of how Dukhey was left on the shore of an island to be devoured by the tiger-demon Dokkhin Rai, and of his rescue by Bon Bibi and Shah Jongoli.

At the end, after the others had said their prayers, we picked up our things and made our way back across the clearing to the shore. When we were back on the boat, heading toward Morichjhãpi, I said, “Horen, where did you learn that long recitation?”

He looked startled. “Why Saar,” he said, “I've known it as long as I can remember. I heard my father reciting it, and I learned from him.”

“So is this legend passed on from mouth to mouth and held only in memory?”

“Why no, Saar,” he said. “There's a book in which it was printed. I have a copy.” He reached down into that part of his boat where he stored his things and pulled out a tattered old pamphlet. “Here,” he said, “have a look.”

I opened the first page and saw it bore the title
Bon Bibir Karamoti orthat Bon Bibi Johuranama (The Miracles of Bon Bibi or The Narrative of Her Glory).
When I tried to open the book, I had another surprise: the pages opened to the right, as in Arabic, not to the left, as in Bangla. Yet the prosody was that of much of Bangla folklore: the legend was recounted in the verse form called
dwipodi poyar
— with rhymed couplets in which each line is of roughly twelve syllables, each with a break, or caesura, toward the middle.

The booklet was written by a Muslim whose name was given simply as Abdur-Rahim. By the usual literary standards the work did not have great merit. Although the lines rhymed, in a kind of doggerel fashion, they did not appear to be verse; they flowed into each other, being broken only by slashes and asterisks. In other words they looked like prose and read like verse, a strange hybrid, I thought at first, and then it occurred to me that no, this was something remarkable and wonderful — prose that had mounted the ladder of meter in order to ascend above the prosaic.

“When was this book written?” I asked Horen. “Do you know?”

“Oh, it's old,” said Horen. “Very, very old.”

Very, very old? But on the first page was a couplet that read, “There are those who travel with an atlas in hand / while others use carriages to wander the land.”

It struck me that this legend had perhaps taken shape in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, just as new waves of settlers were moving into the tide country. And was it possible that this accounted for the way it was formed, from elements of legend and scripture, from the near and the far, Bangla and Arabic?

How
coul
d
i
t
b
e
otherwise
?
Fo
r
thi
s I
hav
e
see
n
confirme
d
man
y
times
,
tha
t
th
e
mudbank
s
o
f
th
e
tid
e
countr
y
ar
e
shape
d
no
t
onl
y
b
y
river
s
o
f
silt
,
bu
t
als
o
b
y
river
s
o
f
language
:
Bengali
,
English
,
Arabic
,
Hindi
,
Arakanes
e
an
d
wh
o
know
s
wha
t
else
?
Flowin
g
int
o
on
e
anothe
r
the
y
creat
e a
proliferatio
n
o
f
smal
l
world
s
tha
t
han
g
suspende
d
i
n
th
e
flow
.
An
d
s
o
i
t
dawne
d
o
n
me
:
th
e
tid
e
country'
s
fait
h
i
s
somethin
g
lik
e
on
e
o
f
it
s
grea
t
mohonas
, a
meetin
g
no
t
jus
t
o
f
man
y
rivers
,
bu
t a
roundabou
t
peopl
e
ca
n
us
e
t
o
pas
s
i
n many
direction
s —
fro
m
countr
y
t
o
countr
y
an
d
eve
n
betwee
n
faith
s
an
d
religions
.