The Dark Sands of the Marina
By Vincent D’Souza
‘Where is my shepherd now when I am down and out?’
Mary Cruz had kept nodding her head in the corner of the long bench, row 10, from the altar. The woman beside her glanced at her, and pressed the rosary into Mary’s hand. It was the 4th Sunday of Easter. The gospel of Saint John. The Lord is the good shepherd.
‘Nooooooooooo.’
Father Irudhayam froze at the altar, his sermon had stopped midway.
The power supply tripped. Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church was in darkness.
Mary Cruz clenched her right fist as she tore across the sands. The metal claws ringed around her middle finger hurt.
‘Don’t look back.’
‘Nooooooooooooo’
‘Keep walking to the sea . . .’
‘I am going there…I am.’
‘Don’t look back now . . .’
***
The eastern sky in May was the palette of a trained artist. A treat for people who gazed at the blaze of pink, red and orange-yellow of the setting sun. But men of the dark looked the other way. Prepared to invite even the grey streaks into their lives. There was liberation of some kind here.
Mary Cruz had not looked back. And now, she was on familiar land — the sands of the Marina. She had slipped on to a dry catamaran and let her feet find a reassuring level in the sands. Darkness came quickly. And the red neon atop the San Thome Cathedral’s spire seemed to reflect on the even-tide waters.
The metal claws gave her some assurance. That ring was the only thing that her husband had gifted her.
The Marina had been Mary’s home for 12 years now. The bride from Jani Jan Khan Road had left behind the clatter of auto workshops and the heady smell of kebabs and tikkas and quickly gotten used to the salt of the sea, the smell of fish and streaks of communal strife in the kuppams. She had married Reuben of Doomingkuppam.
Reuben had originally inherited two motorised fishing boats, but with catches dwindling, costs rising, loans adding up, he had chosen to sell the boats and work for others. Sometimes, he braved the sea with his own catamaran which Mary had named — ‘Mylai Madha’, she had called it. They got the name painted, like they did with the motor-fitted boats.
The artist, with the help of the Cathedral bulletin, had drawn the Madha’s image with European gloss.
‘She will take care of you,’ she told Reuben, though they both knew that the men who owned ‘Murugan Thunai’ were his guardians really, signing him up for their regular fishing trips and paying him decently.
Doomingkuppam was not a friendly neighbourhood. The ragged edge on the Loop Road where huts, small-roomed brick houses and metal-sheet quarters for migrants made privacy impossible. Three nights after the wedding, Reuben had woken her up close to midnight, grabbed some pillows and had taken her to the shore.
‘Get in.’
‘Are you mad?’
‘Yes, aren’t you?’ And he had pushed her inside ‘Murugan Thunai’.
They were on top on each other. The bottoms of boats made this rather cosy.
‘Don’t you like it this way?’
‘Mmm….But shouldn’t we begin by sitting under the shadow of a boat and talking?’
He was not listening. He had quickly freed her of the sari. And then slowed. He took a fistful of sand that lay on the floor of the boat and funnelled it down her cleavage.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I am not just a fisherman, Mary. I am also artistic!’ Their love-making though was over in minutes.
‘Come, let’s go home.’
‘Can’t we just lie here under the stars?’
‘Stupid woman, the men will be here at 3.’
Back home, they collapsed on a mat.
‘Mary, this is not a gift. But you will need it in this place.’
She lowered her eyes to his right palm. A metal ring with claws. She said nothing, took it, and placed it under her pillow.
***
The baby came quickly and little Antony short-circuited the couple’s regular scrapes and seemed to lighten the burden. Reuben seemed a bit more responsible. He spaced out visits to Pattinapakkam.
‘Look at his eyes…like the fish, ille?’
‘He is not a fish, Reuba!’
‘He is born of fishers…’
When Antony was two, Mary had made her decision. Reuben’s unsteady life had forced her to join the fish-hawking women on Marina Loop Road. Hundreds of city-dwellers came there — the sort who had to have a rice-and-fish curry meal on weekends.
‘Mary….go to that far end. We don’t want to see you anywhere close.’
‘As you say, Kannamma.’
‘And don’t show us any tricks by undercutting us. I will have the claws on your face!’
