Day 48: Nicobar Diaries

25th December 2017

Christmas. And now thirteen whole years since the tsunami wrecked havoc and changed the lives and personalities of nearly everyone on this island. 

I just made myself a stiff cup of tea and an omelet. My white-dog visitor, who trots in through the back door every morning is now looking at me with pseudo-paavam* in his eyes. He seems disappointed about my lack of leftovers. My rice-and-potatoes from yesterday have clearly raised his expectations, and my stiff roti isn't doing anything for him tonight. (It's averaging 40 degrees C with max humidity - I'm without a fridge and can't store anything, so I'm finally learning to cook for one.) What a darling, I still can't bring myself to name him.**

~~

Post-chai: Helene Hanff once signed 20 copies of 84 Charring Cross Road for some booksellers in Australia on 26th July 1971. The inscriptions say 'To an unknown booklover'. I had a brief moment of tearful eyes imagining holding one of those 20 books in my hands. 

I am very emotional these days, and I break down a lot. Living alone sure lowers one's inhibitions. 

Also - Helene was alive until 1997 - it's thrilling to think we overlapped for three years on this planet, although we would have been wrinkly (for different reasons) and far away from one another the whole time. 

Today's idle pondering led me to think about how I have the mind of an introvert but the heart of an extrovert. That the things I love to do, or dream of turning into a career, involve long periods of solitude or time with my thoughts. Too much time with my thoughts, though, can get a bit much. Apparently, I can think at 150 kmph, especially during long scooter rides at 30 kmph. I wonder if I'll ever strike a balance between these different versions of myself.

Yesterday was a long day, as were all the others between my entries. I've been distributing my citizen science calendars all over the island and it has taken me into the homes of a wide assortment of people and tugged viciously at my heartstrings. I had already given out ~100 by the 23rd, and had hoped to cover as many homes as I could (5? 10?) - holiday haze had already set in. 

The first family I visited was supremely enthusiastic about my work, and took me all over their plantation to show me some of the damage 'my' monkeys had caused - eaten coconuts left atop leaves or dropped to the ground, banana trees that had clearly been ravaged, some without a single fruit left on the stalk, young trees that had been killed because the monkeys yank out the apical bud which is full of juicy nutrients. They had put nets around the plantation, but I couldn't understand how they could ever work; they were no more than five feet high and the monkeys would have no trouble getting over them. A lot of these precautions are well-meaning, but fall short in execution because of the inordinate time needed to see them through, or their in-affordability. Monkey-proofing isn't cheap, and their steadfast problem-solving abilities don't help. They also have dogs tied around the farm that seem to be one measure that works - I later discovered several dogs kill monkeys during altercations; everyone keeps it mum, but they don't stop it from happening either. 

By this time I had already spent over an hour there, and they welcomed me into conversations like we'd known each other for months. Being Sunday, the two lounging brothers and one of their daughters offered to show me the Joginder Nagar beach where sea turtles come to nest. I agreed even though I'd been there before, and I'm glad I did. I got an in-depth tour of the areas where the tsunami hit them worst; where the old road used to be, how far the fields once stretched and, of course, the turtle nests. They seemed happy to have someone to remember the fateful day out aloud with - perhaps it was just the time of year. There aren't many nests so far, it's still early in the turtle season - one leatherback and four olive ridleys. One of the brothers mentioned that the appointed forest guards tend to inflate the number of eggs laid every year to maintain Joginder Nagar as an important place for turtle nesting. If not, they could get posted far off in Galathea***, and no one wants that if it can be helped. I followed them on my scooter along tire-width sand tracks by the coast to come to a tiny lagoon where one can occasionally see saltwater crocodiles. We returned to their home around noon after the informal tour, where the brothers said they were impressed with my skillful riding along the narrow gullies, when in reality I was certain I would skid the entire while. My stomach had unclenched only when my wheels hit tar again. 

For those who depend on agriculture/plantations, life isn't easy. They need to be (and have) watchdogs everywhere. Along the coast, they face cows and need to smear cow dung over the young trees to keep them away. They showed me the older coconut trees that were still standing after the tsunami. The point where the water hit them had shriveled, and all the growth ever since has been narrower than the rest of the tree. Some of them don't even fruit anymore. 

