The Village by the Sea (22 page)

He sounded so heartbroken that Hari asked, ‘Why do you care so much about the birds, sir?'

‘The birds are the last free creatures on earth. Everything else has been captured and tamed and enslaved – tigers behind the bars of the zoos, lions stared at by crowds in safari parks, men and women in houses like matchboxes working in factories that are like prisons. Only the birds are free and can take off and fly away into space when they like.' His face shone when he spoke and his voice trembled. ‘I suppose that is why I love them – for their freedom, which we don't have. Perhaps I would also like to leave all – all this ugliness we've made on earth and fly with them. Wouldn't you?' he asked Hari.

‘But we can't fly, sir,' Hari reminded him, earnestly. ‘We are here on earth, we cannot leave it. We must live here, somehow.'

The gentleman looked at him with sad eyes. ‘Yes, what will you do? What will become of you? I don't know, my friend. When it comes to people, I – I know nothing. I am lost. What will you do?'

Hari came a little closer to him. ‘Sir, I thought – I thought – since it is too late to start fishing or
farming now, this will not be a good place to farm or fish any more, and since I don't want to work in a factory – I thought I would buy some chickens, build chicken coops in my field, start a poultry farm, sell eggs in the village and chickens to the rich people who will come to Thul once the factory is built, and so we will live – for a while. Later I want to set up a watchmending shop – I have learnt a little watchmending,' he added with shy pride.

‘Have you?' asked the birdwatcher in astonishment. ‘Can you – d'you think you can mend my watch for me? I fell into the creek, you know,' he chuckled, ‘and my watch hasn't worked since. Do you think you can get it to tick?' He took it out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Hari who took it eagerly. He could hardly believe that he was being asked to do something for the great man who had spoken to him in Bombay and come to Thul to study the birds.

Taking the watch, he shook it gently and held it to his ear. ‘Water has got into the works, sir. It is very easy to clean and dry that – I did many during the monsoon in Bombay.'

The birdwatcher was staring at him as he spoke as if he were a bird performing some wonderful
and interesting act. Then he shot out of his chair, crying, ‘Adapt! Adapt!'

‘What, sir?' asked Hari, puzzled. He did not know the word.

‘Adapt – that is what you are going to do. Just as birds and animals must do if they are going to survive. Just like the sparrows and pigeons that have adapted themselves to city life and live on food leftovers and rubbish thrown to them in the streets instead of searching for grain and insects in the fields,' he explained, ‘so you will have to adapt to your new environment.'

I don't think I know how to do that, sir,' said Hari uncertainly.

‘But, boy, you've just told me how you are going to do it. You are going to give up your traditional way of living and learn a new way to suit the new environment that the factory will create at Thul so as to survive. Yes, you will survive.'

Hari could not understand half the words the birdwatcher was using. He could not understand him at all but his words reminded him of what Mr Panwallah had said to him the day he went to see him and found him sitting on his balcony and watching the pigeons on the station roof ‘The wheel turns,' he said slowly and wonderingly,
remembering Mr Panwallah's words. ‘The wheel turns and turns and turns,' he said, understanding, and turned to tell Sayyid Ali that he understood the connection now, and how birds and men were united in this great turning of the wheel, and how the birds, if we understood them, could show us and teach us many important things. ‘Sir, I understand,' he shouted, but just then the excited figure of the birdwatcher suddenly stopped hopping about on the edge of the veranda and disappeared abruptly: he had tumbled backwards and fallen off the veranda into the hibiscus bush below. Hari jumped down to help him to his feet, asking anxiously, ‘Are you hurt, sir? Are you all right, sir?'

‘Yes, yes, yes,' stammered the birdwatcher who only seemed a little shaken and began to chuckle as Hari helped him dust his clothes and find his binoculars. ‘It's a good thing I'd given you my watch,' he laughed, ‘or I'd have broken that, too.'

‘It's safe with me, sir,' Hari said, patting his pocket, ‘and I'll take it home and fix it so I can give it back to you by this evening. Will that be all right, sir?'

But the birdwatcher did not reply: with a cry of delight, he was stumbling back to the marsh,
having seen a little baya bird arrive with something in its beak for its young. He seemed to have forgotten Hari.

Hari did not really mind: what the birdwatcher had told him had already filled him with the confidence he needed and wanted. Now he would go ahead.

Of course he would first take his sisters to the races on the beach.

Their horns painted pink and crimson, the milk-white bullocks thundered over the sand, the wooden carts lumbering after them, the drivers in their bright new turbans shouting themselves hoarse as they waved their whips in the air and urged them along.

‘Biju's cart – Biju's bullocks – Biju's won!' A shout went up at the far end of the beach and was passed back through the crowds on the dunes. Biju, standing amongst them in a new, dazzling white
dhoti
, beamed, looking larger and broader than ever, with his wife and daughter beside him in their new Diwali finery. People shouted and congratulated him – they seemed to have forgiven
Biju at last for his boasting and arrogance – after all, he had helped to rescue the drowning fishermen. That great storm had brought all the fishermen closer together, they had realized how much they depended on each other and needed each other, and they seemed to be celebrating this closeness today.

Then it was the turn of the tongas which were lighter and went faster, the wheels spinning over the sand and the horses flying along, their necks outstretched, their manes rippling and the spangles on their harnesses glinting.

‘Look, look, look,' screamed Bela and Kamal, beside themselves with excitement.

‘Don't scream,' said Hari. ‘Here, have some sweets,' he added, and passed them the bag of sugar toys he had bought for them in Alibagh. The girls fell upon them and munched loudly and happily after passing them around to their friends. Life seemed perfect to them at that moment.

After the races, when the crowds had thinned, Hari still stood on the dunes and saw a group of women coming down the path with small flat baskets on the palms of their hands. They were walking down the beach to the three rocks that stood in the sea. He watched them wade into the
peacock blue and green sea, the foam breaking against their ankles, to scatter flower petals and coloured powder on the rocks as they prayed to the sea. He saw that his mother was amongst them.

‘Lila, look!' he said. ‘Look, Lila.'

Anita Desai was brought up speaking German at home but also learnt Hindi and English. As well as moving around in India she has lived in England and all over America.

She knew she wanted to write from a very young age; she read a lot of books and was found scribbling away in the corner of a room so often that her family called her ‘The Writer'.

When her children were small, Anita Desai lived in Mumbai and often took them to a small fishing village on the Arabian Sea for holidays. There they observed the lives of fishermen and rice and coconut farmers, but when the village was chosen as the site for a giant fertilizer factory, much was to change. A poor family that lived in a hut behind the big house went through these changes. The book is about the ways in which their lives were affected. Many families and many places in India have had this experience.

A
   
She herself looked like a crumpled grey rag lying there. She had been ill for a long time.

B
   
[He] was small and furry, grey and white, and brave as a lion

C
   
… the man who stood at the counter, wearing a small black cap and with an eyepiece fixed to his eye, working at a minute watch that he held in the cup of his hand

ANSWERS:

A)
Mother

B)
Pinto the dog

C)
Mr Panwallah