There is a strange similarity between the bleak, grey slopes of Ladakh, where it is difficult to breathe if you are not acclimatised, and the Sundarbans, where minor rivers become mile-wide giants as they get ready to meet the sea. In both, it is nature that is supreme and man makes no attempt to do anything but play second fiddle.
You have to brave the pollution in Delhi and the traffic jam on the way to Rohtang pass to reach the rarefied stillness of Ladakh. The road we took to the Sundarbans passed the foul-smelling environs of the leather processing facility at Bantala and a black, polluted canal carrying the city’s stinking discharge.
But once there and on the launch, it is another world. Not a sound comes out of the vastness of the waters, fringed by low mangroves. The opposite bank is barely visible, fishermen’s little boats still and stranded in the middle of nowhere, nets down and waiting for luck and a catch. In nature’s majesty there is no flamboyance, only an almost frightening self-assurance.
Yes, man is there, visibly present in women standing waist-deep along the shore, which we hug as we chug along. They spend the better part of the day catching prawn seeds. The saline water is a health hazard, not to speak of predator fish maiming them in silent underwater attacks. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are trying to find these women alternative employment.
When we go up the concrete pier and walk a few paces on the embankment along Raimangal river to reach Jhingakhali island, the picture is complete — man fighting to survive, with a bit of help from NGOs and critical support from the government. The people here deserve a bravery award, says Dr Asish Ghosh, scientist, NGO leader and our teacher for the trip. What they have faced, instead, is nature’s fury.
Just as you mark the early life of the planet in terms of the floods and the ice ages, life in the Sundarbans is divided into two parts — before and after Aila. That devastating cyclone in 2009 destroyed most of the capital the poor settlers had built up over a generation or more. Today, life is all about rebuilding and learning the right lessons.
Dr Ghosh has two lessons for the farmers whom he addresses under the banner of the local janakalyan samiti, equipped with the knowledge that his own NGO, Centre for Environment and Development, has garnered. The mangrove is your protector — look after it and grow it. It is your best friend against cyclones and land erosion. His second message is celebratory. After Aila, when vast tracts of cultivable land submerged under saline water, he and fellow scientist Debal Deb scoured old texts to identify traditional salt-resistant rice varieties that had declined in the age of high-yielding green-revolution varieties. They discovered six, located little bits of seeds for four and, last year, they successfully multiplied them through a network of community-based organisations. So this year will be one of scaling up 10 times the area under these varieties. With global warming and the threat of being submerged, adaptation to climate change is vital for the Sundarbans’ food security, says Dr Ghosh, using Bengali technical terms which I never knew existed.
The struggle between man and nature is stark in Shamshernagar, a village from where our launch owner hails. A high fence borders dense mangrove, demarcating the Project Tiger territory. Apparently, two days ago, a tiger was ferociously hurtling itself against the tough netting of the fence, in an attempt to get at a petrified goat on the other side, even as a tense village watched.
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Life on this island is rural and rudimentary. Every thatched-roof homestead has a little pond, where fish is grown to supplement single-crop incomes. The straw from the last harvest is put out to dry on a surprisingly good road, and for the first time since my childhood I smell of cow-dung cakes, which women have patted and put out to dry in the sun.
But change is visible. Every hut has a solar panel. Puttering four-wheelers, Tata Motors’ Ace and Mahindra’s Gio, are the secondary mode of transport. For the most part, people walk. Amazingly, there is no sign of either destitution or obesity.
And the presence of the greatest change agent, education, is overwhelming. We rush back from Shamshernagar to beat the 11-to-three closure of the road that passes the secondary school where the Madhyamik (Class 10) exams are on. Before the school there is a small sea of humanity: elders come to see off neatly dressed youngsters and wish them well, the air heavy with the solemnity of a religious ritual. The only way to beat nature in the Sundarbans is to do well in exams and migrate.