After much chatter and now with an irrefutable camaraderie, I ended up having lunch with them after all. Now, in the late afternoon, I realized there wouldn't be any point visiting more homes that day - everyone was either leaving to go to the Gurudwara or preparing for Christmas. After they (excitedly) shared some photos of a couple of whale strandings that they told me about at Joginder Nagar from years ago, and of them siting on a pregnant leatherback turtle (this seems to be a trend among the islandic youth), I took their leave and headed home. 

Enroute, I stopped at Mugger Nala to sit by the sea for a while, which was, as always is, lovely. I welled up again. It's been an overwhelming month so far - the travel, the solitude, the home-hunting, the forging of new friendships, the disappointments, the seemingly endless monkey-caused strife, building empathy, the independence, the grandeur of the island, and the helplessness of it all. I then felt tired of feeling so listless and sorry for myself and decided I'd go to the community church for midnight Christmas mass. I drove up to a sweet Nicobarese home I had visited before and enquired about the specifics of their celebrations - I'd come prepared. I purchased a Nicobari lungi and stitched it up for the night. I love it already and could live in it, they are uncomplicated and comfortable to wear, especially in the humid heat. (I also finally managed to get some good vegetables in the bazaar.)

Time to go find my monkeys - more later.

--

* paavam is a Tamil word that implies 'poor thing' 

** My neighbours and I did, ultimately, agree on 'Pandu'

*** Galathea is a bay at the southernmost part of the island, far removed from the villages and separated by ~5km of forest. It's quite a grueling posting for the forest guards, and rarely their first choice of work place!

Locked In

 Dear Readers,

I write to you from an elite sense of entrapment, with supplies being delivered at my doorstep, garbage magically disappearing and the self-fulfilment of staying indoors and contributing to ‘flattening the curve’. While I sat in my balcony this afternoon feeling sorry for myself, running my mind through clichéd thoughts of knowing the value of freedom only when it’s taken away, I tried to remember the last time my movement was this strictly restricted. 

My mind took me back to 2005, when I was still in school and my only worries were unit tests and mid-term exams. The state board curriculum that educated me was dull in every manner, and I’d always put off studying until unavoidable. I was thankful for any delay in my need to commit text to memory, only to purge my brain of it all the very next day in a half-dazed flurry of ‘Answer in Brief’ and ‘Give Reasons’. To add insult to injury, my first set of exams each academic year coincided with my birthday. I could come to terms with not being able to distribute sweets to my classmates or have celebrations, but having to study on my special day always seemed cruel. That year, however, had other plans for me. 

I remember sitting at my study table in our 2BHK in Bombay, overlooking a narrow street, reading reluctantly for a geography exam the next day. My attention would often drift to the window in front of me, staring into the downpour that hadn’t let up for the past two days. Bombay rains have always been an intrinsic part of growing up, a sign of good luck and respite from harsh summers. For a young school girl, heavy rains also came with the hope of school holidays and half-days. My selfish thoughts would wish for our reliably blocked drains to clog up and relieve me of my books and teachers every time it rained for over two hours. This day was no different, and I crossed my fingers and muttered in hope to the clouds for them to keep showering until the next day - my birthday - was declared a holiday. 

It was 26th July 2005. By noon (and 2 of 8 chapters in), the water had risen to an adult’s knees or an adolescent's hips. I climbed into the box grille and watched cars chug to a halt, people wading in opaque, brown water and the strewn garbage from our street floating to the surface to get caught in drain currents. At the corner of my lane, I saw how the water began to pour into a small hole in a building wall. Frantic, a whole family of rats was swimming against the gaining water, trying to find higher ground. Full-grown rats had emerged first, their fur matted and glossy from being drenched. They stood on a fine ledge, urging the semi-hairless young ones to follow them out of their once-dry home. That visual is still so vivid in my mind, and I can imagine the squeals that must have filled the air at that spot.

