The Village by the Sea (8 page)

Lowering the trumpet, he stared down into their faces and looked very fierce. They noticed that his moustache bristled like a brush and that it was stained with tobacco. ‘So?' he shouted at them. ‘What do you do now? Stare at my face? Got nothing to give me but your stares? Think I can fill my stomach with that? Think I do it all for free?'

Lila shook herself guiltily and ran into the hut, Bela and Kamal staring after her in agony, knowing there was no money. But she came out with something in her hand and when she handed it over the girls saw what it was – the ring their mother used to wear when she was well and that she had taken off and kept behind the mirror on the shelf now that she was ill. It was of silver – rather blackened and twisted now, but still silver. The girls gave a little gasp of astonishment but the man merely snatched it out of Lila's hand, stared at it, then at them, tucked it away into one of his pouches and marched off towards his cow without a word of thanks.

He set off with her, alternately stroking the hide-drum to draw long, strange sounds out of it, blowing on his trumpet and calling, ‘Hari Om, Hari Om,' into the sky. Birds flew up in fright, screaming and wheeling till he was out of sight and hearing.

The girls were left staring at the leaf-packets in their hands.

‘What shall we do with them?' Bela and Kamal asked.

Lila clutched the one in her hand as if she wanted to tear it apart or throw it away. ‘What shall we do?' she cried. ‘We can't do anything – we have to listen to him. There's no hospital in the village we could take her to, and no doctor who would come. We have no one but the magic man to help us. Magic!' she said fiercely and turned and marched into the hut to do what the man had told her to.

The girls were frightened enough by these events but the day seemed to be a cursed one and had still more shocks and alarms in store for them.

As they lay stretched on mats on the cool clay floor of the hut in the afternoon, dozing, they
were woken first by Pinto's sudden bark and then the barks of a great many other dogs near by. Kamal got up at once, trying to hush Pinto but the noise the dogs made outside grew louder and louder. Pinto was so frantic that she could not hold him back, he pulled away from her and darted out. She followed and stood under the tattered palm thatch of the veranda, staring into the white-hot glare of the afternoon.

A band of men, boys and mongrels had invaded the dense shrubbery that surrounded the creek. All the quiet birds that haunted it – the moorhen, the heron, the kingfishers and egrets – had flown. The men were trampling down the pandanus, breaking the slim stems of the casuarinas and beating the rushes and grasses with the long sticks they carried, howling and yelling as if they were cavemen hunting in ancient times. The mongrels that usually lay about on the beach, half asleep, now yapped and yowled with excitement. For once they were not beaten with sticks or driven away – they were being used in the hunt.

‘What are they doing?' whispered Bela who had crept out to stand beside her sister and watch, frightenedly.

‘I don't know,' Kamal whispered back. ‘The way they are screaming, it seems there is an elephant there, or a man-eater. Perhaps it is a cobra.'

Bela gave a shudder, feeling an icy finger run down her spine.

‘Look at Pinto!' she suddenly cried. ‘Pinto's going with them – catch him.'

That made Kamal run down the path after the dog – she did not want a stick or stone hurled at him, nor the fiercely yapping and snarling dogs to attack him who was not of their pack.

As she caught up with Pinto on the bank of the creek, now trampled and turned to green, oozing mud by all the stamping feet and paws, the band of hunters pressed on and surrounded a grove of pandanus. Here they fell upon their prey with a great hullabaloo, bringing down their sticks with great whacks while the dogs leapt and darted about in frenzy.

In spite of her fear and horror of the scene, Kamal could not help being curious and asked an old man who stood at the outer edge of the ring, grinning and scratching one leg with the other, ‘What is it? What have they caught?'

‘See, see.' The old man grinned, pointing delightedly to where the creature was being torn
apart by the dogs, then torn out of their mouths by the men who heaved it up on top of a pole, like a trophy.

‘Oh,' cried Kamal in distress, clasping her hands together and nearly crying. ‘It's only a little mongoose.'

The old man rolled his yellow eyes at her. ‘It is bad – very bad,' he told her. ‘It drinks the water out of our coconuts. When they are green and fresh, it climbs the trees, makes a small hole in the coconut and drinks all the sweet juice so that the nuts falls down – dry.' He slapped his hand on his thigh and went off chuckling to join the celebration over the capture and death.

Kamal stood stricken on the mound by the creek, holding Pinto by the neck. A poor, small, helpless mongoose – she did not believe it did anything so wicked; it was a mistake. And even if it did drink the coconut water and destroy the coconuts, was it necessary to hunt it with a dozen sticks, a pack of wild dogs and a band of howling men? It frightened her to see the ferocity with which they had destroyed the little thing.

