The Hungry Tide

Piya continues to watch the dolphins swim, play, and eat. They disappear around midday, and Piya grows anxious, wondering when Fokir will demand to leave, as he and Tutul haven’t “had a single strike all morning” (114). Piya needs more evidence, more pictures of the dolphins, to submit in order to get another grant. She begins to map the riverbed using GPS. She knows exactly where the dolphins should be next, but struggles to explain this to Fokir without words. She tries a series of basic drawings, and he agrees to let her lead the boat. He uses the opportunity to catch crabs on a line. As it turns out, following the dolphins is “just as much to Fokir’s advantage as it was to hers” (117)—crabs thrive in the same conditions as the dolphins, and so Fokir is able to bring in a huge haul. Piya marvels at how two people with such different languages, cultures, and goals can be equally served by the same adventure.

Kanai continues to read through Nirmal’s journal. Nirmal, in his writing, explains to Kanai that as his retirement date approached, he began to feel anxious. He wanted to be a writer in his retirement, but felt inadequate and ill-prepared. He accepts several invitations to visit colleagues on neighboring islands. On his way to one such event, he encounters Horen Naskor, who agrees to ferry him to his event. As they ride, he talks with Horen about a book Nirmal is reading called Travels, written by a 17th century Jesuit priest who visited India. Nirmal describes the priest’s journey, with Horen interjecting local legend to explain certain details, including the existence of storm-creating demons. Nirmal says storms have only natural causes, but Horen is adamant. Breaking from the narrative, Nirmal reveals that he is alone with Fokir (then a small boy). Horen and Kusum “have gone to find out if the rumors are true; if Morichjhapi is soon to be attacked” (123).

As they continue to ride in the boat, Piya notices an abandoned settlement, which Fokir names “Garjontola.” Fokir turns the boat towards shore, which surprises Piya. She has not yet been this close to the dense, dangerous mangrove forest. She is “struck by the way the greenery worked to confound the eye” (125). Fokir beaches the boat and encourages Piya to follow him and Tutul into the forest. Fokir helps her when she gets stuck in the mud, and cuts their way through the forest with a machete. They come to a hidden shrine in the middle of the forest, where Fokir and Tutul pray and make offerings. On their way back, Fokir sees tiger paw prints in the mud. Piya spots the dolphins again, following “exactly the pattern she had inferred” (127).

The hospital generator shuts off for the night, and Kanai lights a candle. He hears an odd sound, and goes onto the roof to investigate. Moyna appears in the doorway just as he hears it again. It is, he discovers, the sound of a tiger yowling. Moyna is fearful for Fokir, who does not take precautions the way other fishermen do. Kanai questions why she married such a reckless man, and she tells him that as he is not a woman, he will never understand.

Piya awakens to the same sound that Kanai heard—the lone tiger, making his presence known. Frightened, she asks Fokir what it was, but he will not tell her. She asks him to sing, and he does, but quietly. Piya imagines what Fokir’s life has been like, outside of their short friendship. She imagines him as the son of a fisherman and a “sturdy but tired woman” (131) with a dozen siblings. She imagines that he met his wife on the day of their wedding. She goes back to sleep, thinking of the “immeasurable distance that separated her from Fokir” (131).

Kanai reads further from Nirmal’s journal. After his work trip, Horen and Nirmal prepare to return to Lusibari. A freak storm causes them to take shelter in a remote shack that turns out to belong to Kusum. Both men are shocked to see her, as well as her young son Fokir. She tells them how she came to live on Morichjhapi. She had gone in search of her mother and ended up in a mining town, where she met a disabled man originally from the tide country. He allowed her to live with him and helped her find her mother, who was sick, but happy to see her daughter. The man, Rajen, offered to marry Kusum and she accepted. Her mother died, her son was born, and Rajen was killed in a work accident, all in quick succession. By chance, she encountered the horde of escaped refugees on their way to Morichjhapi and joined them.

Piya and Fokir continue to track the dolphins. Piya is keenly aware that Fokir knows far more about them than she does, even though he cannot communicate that information to her. He deftly avoids some hidden crocodiles. They track the dolphins to a shallow pool, and Piya understands what the animals are doing—they have “herded a school of fish into shallow water” and are “picking the fish from the riverbed” (138). Piya recalls another expedition she took in which dolphins actually herded the fish towards the fishing vessels she was on. They were actively trying to help the fishermen, knowing they couldn’t eat all the fish, anyway. “Did there exist any more remarkable instance of symbiosis between human beings and a population of wild animals?” (140).

Nirmal’s journal continues. He and Horen spend the night at Kusum’s. In the morning, Nirmal walks around the island, marveling at how the refugees have created homes and a true society, “yet it was only a matter of weeks since they had come” (141). He feels a little like Daniel Hamilton, founder of Lusibari. Gone are his fears about retirement, his disillusionment with the world. He decides that what he truly wants is to help this infant society. Kusum takes him to meet the leader of her local ward. The ward leader is impatient—Nirmal has no important friends and no hard skills. What help can he be? But he allows Nirmal to teach, if he can find any willing pupils. Kusum is skeptical—her son, like all the other children, is illiterate. Nirmal says he will teach the children to dream.

As Piya watches the dolphins feed, Fokir struggles to keep his boat straight. The water is rising and the wind is picking up. While Piya is taking a water sample, Fokir yanks her arm out of the water. A split second later, an alligator’s jaws appear, grabbing for Piya. Fokir beats it over the head with an oar and the creature retreats. After “twenty minutes of furious rowing,” they come to an inlet. He asks Piya if they can head for Lusibari, and she readily agrees.