I was conflicted – was I happy about this incessant rain or was I scared of the consequences? I was, however, but an almost-12 year old, and found myself leaning towards 'happy'. Two hours later, I got word from school that our exams were being put on hold until Bombay dried up. I tossed my textbook in joy (followed by stern disapproval from my mother) and sat by the window watching the goings on for the rest of the day. Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty.

We were starting to worry about how long this would continue, and we only had enough supplies for a couple of days. Our electricity had been shut off for hours, and water had begun pouring into the ground floor apartments. In the evening, our downstairs neighbour thumped on our door. She was frazzled and asked us (the pet-owning family) to rush downstairs. A stray dog had floated into our building and had gotten badly stuck in a spikey grille by the scruff of his neck. He looked miserable and had no control over his body. He was exhausted. Barked-out. Fading. My father’s hands were too large to manipulate him through the burglar-proof grille. I knelt down in the cold, filthy water and slipped my hands right through. I pet the floating dog, who looked up at us for the first time since we found him. He looked straight at me, weak and shivering, with deep brown eyes. I could tell from the new ripples in the water that he was using his last bit of energy to wag his tail, responding to the warmth from my touch. I pulled him closer to relieve the strain against the iron, and released his skin from the menacing arrow in the grille. He jumped in the water and spun a little, immediately kicking off and away. I was terrified and happy simultaneously. I dreamed about the little brown guy that night.

The next morning, it was still pouring. I opened my eyes to my mother staring out the window with my sister on her hip. She looked worried. My father had decided to wade out and get some groceries and candles for the next few days - it didn’t look like things would get better any time soon. It had already been an hour since he left the house and I could see every shade of panic on my mother’s face, reflective of the worst-case-scenarios she was playing in her head. A neighbour had made things worse by striking up conversation about potholes and open manholes that lay hidden beneath murky waters. We sat together by the window, tense in solidarity.

Another two hours passed before my father returned. His characteristic knock on the door brought the widest smiles to our faces, and we greeted his haggard form with more love than he expected. His hands were full of bags, indicative of his successful waterlogged adventures, and we heaved a large, familial sigh. 

Later that evening, when the excitement and worry had died down, I was sitting in my room reading Matilda when my parents called me to the kitchen. I walked in to find them around the dining table in the light of twelve candles. Potato chips, a single pastry and three samosas filled the table. My father had wandered through the morning until he found a Monginis open and bought up the last surviving of their party snacks. I nearly cried. I had written off my birthday and retreated into quiet until this moment. 

Regardless of all the subsequent parties and warm gestures from friends and family as the years have rolled by, that one candlelit evening with shared laughter, the smell of deep fried samosas and gushing rain outside will always hold a special place in my mind. 

Yours in quiet midday reverie,

Ishika

Dear Distance

Dear distance,

Why does circumstance change the manner in which I want to measure you? Why is it that kilometers mean nothing to me anymore? Why do you take such pride in being vast, immense, cosmic, titanic, gigantic, Why?

Your latitudes and longitudes are too far apart. If only they were tightropes I could land my feet on, I’d trapeze my way over to where you became obsolete. To where my mind would no longer be incomplete.

Dear distance,

You tear me away from normalcy, seducing me with tales of things I am forever to discover. With dreams I didn’t even know I had. To places that belong only in books. To become someone who lay dormant within me like a caged bird who thought her feathers were just emotional baggage. You rip away at my way of life, showing me its flaws as though it were an onion – each layer more pungent and acidic than the first. You take me all the way to my very core, where introspection is my only defense mechanism, where my tears aren’t from ascorbic but from the heart. 

Dear distance,

You take me away from my priorities that loom large each day, through a tunnel scattered with alluring stimuli, until they look an inch high from where we are. You convince me of the importance of the ground we stand upon, of life beyond the tunnel, of the scenic route. Temptress, you always have your way with me. I wonder if I’ll ever have mine.

Dear, dear distance,

I despise your charm. Your unpredictability and gut-wrenching thirst for adventure. Your ability to twist the monotony out of life. Your constant need for privacy and solitude. I despise the ease with which you can say goodbye.

