The Hungry Tide

Piya takes stock, noticing that the boat is “the nautical equivalent of a shanty” (59). Fokir creates a modesty curtain so Piya can change out of her wet clothes. She is touched by this act of kindness. After changing, Piya sits on the deck, enjoying “being out on the water, alert and on watch” (61). She scans the water with her expensive, high-tech binoculars and thinks back to her college days when she felt so different and inferior next to her tall, athletic, white classmates.

The reader learns the story of how Nirmal and Nilima came to live on Lusibari. Nirmal was an English teacher in Calcutta, separated from his family by the Partition of India, the 1947 formal separating of Hindu India from the new Dominion of Pakistan, which was to be a Muslim area. Nilima was one of his students, from a well-known family involved in public service. They married despite her family’s objections, in a civil ceremony. Shortly afterwards, Nirmal was targeted by the police for speaking at a Socialist conference. He became depressed, and the doctors suggested he leave Calcutta. Nilima’s father, who had warmed to the union, heard that the Hamilton Estate was looking for a teacher for the local school. Nirmal accepted the job and moved with Nilima to Lusibari. The village’s isolation and poverty was a shock. “They had not expected a utopia, but neither had they expected such destitution” (66). Nilima was particularly horrified by the huge number of widows on the island. So many men died at work, most women were condemned to “a lifetime of dependence and years of abuse and exploitation.” Nilima established a trust to provide the women with useful, money-generating occupations. A compound was built to house the Trust’s offices. “It was there that Kanai met Kusum” (69).

Through her binoculars, Piaya sees “a cluster of six fishing boats, similar in size and design to the one she was in” (69). Tutul sees the boats as well and shouts for his father. Piya sees that the boy recognizes the crewmen on the boats and readies herself for “the questions, the explanations, the words of welcome she didn’t understand” (70) from the men she will inevitably be introduced to. To her surprise, Fokir steers away from the mass of boats, careful not to be seen. He anchors in a secluded area. He shows Piya how to use a cordoned off portion for bathroom activities. He and Tutul bathe first, then Piya. Fokir gives her a towel that reminds her of one her father had.

Kanai remembers the first day he met Kusum, in 1970. He had been sent to stay with his aunt and uncle as punishment for behaving poorly in school. Sending unruly boys to the country was a common practice known as “rustication.” Kusum, having been rescued by the Trust from poverty and men eager to exploit her, lived on Trust grounds. One day, while Kanai was reading, Kusum had approached him and asked to see the book. He dismissed her, saying the book was in English and she’d never understand it. In response, Kusum grabbed a grasshopper and stuck it in her mouth. After a moment, she opened her mouth and let it go, alive, into Kanai’s face. She laughed at his shock and told him not to be afraid, “‘It’s just an insect’” (77).

Piya struggles to communicate with Fokir, as she knows almost no Bengali. She has a deep aversion to the language that her parents fought in—Bengali is “an angry flood” (77). Despite their distaste for each other, Piya’s parents doted on her, giving her the best room in their Seattle apartment. This changed when Piya’s mother was diagnosed with cancer and required a separate bedroom large enough for a hospital bed.

Fokir cooks a meal for the three of them. Piya is amazed at what he can create in such a rustic space with so few utensils, but having been taken to the hospital on a previous trip due to being “incautious in her eating” (81), she is reluctant to eat the food—she knows she can’t handle the food and water of a place like this. The smell of the spices Fokir uses reminds her of her mother in their kitchen. It also reminds her of the way other children would tease her, picking on the way she smelled. She explains through gestures why she can’t eat the food, and Fokir clearly understands. They set up their sleeping pads for the night. Fokir begins to sing, and Piya encourages him to sing louder.

Kanai remembers more of his relationship with Kusum. Her father had died while illegally foraging for firewood, and her mother soon went off to take a job in the city, under the employ of a local man named Dilip Choudhury. A month later, Dilip had arrived at Kusum’s home and told her that her mother wanted her to come live in Calcutta. Horen Naskor, another local man, warned Kusum not to go—Dilip was a known pimp and human trafficker. Horen brought Kusum to Lusibari to live at the compound where she and Kanai struck up a friendship. She had told him about a local theatre troop’s plan to stage the story of Bon Bibi. When Kanai asked his uncle who Bon Bibi was, Nirmal had explained impatiently that superstitious local villagers believed Bon Bibi ruled the jungle and commanded the animals.

Kanai had attended the performance and been entranced by the story, in which a young boy is saved from a ravenous demon-king by calling on Bon Bibi, mother of mercy. The moral was “that the rich and greedy would be punished while the poor and righteous were rewarded” (87). After the final performance, Kusum had broken down in tears. While trying to comfort her, Kanai accidentally touched her genitals, causing her to flee. When he had found her, she revealed that she had seen her family attacked and eaten by a tiger, and Bon Bibi had not come to her aid. Horen had then appeared, telling Kusum that Dilip was in the village looking for her; she would have to leave quickly. The next day, Nirmal had told Kanai that he was to be sent back home to the city.

Piya awakes in the middle of the night and sees Fokir still up, watching over her and Tutul. She thinks about how few hours have passed since she fell out of the boat. Remembering this, she has a momentary, terrifying flashback to being underwater. She begins shaking convulsively and Fokir lies down beside her. “His body seemed to warm her coverings, dissipating the clammy sensation that had seized her limbs” (93). When she stops shaking, Fokir removes himself. He is quick to put distance between them and Piya feels badly for making him so cautious. She awakes the next morning on the moving boat. Fokir steers them into the fog, and Piya hears dolphins calling to one another. She wonders how Fokir could possibly have known they’d be here—groups of migrating Orcaella were "anything but predictable in their movements” (94). The fog clears, and Piya sees the dolphins—seven, including a newborn calf. “What had brought them here?” she wonders as she marvels at the animals. “And what were they waiting for?” (95)

Kanai awakes the next morning and goes to visit his aunt. She asks him what was in the packet, and Kanai admits that he isn’t sure what to make of the journal. It was written, he tells her, the same year Nirmal died. She is shocked—Nirmal had already begun to mentally deteriorate. Kanai reveals that the first letter was written from a place called Morichjhapi. Nilima is horrified. She explains that the island is nearby, “a couple of hours from Lusibari by boat” (98). Once the island had been uninhabited, but in 1978, thousands of Bangladeshi refugees descended upon the island. They had come from a government-run concentration camp, breaking out of the camp and moving south. Having declared the island a nature preserve, the authorities tried to force the settlers out repeatedly before massacring them. Kusum, Nilima reveals, was one of the settlers, along with her son. She died in the massacre.

With the rising tide, the dolphins disperse. Piya is confused—the dolphins did not seem to be migrating, as she had expected, but were simply “waiting out the ebb tide until the water rose again” (103). Piya had assumed the dolphins were of the coastal variety, but coastal dolphins didn’t congregate in pools, as she had just seen with her own eyes. They couldn’t be river dolphins—the water she’s floating in is too salty. “So what kind of animal was this and what did this odd behavior mean?” (103) Piya struggles to establish a hypothesis—each possibility contains too many questions. Her mind begins to swim. In order to discover the answer, Piya needs to take water samples, chart behavior and movement, create maps—“it was the work of a lifetime” (104). For Piya, this discovery is like “Archimedes and his bathtub, Newton and his apple” (105). Her life’s purpose has fallen into her lap.