The Hungry Tide - Amitav Ghosh [5]
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “You’re very well informed. Marine mammals are what I study — dolphins, whales, dugongs and so on. My work takes me out on the water for days sometimes, with no one to talk to — no one who speaks English, anyway.”
“So is it your work that takes you to Canning?”
“That’s right. I’m hoping to wangle a permit to do a survey of the marine mammals of the Sundarbans.”
For once he was silenced, although only briefly. “I’m amazed,” he said presently. “I didn’t even know there were any such.”
“Oh yes, there are,” she said. “Or there used to be, anyway. Very large numbers of them.”
“Really? All we ever hear about is the tigers and the crocodiles.”
“I know,” she said. “The cetacean population has kind of disappeared from view. No one knows whether it’s because they’re gone or because they haven’t been studied. There hasn’t ever been a comprehensive survey.”
“And why’s that?”
“Maybe because it’s impossible to get permission?” she said. “There was a team here last year. They prepared for months, sent in their papers and everything. But they didn’t even make it out on the water. Their permits were withdrawn at the last minute.”
“And why do you think you’ll fare any better?”
“It’s easier to slip through the net if you’re on your own,” she said. There was a brief pause and then, with a tight-lipped smile, she added, “Besides, I have an uncle in Kolkata who’s a big wheel in the government. He’s spoken to someone in the Forest Department’s office in Canning. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
“I see.” He seemed to be impressed as much by her candor as her canniness. “So you have relatives in Calcutta then?”
“Yes. In fact I was born there myself, although my parents left when I was just a year old.” She turned a sharp glance on him, raising an eyebrow. “I see you still say ‘Calcutta.’ My father does that too.”
Kanai acknowledged the correction with a nod. “You’re right — I should be more careful, but the renaming was so recent that I do get confused sometimes. I try to reserve ‘Calcutta’ for the past and ‘Kolkata’ for the present, but occasionally I slip. Especially when I’m speaking English.” He smiled and put out a hand. “I should introduce myself; I’m Kanai Dutt.”
“And I’m Piyali Roy — but everyone calls me Piya.”
She could tell he was surprised by the unmistakably Bengali sound of her name: evidently her ignorance of the language had given him the impression that her family’s origins lay in some other part of India.
“You have a Bengali name,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “And yet you know no Bangla?”
“It’s not my fault really,” she said quickly, her voice growing defensive. “I grew up in Seattle. I was so little when I left India that I never had a chance to learn.”
“By that token, having grown up in Calcutta, I should speak no English.”
“Except that I just happen to be terrible at languages … ”She let the sentence trail away unfinished, and then changed the subject. “And what brings you to Canning, Mr. Dutt?”
“Kanai — call me Kanai.”
“Kan-ay.”
He was quick to correct her when she stumbled over the pronunciation: “Say it to rhyme with Hawaii.”
“Kanaii?”
“Yes, that’s right. And to answer your question — I’m on my way to visit an aunt of mine.”
“She lives in Canning?”
“No,” he said. “She lives in a place called Lusibari. It’s quite a long way from Canning.”
“Where exactly?” Piya unzipped a pocket in one of her backpacks and pulled out a map. “Show me. On this.”
Kanai spread the map out and used a fingertip to trace a winding line through the tidal channels and waterways. “Canning is the railhead for the Sundarbans,” he said, “and Lusibari is the farthest of the inhabited islands. It’s a long way upriver — you have to go past Annpur, Jamespur and Emilybari. And there it is: Lusibari.”
Piya knitted her eyebrows as she looked at the map. “Strange names.”
“You’d be surprised how many places in the Sundarbans have names that come from English,” Kanai said. “Lusibari just means ‘Lucy’s House.’”
“Lucy’s House?” Piya looked up in surprise. “As in the name Lucy?”
“Yes.” A gleam