The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh [120]
They set off at a brisk pace and were soon at the outskirts of Lusibari village. They had almost reached the embankment when the driver spun around in his seat and pointed ahead. “Look, something’s happening over there on the bãdh.”
Kanai and Piya were facing backward. Craning his neck, Kanai saw that a number of people had congregated on the crest of the embankment. They were absorbed in watching some sort of spectacle or contest taking place on the other side of the earthworks: many were cheering and calling out encouragement. Leaving their baggage on the van, Kanai and Piya went up to take a look.
The water was at a low ebb and the Megha was moored at the far end of the mudspit, alongside Fokir’s boat. The boat was the focus of the crowd’s attention: Fokir and Tutul were standing on it, along with Horen and his teenage grandson. They were tugging at a fishing line that was sizzling as it sliced through the water, turning in tight zigzag patterns.
The catch, Kanai learned, was a shankor-machh, a stingray. Now, as Piya and Kanai stood watching, a flat gray form broke from the water and went planing through the air. Fokir and the others hung on as if they were trying to hold down a giant kite. The men had gamchhas wrapped around their hands, and with all of them exerting their weight, they slowly began to prevail against the thrashing ray: the struggle ended with Fokir leaning over the side of the boat to plunge the tip of his machete-like daa into its head.
When the catch had been laid out on the shore, Kanai and Piya joined the crowd clustering around it. The ray was a good five feet from wingtip to wingtip, and its tail was about half as long again. Within minutes a fish seller had made a bid and Fokir had accepted. But before the catch could be carted off, Fokir raised his dá and with a single stroke cut off the tail. This he gave to Tutul, handing it over with some ceremony, as though it were a victor’s spoils.
“What’s Tutul going to do with that?” said Piya.
“He’ll make a toy out of it, I suppose,” said Kanai. “In the old days landlords and zamindaris used those tails as whips, to punish unruly subjects: they sting like hell. But they make good toys too. I remember I had one as a boy.”
Just then, as Tutul was admiring his trophy, Moyna appeared before him, having pushed her way through the crowd. Taken by surprise, Tutul darted out of her reach and slipped behind his father. For fear of hurting the boy, Fokir raised his dripping dá above his head with both hands, to keep the blade out of his way. Now Tutul began to dance around his father, eluding his mother’s grasp and drawing shouts of laughter from the crowd.
Moyna was dressed for duty, in her nurse’s uniform, a blue-bordered white sari. But by the time she finally caught hold of Tutul, her starched sari was spattered with mud and her lips were trembling in humiliation. She turned on Fokir, who dropped his eyes and raised a knuckle to brush away a trickle of blood that had dripped from the dá onto his face.
“Didn’t I tell you to take him straight to school?” she said to Fokir in a voice taut with fury. “And instead you brought him here?”
To the sound of a collective gasp from the crowd, Moyna wrung the stingray’s tail out of her son’s hand. Curling her arm, she flung the trophy into the river, where it was carried away by the current. The boy’s face crumpled as his mother led him away. He stumbled after her with his eyes shut, as though he were trying to blind himself to his surroundings.
Moyna checked her step as she was passing Kanai, and their eyes met for an instant before she went running down the embankment. When she had left, Kanai turned around to find that Fokir’s eyes were on him too, sizing him up — it was as if Fokir had noticed the wordless exchange between his wife and Kanai and was trying to guess its meaning.
Kanai was suddenly very uncomfortable. Spinning around on his heels, he said to Piya, “Come on. Let’s start unloading our luggage.”
THE MEGHA PULLED away