When she heard Bela coming down the path to join her and stare at the men and dogs who
went whooping down the blazing white beach to celebrate, she turned to go back to the house. ‘Come, Pinto, come,' she begged the dog, in tears.

Later that evening, with Hari still not back, their father already out, leaving the girls to sit around their mother's door, wondering why her fever had not come down, another visitor broke through the thick, wild hedge, sending the bright red, hard wooden fruit of the pandanus rolling with a kick of his foot.

This time it was Lila who got to her feet, pushing the two girls behind her when she saw it was one of the three drunken brothers who lived in the neighbouring grove. From his rolling walk, his wildly disordered hair and red eyeballs, it was easy to see he was already drunk although the sky still held the evening light, the sea was bronze and calm, and it was by no means the hour at which most men in the village started to drink. But of course he brewed his own toddy and must have been lying in his house drinking all day, Lila knew. She was frightened.

‘Oh you, you child of a rascal,' he roared at her, standing by the log across the creek and swaying on his feet. ‘Where's that father of yours, that rascal?'

‘My father?' said Lila wildly. ‘He – he has gone out.'

‘Gone out – or hiding under his wife's bed? Shall I come and drag him out?'

Lila gave a small scream which was echoed by the two girls who were hiding behind her. Now Pinto was growling, too, although held back by them from attacking the intruder. ‘He's not here,' she cried in a high-pitched voice. ‘Don't come in – my mother is ill.'

‘Oh very good, very good.' He laughed maliciously, showing his yellow teeth in a mouth stained red with betel juice. ‘Mother ill – father out – little girls know nothing. Do you at least know where he keeps his money?' he roared suddenly, like a lion, making Lila shrink back.

‘Money?' she murmured, clenching her fists and wishing Hari would appear. ‘We have no money.'

‘No money – we have no money,' he mocked her. ‘Very nice answer. Did he teach you to tell me that – that rogue, your father? Like father, like daughter. A family of liars, no-goods. No money,
no good – all of you. But wait till I catch him. I'll break his neck and find the money all right.'

Pinto, giving an uncontrollable yelp of rage at this man who stood shouting and swaying and waving his arms about in front of their house, suddenly broke away from the girls, darted past Lila and was out on the path, digging up sand with agitated claws, showing his sharp teeth and barking like a proper guard dog. He approached the man in short leaps and bounds, and when he was close enough to bite, the man raised his arms and roared, ‘Call that dog back. If you don't keep him off – I'll kill him.'

Bela and Kamal, screaming together, darted out after Pinto, flying to save him from the drunkard. Seeing them all out on the path, ready for a battle, Lila hurried after them, calling, ‘Pinto – Pinto – come back. Bela, Kamal, catch him. He won't bite – he won't bite –'

‘If he bites,' the man roared, ‘I'll – I'll –'

The uproar brought them some help after all. It was his old mother, the woman who had sent them the magic-man that morning, who came hobbling through the gap in the hedge to see what it was all about. Seeing her son there, tottering drunkenly in a circle and shouting, she grabbed
him by the arm and gave him a quick, sharp shake.

‘
You
,' she said fiercely, ‘you
idiot
. What are you doing here, frightening these little girls? Get back to the house – do you hear? Get back – you're not fit to go out or talk to anyone. Go, hide yourself in your dirty black mud-hole. Stick your head in your toddy-pot and don't show it around here again. Go.' She gave him a push and he, silent now, stumbled off, half falling over the round pandanus fruit and muttering to himself, ‘Go, go, go, they say. Where shall I go? I want my money. I'll get my money. I'll kill that rogue. I'll kill his dog –'

‘Be quiet,' his mother screamed after him, picking up a stick and hitting it hard against a tree trunk. ‘Be quiet, I say,' she screamed again and went off after him without another look at the girls who stood like shadows cast by the coconut palms on the sand.

Then they turned and filed back to the house silently. Lila lit the fire early, to drive away the shadows that seemed so threatening, so full of danger tonight. They were sitting around that small fire when Hari came home to ask, ‘What has happened?' and they could burst out at last
and tell him. There was nothing he could do – they knew that – to make their mother well, to keep away the drunken neighbour or his threats, to save Pinto from him and save them all from the cruelty all around them, but it helped that he, too, knew their fears and shared their troubles.

Hari knew now that he could not continue to sit in the silent shadowy hut with his sisters, nor trail along the beach with his empty net, nor go lurking around the shack at the foot of the hill with the temple in the hope of a job that might not come through for years. He had to act, since there was no one else in the family fit to act and action was needed.