This was clobber-in-the-open land. Even fish bones would do to tear the flesh of your rival. Mary quickly learnt the unwritten rules of this market. No wonder Reuben had given her the ring of claws. As if he was initiating her into the world of Marina’s kuppams.
But God sent her a guardian angel. Sophiemmal. Silver-streaked hair, cut short and bristling, a large red bindi on a small, sun-baked forehead, a white rosary around her thin neck, and she always wore a black blouse.
‘You want to learn the tricks of this trade?’
Mary smiled.
‘Just deal with select stuff. Vanjeeram and pomfret and prawns if they are medium and fresh. The moneybags in the city don’t care for the rest.’
‘You have been here long?’
’22 years. . .doesn’t my body show? This bloody Madras sun has made me a karavadu.’
‘I like your big bindi.’
‘It makes me look like a don, no?’
‘I wanted to ask you . . . do all these hawkers carry the claws?’
‘Now you are asking too many questions . . .these money bags won’t even look at the season’s fish…why not? Because that is too much trouble…romba mull ma . . .moneybags!’
***
Mary not only found her place down the Loop Road but earned decently, sticking to her guardian angel’s advice. If Sophiemmal ran out of her stock, she would wave her shoppers down to Mary’s Airtel umbrella, with the Mylai Madha picture. Antony got admission into the San Thome High School. Kavitha, the social worker in these parts, had helped.
Reuben could not manage his money. Putting away some for the family had become a habit but it thinned as interest on loans piled up, and fish catch turned irregular. He could not shake off recurring thoughts of having been the owner of boat to now working for someone else. He had enjoyed beach football games on the off days, happy in the midst of teenagers of the kuppam. He was just a spectator now. And when friends invited him to the TASMAC wine shop outside the bus terminus in Foreshore Estate, he was there.
Mary was beginning to feel the weight of a cross. Every time she lay in bed and the claw ring scratched her arm under the pillow, she felt like slipping it into her middle finger and attacking her husband.
***
The fishing season was good that year.
‘Don’t be greedy Mary,’ Sophieammal told her. ‘The wretched women will cut their prices but you stick to yours and promise your customers the best.’
It worked. Mary’s earnings doubled.
Kavitha helped her open an account in the bank. Mary kept back two hundred rupees every day.
‘Murugan anna! Get me Brihans Napoleon Brandy.’
‘Enna Mary, you too have started drinking?’
‘Have to anna. This Madras sun scorches me.’
‘Then you must have Strong Beer.’
‘That’s for the kids, anna……get me 300ml, okay?’
***
‘Reuba . . .you don’t have to look outside for your drink. I will buy it for you hereafter.’
‘So you are making a pile, eh?’
‘Why does it matter? You will have your bottle every evening. You don’t have to hang around that stinking bar anymore.’
The evenings got pleasant. No more abuse, no more rants. But the stories flowed, the brandy fueling Reuben’s memories.
‘When I was ten and studying in the Doomingkuppam school, we made some fast money selling arrack in sachets after school. Three rupees for a sachet sold. One day, a fight broke out between two gangs. All school boys. They punched us because we had sold fast and sold well to their clients. Only then did we know that the arrack we were selling was from Andhra, it was good stuff. Theirs was from Pondy. . .’
‘Did you also drink arrack?’
‘I did but not when I was in school. I dropped off in class 8. And joined my father.’
‘Finish the bottle.’
‘Looks like I am solidly drunk tonight.’
‘Empty the bottle. Then I can throw it away.’
‘Aei Mary, don’t dump it in the sands. These are our sands ma . . .Blood has been spilled on it.’
‘The way you men get drunk and fight, that blood won’t be good blood.’
‘Do you know the police shot our fishermen on the Marina sands? They shot us like dogs because we refused to move our boats parked on the shore. Those khaki dogs…they took out their guns and shot us. Shot us in our sands…this is our land…we came here first…we were here first before the vellaikaran.’
‘Drink fast na…it is getting late.’
‘I have more stories, Mary. I have more. I don’t want to ration them like your brandy.’
‘Now you are being ungrateful.’
‘Why don’t you get me a full bottle?’
