My Side of the Story

Beth Sharpe

Amitav Gosh (250-260)

Creative Assignment

The afternoon air is warm as I sit on my boat waiting. Kanai and Piya are talking over on Garjontola’s boat about something. They must be talking about the dolphins because they are heading my direction and want to get on the boat.  They both settle themselves and I begin to row out into the water. Piya looks overjoyed as the two dolphins from earlier return to the side of the boat. Kanai on the other hand looks like he is severely confused about something. He also complains like a little boy. He thinks that they are unimportant because they live in the water and cannot talk. He says that they bob up and down and make grunting sounds but they are really communicating with one another. Kanai jokes that the dolphins are not any bigger than what they are. He complains to Piya that they are too small and look like pigs. Piya laughs at Kanai’s silliness and the two of them continue to banter of the size and looks of the dolphins.  I can understand because they do look a little funny.  Kanai starts asking questions about how Piya got involved with her research on Oracella. She tells him it was somewhat of an accident and she stumbled upon them. She says that she has only been studying them for three years. If she knows this much about them after three years of study then she must study a lot. Piya tells Kanai about how she interned with a group of individuals who studied marine animals.  Someone in the team learned that there was a river dolphin stranded and that is how she found out. Piya decided to go look and was driven there on a motorcycle.  She explained that the poor animal had been trapped in a pool of water that was receding because it was the end of the rainy season. The animal had swum up the river during the rainy season and was now stuck. This was when she first saw the river dolphin she explained. She named the dolphin Mr. Sloane. To gain the dolphin’s trust she fed him fresh fish every day and the dolphin started to come to her.  She also explained that he dolphins were hunted for their oil and Kanai became extremely angry about this. The habitats of the dolphins were also endangered because the government wanted to blow up areas of the river to make it navigable which would kill off the dolphins. Piya told Kanai and me that she was told to care for the dolphin and was angered when she was told that the dolphin had died when she could not find any remains of the dolphin in the small pool of water. She explained that the dolphin had been sold on the black market for a lot of money and Kanai became angry about this. He was also surprised at the amount of money that the dolphin could be sold for. She explained that after the incident she went on to get her Ph.D. and from then she has been working with marine mammals. Piya thinks that I am not listening and that she has only told the story to Kanai but I am listening. She then starts asking his questions regarding my knowledge of the Island. She asks Kanai to ask me where the dolphins are. I explain to her that I have always known and that I cannot remember when I did not know. My mother told me what they were and where to find them when I was a child and it always stuck with me. I explain that the night I found her I had a dream that told me to bring Tutul to my mother so I left with my son without telling my wife where I was going and found her.  Piya asks if Tutul saw my mother and I explain that later that night I dreamed of my mother and she was happy because she got to see my son.  She does not understand the meaning of my dreams and I start chanting. Kanai can no longer understand what I am saying.