Have you ever felt a lump of soil, briskly slip away from your clasp?
Nowhere between Patibunia and Baliara Ghat would one forget, to where they are sailing and yet upon arrival - there is suddenly nowhere that you have reached. The shuddering emptiness of a dwelling that was, begins to hover in clusters of clouds. You can see, but not know. You will feel, but not understand. You will question but in an unfamiliar silence.
Nowhere between Patibunia and Baliara Ghat would one forget, to where they are sailing and yet upon arrival - there is suddenly nowhere that you have reached. The shuddering emptiness of a dwelling that was, begins to hover in clusters of clouds. You can see, but not know. You will feel, but not understand. You will question but in an unfamiliar silence.
‘Harano Mati’, is not a documentation of the flood or its aftermath. It is only an attempt to distill the multitudes of curious yet unspoken experiences that met the soul through the eyes. It is a search for questions, to which the answers are lingering in the crevices of the soil.
There is a strange portion of anticipation served on that jetty - the sheer discipline of the queue would talk to you of a planned migration or maybe the foggy moors would speak of displacement - but to say what triggers it, is yet another dimension. They are only but a handful of people, cloaked in their ‘outside clothes’, waiting to ride the boat. Away from, or towards home - how is one to know?
Faces -faces talk of places, of homes, of belongingness. But there aren’t any. Perhaps we have dwelled into the homes of the uprooted.
“What am I, but You
Twice locked - the broken timber.”
Twice locked - the broken timber.”
Have you seen a piece of land, that refuses - not fails - but refuses to tell its story to you? A stretch of soil so barren, that even the wide-spreading crevices would not fill your imagination - that stretch of the soil whose history has died. Some cracks that lead up to another and some more that lead you to curiosities. Was there ever a home here?
Where roads are made I lose my way. In the wide water, in the blue sky, there is no line of a track. The pathway is hidden by the birds' wings, by the star-fires, by the flowers of the wayfaring seasons. And I ask my heart if its blood carries the wisdom of the unseen way.”
Tagore, in his words, captured the essence of belongingness with the wild - with the uncertain. The wish to pitch this against the irony of emotions named the same, but soaking in another ethos - is one of absolute dissonance. Yet, one is drawn to making comparisons - it is an impulse straight from the gut that makes you want to find a point of reference - because, on Mousuni, there isn’t any. There has been very little so devastated, so barren, so hollow yet so impregnated with possibilities that the city-dwellers’ eyes might meet.
As if a tender layer of skin may have peeled and cracked in fragments over and over again - such is the land. Mousuni is like a drop of oil left in a bowl of water, swimming, squishing, and struggling to live and suddenly someday someone stirs the entire bowl up and particles of the oil are left in throes. There are only so many ways to paint a mental image of what is left of the island, after the storm Bulbul, ravaged its shores and people.
There is much more than rubble, that the pebbles of the island dust themselves with. There is an eerie wind of pathos that hits the face every now and then, at every bend but it, like all other winds - passes you by. It leaves an “after-smell” lingering around you - but the stark blue fishing net quickly brims you up to a promise. These nets, that now are used to hold the mud houses together, were once known for their might over the lapping waves - catching the most succulent blue-nerved jumbo-prawns. In its time, a lot of that produce made it to the cities, landing on silver plates.
An occasional sighting of a human, racing against the tide, cloaked in bright colors, walking on the powdery browns of the island - or, a regular meeting by the sea, of a few good friends, to fill some water - because the soil and salt, do not quench any thirst - there is only so much life around.
However, not all life is lost. Her hut was brought down by the waves, but she pulled it back through - in bits. The crop she grew was uprooted and the same pumpkins were never to come back, but relentless as the sea as she is - she planted a few seeds, in hope of hope - and what joy it brings to her empty eyes, to see the sapling of a gourd on the same piece of land - is for one to not see, but feel.
What joy does it bring to the trees, to cradle a man on a hammock, as he overlooks his barren land?
Or, what joy is there, in becoming where you are?
Writing by Alisha Das
Or, what joy is there, in becoming where you are?
Writing by Alisha Das
