Free The Village by the Sea by Anita Desai Page B

figure of a pink and white mermaid in the centre, was tacked above the cabin door. A man was carefully writing the boat’s name below the mermaid:
Jal Pari
, mermaid. Hoots of laughter went up from the village boys hanging around when it became clear what the name was, and Biju turned on them with a fierce look.
    Hari stopped to see why they were laughing. They pointed at the pink and white mermaid frolicking in the bright blue sea and made rude jokes about her. ‘Biju’s building the boat so he can go and catch her,’ they said, and winked. But Hari did not feel like smiling. He left them and walked slowly but straight up to old Biju himself. In the night he had resolved to ask Biju for a job on the boat.
    But Biju turned his head away for just at that moment someone else was approaching him, a stranger who had to be attended to first. Hari saw it was the man from the tin shack, the watchman who guarded the pipes, the beginnings of the great factory.
    ‘So, yet another fishing boat ready to catch fish for the people of Thul?’ called the man jovially, walking up to Biju with a cheap leaf-cigarette in his mouth, unlit.
    Biju’s face darkened, and he frowned. ‘This is no ordinary fishing boat,’ he growled. ‘Can’t you see that with your own eyes? It has a diesel engine, it has a deep freeze, it has the capacity to travel fifty miles a day.’
    ‘Oh ho,’ laughed the stranger, striking a match to his leaf-cigarette and puffing at it as he stared at the boat.
    Just then the tin signboard flew off the nail and on to the deck with a clatter. It had to be picked up and hung again, the paint smeared and dripping. The boys cackled and old Biju growled ferociously at the painter who started dabbing at it with a rag and nervously repairing the damage.
    ‘So, a mighty sea trawler is being built here, is it?’ said the stranger sarcastically. ‘Fifty miles it will go? Well, it will have to – if it is to catch any fish.’
    ‘What do you mean? There is plenty of fish around here,’ Biju growled at him, shifting uncomfortably on the folding chair.
    ‘No, there is not,’ said the stranger, lowering himself on to his heels and squatting comfortably on the sand. ‘There is hardly any fish left here. Yesterday I wanted to buy a pomfret for my dinner and got only one small miserable one. No one in Bombay would eat a pomfret of that size,’ he said scornfully, making the villagers fall silent and listen. ‘And if you ask for prawns, all you get are miserable little shrimps. Not enough for Bombay people – not enough for even you villagers. It’s time you gave up your boats and nets and turned to something new.’
    ‘We have always fished in the sea here,’ said Biju stoutly, making Hari and the other boys feel a certain pride in him, their richest and biggest fisherman. ‘Always will. And if there is not enough fish for us, there is plenty of food anyway – paddy and vegetables and coconuts. Where else in this country do you get such good crops? The coconuts are so big and sweet, they sell for good money in Bombay. The land is so good, we grow two crops in a year. We have the best paddy. Have you eaten our good rice?’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ said the man, spitting out bits of tobacco. ‘I’ve had your rice. I’ve seen your fields. They will soon go. All the land will be bought up, factories will be built on it. Your rice will go.’
    The boys looked at each other and nodded, bright-eyed. This was what they had been telling the elders in the village, only they had not been believed. Now they were hearing it from the man concerned, they would have to believe. They quite enjoyed the look of horror and agitation on old Biju’s dark, frowning face.
    ‘No one can take our land,’ said Biju who owned three acres of paddy and two of coconut and betel palms, apart from his fishing fleet. ‘It is ours, and we will not sell.’
    ‘When the government says sell, you will sell all right,’ said the stranger, snapping his