I. Kaisi, of course, did not remember the first moments of his life. Who does, really?
Life for him started from one random moment that had opened and squeezed itself through the door into his long term memory, as his idea of a beginning. His remembrance starts with the forever glide of water about him, the bubbles and spears of light piercing through when they went close to the surface, and of course, with Ma. Then again, everything seemed to begin with Ma. Ma seemed, sometimes, the only thing in his life, apart from the occasional (and sometimes annoyingly persistent) schools of fishes, the corals, the hoards of other whales Ma seemed to avoid, the darkness caused above his head when a ship sailed past. These things were not, of course, as occasional or random as he perceived, but for Kaisi, as long as Ma was there, he could forget about them.
Ma was not a great entertainer of this idea. She was a bit of a worshipper, and to her, no matter what Kaisi chose to ignore, he could not do so of one thing. The Mother. And when Kaisi first asked of The Mother, Ma took him up to the surface, and flipping over, she splashed the blue with an enormous tail as a sort of indication, before returning back to the depths. “That is the Mother.” she simply said. Kaisi waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he asked again. “But what is, Ma?” Ma allowed her enormous form to glide along the current, and Kaisi struggled to keep up. After some time (an interval long enough for Kaisi to forget his question in the first place), she said, “Do you see around you, Kaisi?” Of course I do. You’re around me. Kaisi did not relay his thought, but instead said, “Yes Ma.” “What do you see?” Kaisi thought for a moment. “Water.”
This was, apparently, the right answer. Ma brushed a fin over him as she did to show approval. “Yes Kaisi. The Water. Our home. Our sanctuary. She is the only one who can protect us, and will do it for no return. She is our Mother, Kaisi.” Kaisi, at this point, blurted out, “But you are my mother.” Ma’s fin twitched. “Yes, that is only an excuse for your primary caretaker, since you are still too young to fully go into the care of the Mother.” They swerved and went deeper. “When you’re old enough, you will require me no longer, and Mother will be the only one for you to turn to. Mother has, for now, entrusted me to take you to that stage.” Kaisi accepted this then, but he didn’t fully understand, and chose not to. After all, he still had Ma.
Another time, Ma took him to the surface again. She showed him the distant line that just appeared along the apparent boundary of the water. He could not see much there, but understood that it was not just a blank stretch, but an alive, beating thing. Ma said, “That is land, Kaisi. What did I say it is?” Kaisi repeated obediently. “Land.” Ma continued: “On that land, some beings live, who think they have conquered the world. They think they are the best, the biggest, the most powerful.” After a pause, she said, “They do not understand.” “What do they not understand, Ma?” Ma remained silent for a while, then returned to the water. As Kaisi followed and the last specks of light disappeared, Ma answered him. “Did you see how far the Mother has gone, Kaisi? Have you seen where her body ended?” Kaisi was quick to answer. “Yes Ma, uptill land.” “No Kaisi. Mother has not ended.
She never will, and there is no force on Earth that can cause her to. But She is generous. And because of her generosity, She has allowed land to form. She has allowed beings that cannot live underwater like us, to survive and prosper on land. She allows them to gain power, allows them to have some of Her children for their survival, grants them permission to use Her, for water, for entertainment. For their bliss. Whatever power the beings have managed to secure, it is all for Her.” Ma turned, and now they were in a darker place, and Kaisi edged closer to her. “The moment Mother wants to, Kaisi, she can destroy them. She holds that ability. But those beings do not understand that. They do whatever, treat Mother however they wish. They hunt Her children, they kill them, they do things to destroy Her sacred body. And yet, Mother remains patient, hoping they will learn.
But this patience won’t last forever.” They turned again, and emerged back into lighter waters. “When Mother was younger, Kaisi, she liked to entertain the beings. She found their foolishness, their wonder at her vastness and beauty amusing. But now, her patience is wearing out, and so is the luck of the beings.”
Kaisi, once, had seen death. They had crossed into a stretch of water close to the surface, where a small turtle, its limbs flailing pointlessly in the water, rose slowly to the surface. It took some time for him to realise it was a corpse. Tangled around its neck, was a transparent, floaty material, a lot like a jellyfish. It flourished in the blue current like a flag of triumph. Slowly, this once turned into one of many. As soon as they emerged from deeper waters, they would see bodies of sea creatures, trapped in nets, gagged by the floaty plastic, wrapped and sliced by hooks and lines. They rose to the surface sometimes, while others, their life claimed by heavier things, remained trapped helplessly on the sea bed. Kaisi and his Ma had nothing to do but swim past them. Once, he saw another young humpback whale he recognized.
