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Forgotten by those who draw up tourist maps, the
waterfront at Haldia has all the stark beauty of a quiet, lonely
beach.
The sea breeze from the
Bay of Bengal plays eternally on the waterfront at Haldia. Sometimes
it sings among the toddy palms. At other times, venturing further
inland, it ripples the surface of the backwaters and all but turns
the banks of hogla grass on their heads. But when it joins
hands with a cyclone it lashes at the trees, pulls up village huts by
their roots and goes crashing down the streets of a frightened,
cowering, defenceless township. For the people of Haldia, the sea
breeze is an ever present reality.
Haldia is lonely,
windswept and bare. For a kilometre or more it boasts a metalled
promenade set out with feeble lamps that only serve to accentuate the
darkness. As an extension of the promenade, on either side there are
sandbanks that roll down to the very edge of the water. On one side
the bank stretches all the way to the western horizon. Here the
water has carved out little caves in high ground and small crabs go
scuttling past at low tide. On the other side the bank meanders as
though unsure of its destination, steadily losing height till it
reaches the point where the Haldi river loses itself in the Hooghly.
The Hooghly. The mighty,
majestic river that surges past the waterfront and spans the southern
horizon as it rushes to its tryst with the sea. The Hooghly is a
difficult river to navigate because of the heavy silting and shoals
and sandbanks that are shifting constantly. But, seated at the
Haldia waterfront, you only think of the Hooghly as a river that
narrowly missed being a sea. There is a vast sheet of water facing
you, joined at some point by a vast stretch of sky and up against
this gigantic natural canvas, you, you feel small if not nothing.
The sheet of water is
broken by an island, though covered from end to end with dark and
dense vegetation. Here and there, cloistered among trees is a little
village homestead and along the water’s edge runs a thin strip
of open land. Country boats ply the river, taking off from the
ramshackle jetty at one end of the waterfront and rowing across to
the island or back. They carry, most often, a load of green coconuts
or big bunches of plump yellow bananas. These boats also ferry
passengers to and fro and the boatmen, like boatmen anywhere, sing to
the river and the wide open sky.
Tides ebb and flow in the
Hooghly, to remind you that the river is all but a part of the sea.
At high tide it is all sound and fury. Waves storm up the embankment
to come almost level with the promenade and the roar of wind and
water will drown any attempt at conversation. But at low tide, the
Hooghly cruises along, frothing and bubbling at the sandbanks, idly
lap-lapping at the foot of the embankment, the closest that a river
can come to sleeping. Sometimes the surface of the river is broken
by a fish leaping up in the air. Along this part of the river bank
you will find lots of fisher folk, notably egrets, shags, little
cormorants and the morose looking paddy bird. They rarely come to
the promenade. Their haunt is the stretch of marshland further down
where human feet have made holes in the ground and the spongy surface
of these holes is home to hundreds of tadpoles and land crabs. A
step closer to the water there are shrimps. The shrimps here are far
tastier than those found further inland because of the high salt
content of the water. It’s the sea at work again.
Opposite the jetty and
taking off from the promenade is a little dirt track that doubles as
an impromptu market place. Here the pre-dawn catch of fish is put up
for sale by fishermen and there is some lusty haggling, in keeping
with the worldwide reputation of fish markets.
On a moonlit night, in
the month of January, we sat on the waterfront when the lights went
out, plunging the scene into total darkness. Minutes ticked by. And
then, way down the river bank, a light sprang up. It blazed for a
moment and was gone, only to come again a little closer to us, hidden
from view so what only the glow was visible. For the next 10 minutes
the light kept traveling towards us, sometimes clearly defined but
always kind of eerie, a disembodied orb afloat in the dark…
At long last the light
cleared the verge of a clump of bushes and a boy hove into view,
carrying a lantern. He was followed by two men, turbaned and
lungi-clad. Each had a pole slung across one shoulder and suspended
from the ends of the pole were two large aluminium handis.
‘Swish, swish’ went something inside the handis as the men
fairly raced down the promenade. Given the isolation of the Haldia
waterfront and the close proximity of ships going up and down the
river, we could think of only one thing. Smugglers. Off we went
after the men. “What have you go in those handis? We demanded.
“Maachh (fish),” they replied and would not stay to
talk.
We ran into the same men
again and again and drew the same monosyllabic answer, “maachh”.
But a little sleuthing on our part finally unraveled the mystery.
These men, like hundreds of others in those parts earned a living by
catching baby tiger prawns. These baby prawns are supplied to
fisheries where they are reared under controlled conditions. Adult
tiger prawns, duly processed, are an important export item.
Baby prawns are caught at
low tide, in nets fixed for the purpose all along the river bank.
They are transferred to handis and thence to earthen pits further
inland, awaiting transport to the nearest fishery. The process calls
for the utmost care and speed for a baby prawn is only one inch long,
near transparent and so delicate even a brush with a human finger
will kill it. Fishermen use a large white shell to transfer these
baby prawns from net to handi to pit. Fascinating to watch, like the
colourful pink and blue and green fishing nets that suddenly come to
life along the river bank on winter evenings.
They say, even in recent
years, Hooghly has sighted river pirates who latch on to ships with
the help of large iron hooks and loot and plunder at the dead of
night. Before they can be nabbed by the coastguard, they scuttle
away to their hideouts on the banks or sail with the tide towards the
sea. This may or may not be true, but even as a sailor’s yarn,
it’s tops!
THE LONE SEAGULL
South-east of bustling
Calcutta, about a 187 kilometres towards the Bay of Bengal is the
popular beach resort of Digha. The six kilometre long, somewhat hard
beach is an ideal location to retreat to – supported as it is by
some fine hotels. More and more people are discovering the Digha
experience with its long stretch of clean sea shore, the casuarinas
trees lined along the fringes and an occasional fisherman with his
friendly smile.
Digha can be accessed
directly by road from Calcutta or one can take a train to Kharagpur
from where Digha is another 123 kilometres
Offering wide ranging
accommodation option, visitors can also try the Digha Tourist Lodge,
Saikatabas, which also offers Tourist Cottages with attached
kitchens.
The resort also has some
interesting excursions around it: the old Shiva temple of
Chandaneswar (8 kilometres), Dariapur (45 kilometres) – famous
for an ancient temple associated with famous novelist Bankimchandra’s
work: Kapal Kundala.
If one wants to savour
more of the sea, Junput (40 kilometres) and Bakkhali, about four and
a half hours form Calcutta by bus and boat, are two mentionable
options.
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