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Two dolphins thrashed their flippers and gasped for breath, writhing on their round bellies, trapped in a catch of crab, fish and prawns. The thing they were caught in wasn’t even a fishing net. It was a mosquito net and it belonged to a man called Dukhi who lived in one of Sundarban’s sinking mud islands. The last cyclone had left him with nothing. The rising seawater had turned his little farmland salty and now no crop grew on it. Dukhi turned to the only thing he knew how to do since he was a little boy - catch fish. And somehow today, two river dolphins got caught in his plans.
A mother and a child it seemed. Gangetic River Dolphins were solitary creatures. It was rare to catch a pair. Dukhi looked thrilled. His boys wouldn’t have to go to bed hungry.
But one creature’s fortune is another one’s disaster.
Trapped in the net and fighting for their dear life were Sooni and her daughter Dulari.
Just a few hours ago as the sun shone on the grey green waters of the delta, Sooni the Gangetic River Dolphin was teaching her daughter Dulari how to find eddy pools and friendly currents where shoals of fresh fish swam.
Both of them were nearly blind and hunting blind needed some special skills. The dolphins found their food and their way around the river's ebbs and flows using sound. A burst, a titter, a click would send sound waves rippling through the river. The waves hit fish, crab, big cruise vessels and boats and bounced back to Sooni and Dulari, helping them see with sound.
This morning, mother and daughter had a wonderful time - chasing turtles, making prawns skitter away for cover, dodging a Hammerhead Shark.
A one armed Fiddler Crab poked its head out of its mud burrow and flexed its one large claw to woo the girl of his dreams, and invite a boxing match with other Fiddlers who had similar intentions.
A mangrove forest spread its arms around the delta. Its roots reaching deep into the muddy earth, like the hands and fingers of friends interlocked with each other in a web that could withstand anything.
The mangroves cleansed the Ganges before its waters rushed into the sea.
This stretch of earth and river meeting inland of Bay of Bengal was held together by fine magic. A million cross connections between organisms and nutrients in a divine dance. But the magic was beginning to wear out.
The water in this part of the river was saltier than ever before. The sea had overflown as the days grew hotter and ice caps melted somewhere far, far away. The few dolphins that called this place home moved upstream in search of fresh water. A species as old as Mount Everest, that had once traversed the length and breadth of the Ganga, Yamuna and Bramhaputra was now a rare find.
The river was tired.
From fields and factories far and wide, chemicals, toxins and fertilisers washed into its waters. People living on its banks washed their clothes and dumped their daily waste, for centuries.
And in the morning, they prayed to the same river. Their lives depended on it. But unlike the dolphins, they didn’t belong to the river. It was not their home.
Sooni said to Dulari ‘I played with my Ma in the same eddies.’
Dulari chased her own tail. In the privacy of the river’s quiet pools, she could do flips but Sooni had taught her not to draw attention to herself. Sooni’s flips would have to be discreet. Her breaches, invisible to the fisher folk’s eyes.
‘Will we ever meet Baba?’ asked Dulari.
‘I never met mine, you know. They said he swam upriver one day and never returned. The boatmen would talk about a big dam being built. It changed the flow of the river. And the fish lost their way. Families were torn apart….’ answered Sooni.
If you asked anyone without gills the same question, they’d tell you the dam was a wonderful thing. The river’s water would generate electricity that would light up villages, towns, factories and shops. It would make television screens buzz and charge mobile phones. The dam had the power to change fortunes and it did.
‘Didn’t your Ma ever look for your Baba?’ asked Dulari.
‘She called out for him sometimes but the river had grown too noisy. Too many boats. Too many people. Who knows if he could hear her?’ replied Sooni.
In the distance, a long legged stork waded in shallow waters foraging for food.
‘And you can’t be careless with your sound, Dulari. It holds power beyond your imagination. A beam too strong can stun and kill fish you don’t wish to hunt.’ said Sooni.
Something disturbed the water on the surface. A sudden flurry of hands and feet, a rush of wet tails and high pitched squeals. It was a romp of otters. They were like the sheep dogs of the river. Rounding up shoals of fish and sending them right into the nets of fishermen.
Sooni and Dulari dove deeper.
They often swam across the border into Bangladesh. Of course they didn’t know that. The border patrol didn’t either. Dolphins don’t have papers. They can swim anywhere. The only problem was that all the dams and barrages had split up the Ganges into many tiny swimming pools that were all cut off from each other. So while they could go anywhere, there was nowhere to go really.
‘There was a time when the river people considered us lucky. They would say the goddess Ganga came down to earth on our backs. Hunting us was forbidden. But times have changed Dulari. We must be careful now.’ warned Sooni.
The many creeks and inlets, islands and river channels offered escape routes, if you knew your way around them. Sooni wanted to teach Dulari all the river’s secrets. Dulari was growing up too fast. Who knew that they would find themselves in the clutches of danger like this.
Life in the river was not without its share of adventure.
Today, Sooni and Dulari’s fate was in the hands of old Dukhi.
It was a few minutes between life and death.
Catching the dolphins would mean a few extra bucks and no one would blame him for choosing money.
The dolphins were in grave danger.