Its midsection had been impaled by a large, jagged piece of glass, and it remained pinned to the ocean floor. Kaisi saw his tail wriggle feebly as Ma led him away, and a low moan of the whale lumbered through the water to him.
That night, Kaisi asked Ma a question. “If the Mother is so powerful, why does she not do anything about these deaths of her children?” Ma took a long time to answer him. “Mother is our protector, Kaisi.” Kaisi said: “Then how is it that she does nothing about these killings, Ma?” Ma replied: “We are far too small and ignorant to understand Mother’s methods, Kaisi.” To this, Kaisi could not agree. So for the first time, with the image of the bloody, pinned down young whale floating in his mind, he retorted. “I don’t think so, Ma. I think that the great, great Mother, simply does not care.” Kaisi thought Ma would get angry at him. But she didn’t. She simply cut through the water in the glorious fashion of hers, and Kaisi silently followed.
One day, when Kaisi had grown a little older and had started making short journeys without Ma, he was gliding along with his mouth open, close to the surface, in waters clear except for the occasional wandering of small fish and plankton that served as his food. He noticed a disturbance in the water ahead of him, a sign which usually indicated the presence of a large school of small fish (and thus, good food), and made straight for it. The first thing was the thin, sharp line that went laterally around his open mouth. He didn’t even notice it until it began cutting through the corners, as another end wrapped around his tail and fins. He tried to escape, but the lines only got tighter, and tighter, cutting through his body until he couldn’t move. He felt like he was sinking, sinking, until he saw one of those jellyfish-like things floating about the lines.
Tied to one corner of it, was a bright red plastic can with squiggly, jolly white letters. This red can was the last thing that joined the rest of Kaisi’s memory, and locked the door.
It took a long time for Ma to find Kaisi’s body. When she did, she did not waste much time. She took straight for the surface, broke through the water to see open sky, and swam until she came close to the land, to the golden sand that sat, blowing in the hot wind to welcome her. She waited there. And while she did, she spoke to the Mother. “Mother, I trust you. You will protect me. You will protect all your children.” “But Kaisi was not just your child, Mother, he was mine too. He was my child, Mother.” “And as his mother, I have failed. And you have failed too.” “But I can see that it has not affected you, except for his blood now mixing with your waters, like mine did when he was first born.” “And you, Mother, do not care.” “But I do. Mother.” “And so, while I continue to have trust in you, I cannot live at the same time.” “Thank you for everything.”
So as Ma took her last glimpse of land and her Mother on that sandy beach, she felt the water stirring around her tail. It grew more agitated as the seconds passed, and just before everything shut out, Ma felt the water beating around her in a rhythm. A rhythm that said: I do care.
II. He was a man who had come to the place called Cox’s Bazar in a small country in Asia called Bangladesh. This was a country that had the opportunity to hold Cox’s Bazar’s identity as the longest sea beach in the world, and hub for the waters of the Great Bay of Bengal to wash up on. His name is not important. Nothing about him, or the other hundreds of people hoarding the beach in the midst of overly packed beach chairs, dug-in stalls, empty bins and countless litter, cigarettes, half- eaten remains of fruits, coconuts, streams of dirty water with floating rubbish that merrily gurgled down to the great sea, was important. What was important was what happened after. He watched the water wash up and then retract, enjoying it very much. It seemed as though the water was scared to come any closer.
He dropped his coke can, with a few dregs still remaining, onto the moist sandbed beneath his feet. It didn’t occur to him that there could be any other place on Earth to drop it. The can immediately got washed away. He raised a brow, perhaps the high tide was coming, given the fact that water had already covered his ankles. He only started worrying when he saw the water already rise to his hips, and the people flailing and trying to escape. Then the Sun’s rays were cut off by the wave. The wave that seemed to contain the entire body of the water he could see, the wave that, at that moment, seemed to touch the Sun to turn it off. Like flipping off a lightswitch. His heart, beating to leave his chest, probably killed him before the water could even reach.
The waters, the Mother, had finally lost Her patience.
