Sundarbans. 27th December, 2016
Just as the needle edged past ten p.m. on a
still, dark, moonless night, a small fishing boat slid silently out of its
berth, with a party of nine aboard – the boatman, the tour guide, and seven
wide-eyed city-bred men & women. As the boat swished its way into the deep
and murky waters of the Gangetic delta, it kicked off two of the most magical
hours I’ve ever spent in my life.
A few hours back, eighteen tired bodies had
returned to our temporary home in the Sundarbans eco village, after a ten-hour
day on a modified fishing trawler, touring the various islands of Sundarbans,
wonderously taking in the flora and fauna that the mangroves offered. After
resting our tired limbs for a few minutes on bamboo beds in our room, we headed
to the dining hut fifty yards away. Mowgli (yes, he is one of the threesome
that runs this very interesting tour/village) and Om were on hand, dishing out plates-full
of piping-hot pakoras and black tea (milk is a rarity on this island). It was
barely five in the evening and already very dark. A single naked light barely lit
the dining hut, throwing long shadows of tired bodies huddled around stark
wooden tables, excitedly sharing the day’s experience, while sipping cups of
tea and gobbling up every morsel of pakora on the plate. As a gentle wind blew past
us, we could hear the strains of flute from the “Souvenir Shop” five yards away;
the grand-sounding name was a bare-bone mud hut that sported a plank of wood
with regional craftmen’s delicate labor on display. The flautist was a
volunteer from some part of the world, who traded his musical skills for a little space to sleep, three square meals, and the experience of a lifetime. An hour
of gossip later, local villagers were getting ready across the square farther,
to display their musical and dancing talents to the tourists in the village.
Just as we got up to watch the show, Aakash our guide took a poll to check our interest
in the Night Safari scheduled for the night. That night, the eco village played
host to nearly hundred people. Barely a dozen hands went up; all three in our
family said yes. Our latest friends, the Nair-foursome also said yes. “OK guys,
we meet at 10pm at the jetty outside. We will be back to our village by midnight”
said Aakash crisply, as we melted away to do our own stuff.
The boat was small, but just right for the
party of nine. Another boat that followed us had five in it. There were no life
jackets on us, and no life saving equipment were aboard. We sat on wooden
planks, with the water lapping just below the rim of the boat. Many in our boat
had never swam in their lives, and those that knew would not have survived the
forty-foot deep waters of the river, possibly drowning more out of fear than
out of exhaustion or hypothermia. We made our way past larger boats anchored close
to the mud-and-brick apology of a jetty we had left, their single bright red or
blue warning light giving us hope that should we get lost, those beacons would
be our life savers. But as the fog descended a few minutes later, those hopes
were clearly misplaced – the boats were gone. Silence descended, except for the
swish of the oar.
The sky was stunningly clear, with a
million stars lighting it up. Shooting stars criss-crossed the sky every few
seconds; there was the Orion constellation, how bow & arrow pointed at an
unknown enemy. And there was Polaris, Sirius….and whole host that I don’t know
much about. Trust me – it was a star show of a kind I had seldom seen.
The dark silhouette of the second boat
slithering behind us was the only thing visible as we made our way into what
seemed like an endless ocean with nothing in sight. A kilometer or so later,
and out of nowhere, the outline of an island showed up, with mangroves all
over. We continued to sail past it. There
were even more islands on the left, and even more trees. Before long, the waterway
got much narrower, and darker. The boatman stopped rowing, and as the boat
gently bobbed forward, he shone his flashlight into the dark unknown. Ghostly
trees stared back at us. The wind was gone, though the chill remained. Not a
leaf stirred. We were now right in the thick of the Bans. The boatman shone his
torch here and there, slowly rowing now left, now right, now left again. “Ki khoojchen
aapni?”, whispered a somewhat curious and worried me. “Channel khoojchee” came
the reply. It was the start of the six hourly tide flow, and in the last
forty-five minutes, the water had devoured about three meters of land, submerging
the bottom two third of the mangroves. The canals (channels, as the boatman called
it) too had disappeared these last few minutes, seamlessly merging with the
main waterway. Searching for this hidden canal in the dead of night is not
exactly an easy job, even for a trained boatman. The search quietly continued
for the next twenty minutes, with the boat moving forward towards a tree, the
boatman pushing aside the branches which were pretty much upon us, looking for
an opening, and then repeating the same set of moves. Suddenly, he spotted it.
The arch of the branches on either side of the boat gave it away. He put his
torch away, and started purposely rowing again. This time, he was very slow and
very careful, not to disturb the foliage around us. The canal was barely four
feet wide, and three feet tall, and just about wide to let his boat pass
through. About hundred metres further,
he stopped. We had reached a slightly wider spot. Golpata and Sundari trees
were literally upon us. The stillness of the night was overwhelming. No one
spoke a word for the next fifteen to twenty minutes, taking in the beauty of
nature. We lay on our boat for a few minutes, taking in the wonderful night sky
that had laid out a blanket of stars for us to savor. As we gently slapped our
fingers into the water, bioluminescent planktons decided to put on a spectacle
for us – the water turned electric blue, with planktons darting here and there.
It was magical. A few frightened tree crabs that were happily nestled in the
branches watched us humans with possible alarm. A bird hooted somewhere in the
distance. We took in this experience in all its glory for the next fifteen
minutes. The boatman then slowly pivoted his vessel literally around its axis,
and headed out into the larger water body. With fairly low visibility, we were
all certain we were lost till daybreak. But not for the trained boatman - he
knew his water & his land. Thirty
minutes later, that boat with the red light showed up. Ten minutes later, close
to midnight, we slid quietly out of the small boat and on to terra firma,
certain that these two hours would be etched forever in my memory.
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