‘Finish this now. . .’
‘Those Corporation men now want to beautify this road of ours. They want to re-lay it. They want to widen it. And they want to clear our hawkers and dump them in some new market. Those goons don’t know that this is our purvi land that we have been nice to grant them. Where will you sell your fish tomorrow? Do you know how this Loop Road came to be?’
Mary had fallen asleep. Under her pillow, the steel ring of claws brushed her arm.
***
Reuben died in his sleep. Doomingkuppam’s fishermen put out black flags at the head of their boats. They would refrain from going out to sea that night.
There was little wailing and no fuss.
Fr. Irudhayam prepared the funeral mass at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church. 3 p.m. it would be.
Fr. Irudhayam was reading the Gospel.
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.’
The funeral procession reached Quibble Island Cemetery as the algae in the shallow, stagnant water of the Adyar Estuary began to release its stink and fill the neighbourhood air. They had dug a grave in the small plot Reuben’s family had for themselves. The old frangipani tree stood here.
Fr Irudhayam gave the last blessing as the coffin was lowered. And sprinkled holy water.
‘Mary, you may drop the first fist of mud now,’ he said.
She dug into a small bag she was carrying, pulled out an empty Napoleon Brandy bottle and flung it into the grave. It hit the coffin and broke into a dozen pieces. The grave-diggers then got to work, shovelling the dry soil in.
***
‘Look at the horizon Mary, look far, far beyond.’
The clouds cuddled the sea.
‘The sea goddess will be with us soon.’
Was she now like Jesus walking on the waters?
‘Let your thoughts not wander. And don’t look back.’
She was a bit desperate. Any goddess, any god was welcome now. The pandemic had shut down the Loop Road fish market and she had subsisted on the free bags of rice, some oil and borrowed dal. Aunty Betty had given her some housework — swabbing, cleaning the stairs and watering the plants. And one hundred rupees for every effort.
‘The goddess is coming into you Mary.’
But she was thinking of Aunty Betty.
‘Is she with you Mary?’
‘I think so.’
‘Listen to her now.’
***
It was late November. She was at Aunty Betty’s apartment. Her neighbour was busy in the kitchen.
‘Mary, you have strong hands?’
She had dipped her hands into a massive jar, into kilos of grapes, squashing them along with all kinds of ingredients.
‘What do you think it is?’
‘You are making jam, ayya?’
‘Wine.’
‘For Christmas, ayya? Will it be as strong as whiskey?’
‘Come later, I will give you some.’
‘Listen to the goddess Mary . . .don’t turn to the Cathedral now.’
She closed her eyes tight and let the tears fall.
That night, Mary slept deep.
***
‘Antony, kanna. Take the bottles in the bag and give them to Murugan-anna in Pattinapakkam. Don’t ever talk to anybody or open the bag.’
A strange fragrance filled the corners of Mary’s little home hugging the Loop Road. Stronger than the smell of karavadu being fried at her neighbour’s.
She pulled out the bed sheet and hung it firmly across the door. Teenagers had begun to peep in.
‘Edavadu irrukka, Mary akka?’
Had the news got around?
It had.
‘Romba joraa irukka business?’ The Pattinapakkam police constable patrolling the Loop Road had asked her one late evening. Mary knew trouble was lurking. She stopped her son from doing his daily trips to Pattinapakkam.
***
Mary changed into a fresh sari and stepped out.
‘Is Father Irudhayam in?’
‘I think he is in his office.’
She walked to the locked doors of Our Lady of Holy Rosary Church, said a quick prayer, and headed to the church office, and knocked on the door.
‘Father, it is Mary from Doomingkuppam.’
‘Come in, Mary.’
‘Father, I want to make my confession.’
‘What is the hurry, Mary?’
‘Please Father. . .’
She knelt down beside the priest’s chair. It was over in a few minutes.
‘The Lord has forgiven you, Mary.’
She got up.
‘Is that Mary inside, Father Irudhayam?’
‘Who is it?’
‘Inspector Jeyaraj from Pattinapakkam, Father.’
Vincent D’ Souza is a Chennai-based journalist, editor, publisher and many things Madras. You can reach him at vincentsjottings@gmail.com