Next morning he went stumbling over the baking white sand of the beach to join the group around Biju's boat which was now beginning to look nearly ready. With the deep freeze installed in it, Biju would not leave the boat night or day. It was said he slept on the deck as if the boat were already at sea. Now, in the bright morning light,
he sat – seemed to be planted – on the folding chair, his palms pressed against his knees, watching as the men crawled about the boat, polishing and painting and planing. A sheet of tin, painted bright blue with the figure of a pink and white mermaid in the centre, was tacked above the cabin door. A man was carefully writing the boat's name below the mermaid:
Jal Pari
, mermaid. Hoots of laughter went up from the village boys hanging around when it became clear what the name was, and Biju turned on them with a fierce look.

Hari stopped to see why they were laughing. They pointed at the pink and white mermaid frolicking in the bright blue sea and made rude jokes about her. ‘Biju's building the boat so he can go and catch her,' they said, and winked. But Hari did not feel like smiling. He left them and walked slowly but straight up to old Biju himself. In the night he had resolved to ask Biju for a job on the boat.

But Biju turned his head away for just at that moment someone else was approaching him, a stranger who had to be attended to first. Hari saw it was the man from the tin shack, the watchman who guarded the pipes, the beginnings of the great factory.

‘So, yet another fishing boat ready to catch fish for the people of Thul?' called the man jovially, walking up to Biju with a cheap leaf-cigarette in his mouth, unlit.

Biju's face darkened, and he frowned. ‘This is no ordinary fishing boat,' he growled. ‘Can't you see that with your own eyes? It has a diesel engine, it has a deep freeze, it has the capacity to travel fifty miles a day.'

‘Oh ho,' laughed the stranger, striking a match to his leaf-cigarette and puffing at it as he stared at the boat.

Just then the tin signboard flew off the nail and on to the deck with a clatter. It had to be picked up and hung again, the paint smeared and dripping. The boys cackled and old Biju growled ferociously at the painter who started dabbing at it with a rag and nervously repairing the damage.

‘So, a mighty sea trawler is being built here, is it?' said the stranger sarcastically. ‘Fifty miles it will go? Well, it will have to – if it is to catch any fish.'

‘What do you mean? There is plenty of fish around here,' Biju growled at him, shifting uncomfortably on the folding chair.

‘No, there is not,' said the stranger, lowering himself on to his heels and squatting comfortably on the sand. ‘There is hardly any fish left here. Yesterday I wanted to buy a pomfret for my dinner and got only one small miserable one. No one in Bombay would eat a pomfret of that size,' he said scornfully, making the villagers fall silent and listen. ‘And if you ask for prawns, all you get are miserable little shrimps. Not enough for Bombay people – not enough for even you villagers. It's time you gave up your boats and nets and turned to something new.'

‘We have always fished in the sea here,' said Biju stoutly, making Hari and the other boys feel a certain pride in him, their richest and biggest fisherman. ‘Always will. And if there is not enough fish for us, there is plenty of food anyway – paddy and vegetables and coconuts. Where else in this country do you get such good crops? The coconuts are so big and sweet, they sell for good money in Bombay. The land is so good, we grow two crops in a year. We have the best paddy. Have you eaten our good rice?'

‘Yes, yes,' said the man, spitting out bits of tobacco. ‘I've had your rice. I've seen your fields. They will soon go. All the land will be bought up, factories will be built on it. Your rice will go.'

The boys looked at each other and nodded, bright-eyed. This was what they had been telling the elders in the village, only they had not been believed. Now they were hearing it from the man concerned, they would have to believe. They quite enjoyed the look of horror and agitation on old Biju's dark, frowning face.

‘No one can take our land,' said Biju who owned three acres of paddy and two of coconut and betel palms, apart from his fishing fleet. ‘It is ours, and we will not sell.'

‘When the government says sell, you will sell all right,' said the stranger, snapping his fingers, ‘like that. No questions asked. You will have to – the government has chosen this place as the right one for its factories and factories will be built.'

‘Why here?' Biju challenged him. ‘Go build your factories where the land is barren and nothing grows but stones and thorns.' He waved in the direction of the Kankeshwar hills that separated the green belt along the coast from the barren hinterland. ‘Why should we sell our good farmland for factories?'

‘You will have to sell – it is the place the government has chosen.'

‘How can the government choose without asking us?'

‘Who will ask you, old man?' said the stranger. ‘They sent their experts to find the right kind of land – and this is what they chose. It is near the port of Rewas so it will have transport to Bombay. It is close to Bombay – only fourteen kilometres away. They can lay a railway line here easily. The road already exists and only needs to be widened. Transport is good. It is near the sea and the wastes can be pumped into it. There is enough land for the factories, the housing colonies, all the people who will come here to work.'

‘People? What people are to come and work here?'

‘Thousands,' laughed the man. ‘Thousands will come. Whole colonies will have to be built for them, buses and trains laid on for them, and markets –'

‘And what about us who already live here?' asked Biju angrily, his face quite purple.