Perhaps if I could uproot smoothly, wander through life without connections, without sowing seeds of love along the way, I too could wave at the years as they went by. But I am yet to learn the art of isolation. Of separation. Of avoiding wanton desperation, or dreaming up miniscule versions of my once ginormous priorities that I could carry around in my back pocket – egging me on when times got tough. If only, my dear distance, I could be as free as you are.

P(esky) M(onthly) S(truggles)

There are mornings when I simply know

That my peace of mind is about to go

Go far away into a land unknown

A place before puberty I'd grown

These mornings are oft a monthly affair

Akin to being flung down many a-stair

They start with a heaviness absolute

Perhaps even a demented right boob

The soreness seems to penetrate 

From epicenter down to prostate

And just when I thought it couldn't get worse

A horrendous dump knocks - an intestinal curse

In a fetal position, somehow I rise

As though in my eighties I'm nearing demise

Atop the pot my limbs give way

I'm only a torso, painful passageway

With stubborn emission I huff and heave

Giving myself a headache, would you believe?

I begin to count my body parts undone

My brain, my arms, my back for one

Also, my calves and shoulders and left knee

It's all a massive pile of hormonal debris

Rising once more, now in the mold of a squat

I head straight for the bed, where get up I shall not.


~For more period rambles, look here.

Day 45 - Nicobar Diaries

22nd December 2017

I realize I write the least when I have someone to speak to regularly enough over the phone, exhausting my urgency to share with blank sheets of paper. The last few days have provided a spurt in otherwise nonexistent telecom network availability. It also makes me question the voracious writing I did during my last couple of school years.

It's now late (oh wait, it's just 8 pm?) and I have a lot to say without any of the energy or dexterity I need to put it all to paper. Damn this age that makes talking and typing so easy - at this rate, I'll lose touch with the romantic morals I uphold.

More actual thoughts tomorrow, will power willing.

Day 37 - Nicobar Diaries

14th December 2017

(I have no food on my table - plastic table and chair bought to aid work and provide one of those required surfaces upon which one can put things - and yet there are always tiny ants swarming over it. They climb over my arms while I work and then travel over the island with me.)

It took some time for things to get going once I got here. I spent two very long days on the ship, during which I had an attack of loneliness, a little breakdown when my cabin-mates weren't around and then wrote some cheesy letters to friends. It was only as the ship was approaching Campbell Bay - the three hours of crawling towards the harbour in sight - when I was introduced to Jaya and her daughter by the wonderful old man I spoke of, who chatted me up while I was looking for dolphins. Of all the introductions and meetings I've had so far, which is many, this one has truly blossomed. We've become dear friends seemingly overnight, albeit in a mother-daughter manner. She and her family (husband who works in the Stores for the Forest Department and two girls just younger than me) adopted me without taking no for an answer. They gave me a bed to sleep in while I struggled to find an empty shelter to rent for my stay.

Jaya still stresses out about my well being, especially if too long has passed since I dropped by for tea or a meal. I'll never stop being amazed by how hospitable people here can be. Coming from Mumbai where our door is often closed even to friends and family if unannounced, I wonder if I deserve such love and warmth. It's not easy being on either side of that door, and I'll be damned if I don't uphold Nicobari values well into my life.

With this family's help, a lot of asking around, riding around on my scooter, some begging and groveling, I convinced a Mr Murugan to rent out one of two shelters that had been left in his care. He said I could have the one without a working bathroom, having promised the "good" one to a family who was to arrive soon. He and his right-hand-guy promised to help me fix up the house within 3 days, during which time I moved out of the Government guesthouse and into Jaya's home. After a week of their call-dodging, false promises and my nagging, I finally received the keys to a semi-functional home. It took me some days and a trench in my stipend to set it up and clean - and I live to tell the tale.

Work-wise highlights

-- I decided to begin conducting my interviews from Govind Nagar itself, as I was still setting up home in that village and it helped to not travel too far in that time. I got my surveys printed, charged up my dictaphone and set out. My first two interviews were awkward. I realized this only later while listening to my under-confident self on the recorder. I have a terrible recorded voice, so child-like and high-pitched, why do people speak to me over the phone?

