The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh [48]
As a rule, night came early to Lusibari. Candles and lamps were expensive and used as sparingly as possible. People ate their evening meal in the glow of twilight, and by the time darkness fell, the island had usually fallen silent except for the few animal sounds that carried across the water. For this reason, a nighttime diversion was a major occasion, the anticipation of which provided at least as much pleasure as the event itself. Great numbers of people, Kanai and Kusum among them, stayed up night after night to attend the performances.
For Kanai the greatest surprise came right at the start of the show. This was because the story of the tiger goddess did not begin either in the heavens or on the banks of the Ganga, like the mythological tales with which he was familiar. Instead, the opening scene was set in a city in Arabia and the backdrop was painted with mosques and minarets.
The setting was Medina, one of the holiest places in Islam; here lived a man called Ibrahim, a childless but pious Muslim who led the austere life of a Sufi faqir. Through the intervention of the archangel Gabriel, Ibrahim became the father of blessed twins, Bon Bibi and Shah Jongoli. When the twins came of age, the archangel brought them word that they had been chosen for a divine mission: they were to travel from Arabia to “the country of eighteen tides” — athhero bhatir desh — in order to make it fit for human habitation. Thus charged, Bon Bibi and Shah Jongoli set off for the mangrove forests of Bengal, dressed in the simple robes of Sufi mendicants.
The jungles of the country of eighteen tides were then the realm of Dokkhin Rai, a powerful demon-king who held sway over every being that lived there — every animal as well as every ghoul, ghost and malevolent spirit. Toward mankind he harbored a hatred coupled with insatiable desire: for the pleasures afforded by human flesh he had a craving that knew no limit.
One day Dokkhin Rai heard strange new voices in the jungle calling out the azán, the Muslim call to prayer; this was his notice that Bon Bibi and Shah Jongoli had come into his realm. Rousing his hordes, the incensed demon set upon the trespassers, only to be put to rout in a pitched battle. But Bon Bibi was merciful in victory, and she decided that one half of the tide country would remain a wilderness; this part of the forest she left to Dokkhin Rai and his demon hordes. The rest she claimed for herself, and under her rule this once forested domain was soon made safe for human settlement. Thus order was brought to the land of eighteen tides, with its two halves, the wild and the sown, being held in careful balance. All was well until human greed intruded to upset this order.
On the edges of the tide country lived a man called Dhona, who had put together a fleet of seven ships in the hope of making a fortune in the jungle. Dhona’s fleet was about to set sail when it was discovered that the crew was one man short of a full complement. The only person at hand was a young lad called Dukhey, “sorrowful,” a name nothing if not apt, for this boy had long been cursed with misfortune: as a child he had lost his father and now lived in abject poverty with his old and ailing mother. It was with the greatest reluctance that the old woman allowed her son to go, and at the time of leave-taking she gave him a last word of advice: were he ever to find himself in trouble, he was to call on Bon Bibi; she was the savior of the weak and a mother of mercy to the poor; she was sure to come to his aid.
The expedition set off and wound its way down the rivers of the tide country until at last it came to an island by the name of Kedokhali Char. It so happened that this island fell within Dokkhin Rai’s territory, and unknown to the sailors, the demon-king had already prepared a surprise for them. When they went into the forest strange things began to happen: they were given