The stranger laughed and chopped at the air with his hand as if he were cutting down weeds. ‘Like that – your village will go. In its place, factories will come up, fertilizer will be made, gas will be produced, many jobs will be created.
The government says so,' he added loudly when he became aware of the angry looks of the villagers.

‘Fishermen and farmers are now to become factory workers?' shouted Biju. ‘You mean these boys are to give up their fathers' lands and boats and go to work in factories like city people?'

‘These boys?' The man turned his head and gave them a cool look where they stood listening intently. ‘I don't know about these boys – I only know about the engineers and mechanics who will have to be brought from elsewhere to run the factories.'

‘And us?' shouted Ramu suddenly, instead of Hari who only felt a dry tickling in his throat, making him want to speak and preventing him from doing so.

‘You?' the man looked at him scornfully. ‘This old man can put you in his boat and send you off to catch fish – fifty miles away.' He laughed. ‘Far, far away,' he roared, waving his hand out to the sea that glittered and swelled under the white sun.

The village was filled with anger. Hari could sense it everywhere as he walked up the village lane to the temple. He had promised Lila he would see if there was any ice for sale and bring some for their mother who was hot with fever. Although the scene was as quiet as usual – bright saris hanging up to dry on veranda rails, women watering the sacred basil plants by their doors, market women arranging and rearranging their flower garlands and bananas on leaves spread before them – there was something in the air, the languid lazy atmosphere replaced by one of stiffness, resentment, anger.

Feeling it so distinctly and strongly, Hari was not surprised to see that a large group of people had collected outside the brick hall of the temple. Not only idle young boys and fishermen with nothing else to do, but also the farmers who owned the big coconut and betelnut estates, and even women and girls – all stood in a close cluster, listening to a young man who stood on the top step of the stairs that led up to the temple. He was giving a speech and Hari drew closer to listen to him.

‘I have come from Alibagh to ask you to join us. We are all concerned in this matter – all of us
who live here in these fourteen villages along the coast from Rewas to Alibagh. Every one of us is threatened. Our land is going to be taken away. Where we grow coconuts and good rice for our families, they want to build their factories. Our crops will be destroyed so that their factories can come up instead. All the filth of their factories – for when you produce fertilizers, a lot of effluents are created which have to be disposed of – these will be dumped in the sea and will kill the fish for miles around. How will we live without our land, without the sea?' he called over their heads in a ringing voice, flinging out his arms to include them in the dilemma.

‘How will we live?' they called back in one voice. Hari heard himself shout, ‘How?' and was surprised by the sound.

‘They will send their men to pacify you – to pacify you with lies. The men will tell you that you will get jobs. I tell you that they cannot give us all jobs. The factories will be run by trained engineers, by men with degrees from colleges in the city. There may be a few jobs for simple people like us who have never gone to school but have spent our lives in producing food for other people. Jobs as sweepers, jobs as coolies – the worst jobs,
the most ill-paid jobs. Yes, they will let us have those. But it is the engineers who will be paid well, who will be given houses to live in – engineers from the city. They say they only need five hundred acres for their factories, but thousands more will be needed for the housing colonies, and for all the small factories that always come up around the big ones. They will take at least two thousand five hundred acres from us of our best land – the richest land in Maharashtra. In return they will cut down our tall green coconut trees, destroy our paddy crops, kill the fish in the sea, and then we will be driven away because we will be no use to them. Can we let this happen to us?' he roared.

‘No, no, no,' the people roared back. ‘We will not! We will not!'

‘Then come with us to Bombay to tell the Chief Minister Sahib what we think of his plans. We have already spoken to the District Commissioner at Alibagh, and he has done nothing for us. A Minister Sahib is said to have come and spoken to us. The truth is, when he saw us waiting for him, he took fright and got into his car and sped back to Bombay, leaving the police to deal with us. The police drove us away with their batons.
We will not stand for this treatment. We will not stand for police rule!' he roared, his long hair flying about his shoulders and his arms raised to the sky.

‘No police rule! No police rule!' chanted the audience, Hari amongst them, pounding the back of the boy who stood in front of him as he called out the words lustily.

‘Now we must go direct to the Chief Minister. If he won't come and listen to us, we will go and make him listen where he sits in his office in Bombay,' roared the young man. ‘Who will come with me? Will you come?'

‘Yes, yes, yes!' roared the crowd, even the women and children who had never been further than Alibagh and had neither the bus nor the ferry fare in their pockets.

‘Then meet me at Rewas, at the pier, tomorrow morning at daybreak, and we will set out in the fishing boats. We will sail to Bombay. We will meet the Minister Sahib in his office and make him listen to us. They will be frightened when they see us come, they will have to sit quietly and listen. We will tell them they can't take our land, they can't take the sea from us – the land is ours, the sea is ours!'