Anyway, I picked up pace, confidence and structure soon enough and have managed to complete most of my interviews for this settlement. I am much more fascinated now than I've ever been. The stories and experiences that I get to hear make me feel for both the people and monkeys. Looking at conflict through avenues that bring me closer to the affected and the affectee is hard on my thoughts about the situation here.

The interviews are varied and every home is different in the way its members respond. Some homes have enthusiastic interviewees who answer most of my questions even before they escape my lips. A couple of people have enacted their experiences or the behaviours of the visiting monkeys. Some people are willing to share, but feel their experiences aren't worth sharing. One old man was so busy cleaning rice, he took 20 seconds of contemplation to answer each question. Sometimes it's easy and fun and intriguing, and at times there are long, awkward pauses and smiles. And generally, there's chai.

Most of the non-academic details from my interviews are in a document I'm maintaining on the laptop. The optimist in me thinks there's a book to be written from all this, the potential is mind-boggling. Gently having mentioned this to Ma and Nana over the phone led to them recommending illustrators for the book I haven't yet written. The instinctive encouragement on their part makes me want to give it a shot.

-- I've nearly habituated my troop entirely and it's a humbling feeling. I don't take this trust lightly, especially since I know what it was like when I first started out. I'm following the troop near B-Quarry beach, decided to do so after piloting with 4 different ones. The others were either inaccessible in spurts or outside the anthropogenic gradient I was interested in. I think I made a wise choice with this troop, since their home range covers forest patches, clearings, human habitation and coastal areas. I'm constantly discovering new things about their behaviour that I'd enjoy delving deeper into later on. I'm keeping record of these ideas, they keep me engaged.

I met a pujari whose temple is just at the beach. He feeds the monkeys regularly, much to the dismay of some people. Sometimes he shouts out to me, informing me that they're arriving. Often I'm following them already, but I humour him and thank him heartily for the help. He's a Tamilian and chats me up whenever he gets a chance. I've now developed a short-short hand so that I can continue making observations while he tells me about his life, the monkeys and Lord Krishna. He's been inviting me to his temple for evening prayers, I think I might go one of these days.

The pujari offering some coconut prasaad to my study troop

While the macaques are a bunch of naughty goofballs in most people's eyes, I can't help but be in awe of them. At the end of the day, these are wild animals - brilliant, intelligent and full of personality. Maybe our shared mannerisms and diet make them so relatable that we overlook these things. I also realized that I underestimated the time I need with each troop - it's a combination of now wanting to delve deeper into each one and juggling the behaviour work with my social surveys. I'm wondering whether to stick to just one and get to know them intimately and reliably.

-- I had an idea for citizen science a few days ago, which Rana seemed to really like as well. I'm flying with it. I start tomorrow and am hoping ardently that it works.

Only 5 months to go.

Non-work-wise, it can get lonely. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for all that's happened so far. Many people have helped me, struck up conversations and welcomed me into their lives, but I'm ultimately on my own for the most part. What makes it harder some days is knowing that this past month has crawled past, and I know that there's 5x to come. The rational parts of my mind tell me that the first month was bound to be a stretch. I was setting up the whole project and my immediate future, stress being my side-order to every meal. Once work begins in earnest, days are bound to fly by, and maybe when they do, I'll wish they didn't. 

Keep Safe Distance: The Hebbal Project

It's been roughly nine months since I began traveling 17.5 km to get to work each day. Considering I live in Bangalore now, where distances are magnified by its tipsy traffic and where daily cab rides at office-going hours could deprive me of large swathes of my own salary, I wasted no time in procuring a hardy second-hand scooter. My deep purple Honda Activa, albeit a little wobbly, has repeatedly carried my clumsy bottom to office and back loyally. She's squeezed through tiny gaps between cars and provided me with a false sense of progress in standstill traffic. She has whizzed past trucks too large for her own good - a trusty little Scrappy Doo in the big bad Bangalore world. She's rolled over many a pointy object, throwing me at mechanic after mechanic, patching up her well-worn tires. One would think traveling 35 km a day could get boring/exhausting/frustrating/excruciating/brain-numbing, but on most days, luckily for me, I had more than my personified scooter for company. I had a Dincy.

