Outliers: Dispatches from the Delta

One of the most interesting people I met during multiple field visits was Krishna*, a skipper (সারেং in Bengali/boatswain), whose skill at manoeuvring the boat and spotting alluvial deposits hindering journeys on canals and/or rivers was exceptional. After arduous journeys, sometimes for a good part of the day, Krishna and I would sit on the stern and chat, while sipping hot cups of tea. (The tea tasted like liquid salted caramel, as the high salt content in the air would often result in the rims of the cups being crusted with the same. I miss that tea.) Krishna’s mother was born in the Indian Sundarban, but was married to a man living in Bangladesh. In 2009, a week after Aila had wreaked havoc, twelve-year-old Krishna and his mother returned to India, and his father and sister followed suit after selling all their land and belongings in Bangladesh. But, when I had asked him if it was climate change that compelled them to move, he said, “না। মায়ের দিদার জন্য টান। কাজের জন্য।” (No. My mother’s attachment to her mother. For work.) He paused for a minute, and added that the Indian Rupee commanded more value than the Bangladeshi Taka. I asked him if his neighbours or the other people whom he knew in Bangladesh followed in their footsteps. He said that many did—some migrated to work as sculptors, some as tailors and not everyone is involved in commercial tourism as he (is). It was interesting to me as an outsider and observer to realise that while so many were leaving Sundarban as climate refugees, marital migration within the nineteen blocks of the Indian Sundarban and intra-migration within Sundarban have also been quite prevalent over the past few decades.

In the Gosaba community development block, where Krishna resides, lived another woman whose culinary delicacies I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of tasting in the past couple of years (in Kolkata)—Kajol* Di**. Kajol Di has been working as a cook in one of my friend’s houses for two decades now. She lived in Sundarban until nearly forty years ago, and then shifted to Kolkata at the age of eleven. It was not the climate crisis or her marriage that influenced her family’s decision to relocate, much like Krishna and his family. Instead, Kajol Di and her family moved for better employment opportunities. She also mentioned that because they did not own enough land to support themselves, staying back in Sundarban was not an option. Kajol Di’s father worked as a labourer in Kolkata, and disappeared without trace when she was only thirteen! Four decades later, there is still no trace of him.

At the age of eleven, Kajol Di started working as a domestic help, and at fourteen, she was married in a neighbourhood in Kolkata where she continues to live even today. During one of my conversations with her—while she cooked my favourite palong shaaker ghonto (an Indian dish made with spinach leaves) for lunch—I asked Kajol Di whether she ever thought of going back to live in Sundarban. Without pausing a beat, she replied, “না। আমার তো শশুর বাড়ি এখানে। আমি আর সুন্দরবনে যাব কেন…?” (No. My in-laws’ house is here. Why will I go to Sundarban…?) She continued in the same vein, mentioning that if her in-laws’ had stayed there, she might have considered the same. However, she was content, visiting her own family once in a year or two. When I asked her if she misses anything specific from her childhood, she only mentioned her friends with whom she has lost touch. She said that they too have migrated to other blocks in Sundarban after getting married, and lamented the loss of their connection. For the most part of our conversation, she reminisced about growing up in Kolkata, and looked at Sundarban as an old friend she had good times with, but with whom she is not particularly interested in renewing a deeper relationship…