What is a Dincy? Oh, I'm so glad you asked.

A Dincy is a curly-haired female being. A textbook nerd (thank you, Dr Seuss). She is eternally fascinated by the world around her, taking it all in one hazy phone photo at a time. She is my default pillion, seated fixedly behind me in a good-for-nothing helmet of her own choice. From there, she points out the humour hidden in traffic - funny road signs, car stickers, dogs wedged into two-wheelers and oddly-shaped helmets. Our journeys are autobiographical, with people and our immediate surroundings reminding her of various anecdotes to keep me entertained with. But, believe it or not, this post is not about Dincies (if there can even be more than one of these strange creatures). This post is about Project Hebbal - one of her many cranial gems.

All photos taken by the aforementioned Dincy

At the start of this literal and metaphorical journey in February, we were stuck somewhere along an 840 m stretch of traffic bottleneck - as we still are on most days - called the Hebbal Flyover. This flyover is strategically planted, ensuring that most traffic going to school/office/college has to crawl over it. At two inconvenient spots, more commuters pour in, causing the existing lanes of traffic to squirm awkwardly out of the way.

One such inching day, Dincy decided to time how long we took to cross over. She did it again the next day, and the next, and the next. We agreed that we could find the optimal time to cross over Hebbal if we kept meticulous note of when we reached the flyover and how long we spent on it. It became our pet project (and a convenient way to justify when we left our homes later than planned). Being the sole scooter maneuver-er across our many 'data points', I have come to claim equal authorship over our several month long academic endeavour. I present to you, our findings.

How long it took my Activa to get over the Hebbal flyover (840 m) at various starting points in the AM - a liberal scatter that is explained below.

It took us an average of 6 minutes and 21 seconds to cross over, clocking in at an incredible pace of 8 km per hour. I must admit that this was rather disappointing, because on most days it felt like half an hour, considering we were often running late as well. However, allow me to now elaborate upon the many confounds that our project is rife with.

#1. These results are only applicable to travel by scooter - a rickshaw would take 2-3 minutes more, a medium-sized car would take 3-4 minutes longer, and I'm certain that buses would inch along slower still.
#2. My scootering skills: As the days rolled by and frustration with everyday traffic increased, I got more proficient squeezing through narrow gaps and maximising on wiggle-through opportunities, shaving off more time from our data than when we began in Feb.
#3. Between April and June, we had some blissfully traffic-less days despite being tardy thanks to schools being closed for summer, reducing much of the traffic (informed speculation!).
#4. There is a second route (via Hennur) one can take to the office, bypassing the mountainous Hebbal, which is longer but allows for uninterrupted movement. I've found it usually takes even longer than if I persevered through the flyover traffic, however, it's worth it for the maintenance of sanity. Because I take a look at the vehicle pileup and reroute through Hennur, we have missed several data points that would have held us in place for 10-15 minutes. Somehow, it wasn't worth it even for science.
#5. Traffic policemen! Most of Hebbal pileup is because of the chaotic manner in which people force their way through unmoving traffic at the two inlets I mentioned earlier. On occasion, there has been a traffic cop at these points, directing traffic, helping things move along like butter. Well, semi-solid butter. This has shaved time off of our timer and proven how having someone stationed there regularly could have saved us the trouble of starting this project in the first place.

So, what do you do with this information? You can use it to determine when to leave home in order to beat the rush or simply use it to know that you're not going to beat the rush because you left late like we generally do.You could use it to ensure you don't take the flyover into the city close to 9 am unless you absolutely must. You can use this to prove to the Bangalore Traffic Police that we need to address this bottleneck because there is now somewhat hard data to prove that it should not take more than a couple of minutes to cross 800 meters of road. You could also use it to feel better about yourselves, knowing that you didn't spend enough time stuck in traffic to find an internal urge to study your time in it. The possibilities aren't limitless, but plenty.

In the meanwhile, we shall go back to navigating through incorrigible traffic, dodging people who never use indicators and overtake from the left. Dincy will keep taking photos of odd happenings and I will continue to resist the urge to honk back at the Uber driver who thinks I can make way for him in the middle of a red light.

Day 12 - Nicobar Diaries

20th November 2017, Andaman Sea

(A filler post - pieced together from incomplete jottings and to-do-lists)

Coral Queen is swanky. Okay, not swanky in the literal sense, but swanky in comparison to M. V. Campbell Bay that I took the last couple of times. It's a tinier ship, something I found endearing and novel until bad weather and halpa (the sea-equivalent of airline turbulence) hit us. When docked, it looked sturdy and bold, like a short-yet-feisty person, but appeared rocky and dainty once out at sea. Like a Victorian relic washed abroad due to torrential, tropical rain.

This journey, like the others, was a solo one, or so I thought. I had two days of solitude, a good book, a pair of binoculars and a ship full of people who'd soon be my neighbours. I was covered. Typically, I'd find myself on the deck through the daytime hours - binoculars hanging around my neck and book in hand - scanning the seaface for cetaceans or any marine life between chapters, or leaning over to look at the tip of the ship as it breaks water, sending flying fish in panic-stricken directions. The latter wasn't as possible as I was accustomed to. Owing to the tininess of the ship, a thick rope boundary was drawn between the railings and the passengers, leaving a wide berth of tempting deckage restricted. So, I shared bum space with many more people per square foot than anticipated, striking up conversation between sentences. 

An elderly man - thin and distinguished grey, with the slightest slouch of the shoulders - walked up to me and asked me if I was the 'scientist type' - he had seen me writing and reading for a day. I gave him the modest truth, being careful to sprinkle the word 'student' into my description generously. He asked me if I had a place to stay when I got to the island. Fact was, I didn't. I was going to spend a few nights in the Forest Guesthouse while I scouted the area for a place to rent and turn into a field base. He insisted that I meet Jaya.

Jaya was the center of a small group of 5 women, draped in a bright blue saree with her short hair tied up tight, not a single strand out of place. Once he pointed her out to me, I couldn't help but notice her and her exuberance. She was loud, high-pitched and had a smile plastered on her face constantly. He introduced us and I was whisked away, into the group of chattering women. We went to the dining area, where they were sharing a 15 rupee packet of banana chips, and a barrage of questions followed. They were bored on this long journey and there I was, a serendipitous source of entertainment and intrigue. Who was I? Where was I from? What was I going to do there? Why am I traveling alone? Wasn't I scared? Do I get paid to do such outrageous things?

Providing honest answers, I've found, paves the way to receive more information than I imagined/wanted/needed. Nonetheless, it builds relationships, and I didn't realize what a rock-solid family I was steadily becoming a part of that first evening aboard Coral Queen.

Over the next two weeks, Jaya Aunty became something between my islandic older sister and mother. She put a roof over my head and food in my plate for two weeks while I scrounged the place for a house to rent, began scouting for field work and steadily began conducting my interviews. She also gave me the seeds of a few vessels to make tea and rice, a plate to eat out of and a mat to sleep on when I finally found a place. 

When I first walked into it, it was extremely dusty, had fungus all over its plywood walls, a fan hanging precariously on its hinges and several broken pipes. It hadn't seen electricity coursing through its wires for months, and it was hard to believe that it was ever occupied. It took several trying calls, personal visits and more scrounging to find resources and people who could help me restore it to a place I could spend six months in. It's hard to have a sense of urgency in a place that seems to function along its own timescale, moving imperceptibly in the Andaman Sea. With my scooter as a sole assistant, I steadily put together a field base, set up in Tsunami Shelter 6A of Govind Nagar, Campbell Bay. Its large hall had but a plastic Nilkamal table and chair. One bedroom lay empty and the other held everything that I brought with me in my rucksack, neatly piled around my sleep-mat. The kitchen started bare, but appeared lived-in as days went by. I shared my outdoors bathroom with 3 friendly chickens, 4-5 goats, my neighbour's cow (who kept trying to worm her way into my kitchen) and, occasionally, the ranging macaques.

A week into living alone in my tsunami shelter, two neighbourhood dogs - Pandu and Chotu - began living with me. I had a home.