God's own Bar

Matsya- It was a fish, the first of the ten avatars of Lord Vishnu  which saves the world from an impending calamity. 

 Whenever Adharma rears its ugly head, the Lord had vowed that he would visit the earth as our redeemer. No particular holy text specifies  the species of fish he incarnated as, and it was left to the believer to conjure up that imagery . If the Dasavathara  chronicle was ever written in Lakshadweep the tuna would have been the torch bearing avatar for sure. The whole sequence of evolution encapsulated in the ensuing avatars caught the imagination of the scientific world. It was in the 1930s that this plot was copied by the west and the two loggerheads Marvel and DC comics were at each others throats purging out superhero avatars in wanton, attempting to save the world. If Gotham city had Batman, I advocate that we have our very own Tuna man for Lakshadweep and rebrand our coral paradise associated this 'fishy' ambassador. The economy of this fragile ecosystem has forever weighed heavily on the shoulders of the 'Tuna man'.

It was my late dad who was first possessed . He had the tuna cans from Portugal  emptied of its olive oil, sautéed with onion ,tomato, ginger and loads of black pepper drenched in coconut oil . His malayali way of rechristening the gilled soul. Years after the Portuguese left Kochi, he was still waging a war with them . The patriot in him prayed that the next can of tuna would be from the newly inaugurated canning factory in Minicoy . I was four years old in 1969 when Smt Indira Gandhi our late prime minister did the honours. She too might have been possessed. This matsya avatar which swam its way into the limpid lagoons of a child's mind sublimated into two thesis which was done much later for an architecture degree and further on for his post graduate degree in town planning. More than thirty years have passed ,the Tuna man found yet another victim. My wife.

Amita told me about this short term vacancy as a radiologist in a hospital in Agatti, an island in Lakshadweep. Agatti is often pronounced (Aaa Kathi) by the islanders which literally means 'that knife'. My dad, a great chef in his own right bequeathed me with his fetish for knives . In hindsight, brandishing them might have been a subconscious effort to showcase our masculinity in the kitchen which at time was mostly dominated by the women folk. It was natural for me to get seduced by this island which was shaped like a knife floating in the sea, ready to be picked up for my collection. Poseidon might have lost it long back before he got himself a replacement in the form of a trident. I held Amita to gunpoint and pressured her to take up that offer, whisking her off to a place that she had never dreamt existed. The tuna god must have been pleased with my effort to convince Amita and my perseverance to stick on for my PADI scuba diving license. I even started hallucinating that my feet were evolving itself into some kind of  flippers as I had to go in for a larger size footwear with respect to my anthropometric proportion. We squeezed some time to pick up snorkelling gear before we entered into a specified quarantine zone ,all set to sail in a weeks time. A paid holiday to my dream destination, in a time when the covid virus had not yet reached its shore and tourists not allowed to step in. Holidaying in the best season possible with no sense of guilt ,as my profession as an architect was relegated mostly to swatting flies during these times of recession. I began to fantasize about tuna mermaids.

The bunch of doctors and their family who sailed along with us was a heady cocktail of  all the south Indian states and always infused life into this otherwise laidback population. Much of the  splash  was orchestrated by Amita and it propelled others to don their own set of tuna fins and dive right in. The daily evening 'kathi' sessions which ran late into the night fuelled by my  snorkelling stories made the doctors  who were chained to their work during the day yearn for more adventure. The first weekend we headed for the satellite island of Bangaram which was where I happened to do my architecture thesis eons back. An eerie feeling crept in me as I stood on its sand for the very first time. Back then, I had seen the island from far and was offered to choose between tuna fishing or spending time to get legal sanctions to inspect Bangaram for my thesis . Tuna came up trumps. I had cleared my thesis with good marks without even stepping foot on its soil. Things do happen when you are possessed. Thirty years down the line I wonder whether there is a cure?....do exorcists look at the expiry tag before they start their exorcism ritual?   I wonder....

For a true blue malayali the 'pièce de résistance' of this island paradise was that it had a bar meant for the tourist hut inmates. I had to sweet talk the manager elaborating my connections with the island and the bigwigs who once ruled the roost .He must have felt pity feeling the urgency in my voice and beckoned his deputy to attend to my medical emergency.  We landed up with a measly bottle of Johnny Walker by paying a kings ransom. Its ironic that though prohibition is in place in Lakshadweep,  they still allow to tap Neera from the  coconut palm .Four hours of fermentation is all that is needed to transform it into toddy (5-8% alcohol content).Neera is cleared as a non alcoholic drink and drinking too much of this sweet, translucent elixir can make you belch till kingdom come. We remained thirsty!!!!

 The Covid virus touches the capital Kavaratti and later tiptoed into Agatti .All our outdoor group activities which needed a green signal from the hospital authorities were clamped. Ambitious plans to go fishing in the high seas were met with scepticism by the islanders who were confronting a new kind of iblis . Night spearfishing and occasional scuba diving  kept my blood pumping other than my daily snorkelling sorties. As days progressed you realise that the tuna god has made an adrenaline junkie of you and that you craved for more. Cooking too gave me a different high . An assortment of lagoon fish, massive lobsters, and octopus  were speared and cooked in different styles depending on our collective mood . My knife skills came handy and I thanked my dad for it  . 'Ahhh Kathi' state of my mind makes you talk and perform .Garrulous as it might sound, I need to tom-tom the fact that I had my first public performance on the guitar in front of my friends one evening and it passed off without any casualties. Two months passed on quickly and it was time to pack my bags back . One final flourish was needed to end this grand play with a crescendo.

Our islander friends galvanized by the camaraderie of this motley crew from the mainland organized a trip to Perumal Par during the last week of my stay .Perumal Par is an uninhabited coral atoll  40 kms north off Agatti  .We were heading onto a sandy islet ,one seventh the the size of a soccer field, sitting in a lagoon which stretches 83 square kilometres. More than three hours after we set out  from Agatti post lunch we waded on to this sandy mound. We took our bags from the boat and placed it on the highest point of the islet nonchalantly as if though we were some half baked version of the fearsome, marauding Viking warriors .By the time we returned after snorkelling  we found that sea had already gobbled up a lot of our newly founded kingdom. It was then that we analytically scanned the junk that was washed ashore by the tides which lined up all along the centre of the cigar shaped sand bar .Heap of plastic and driftwood at the centre meant that at times the island does get almost submerged and we were already weaving stories in our mind .The wind was getting strong and strong tides were expected as it was a full moon day. Before sundown, timidly we transported our bags back into the boat  except for our bed sheets and blanket . A solemn prayer crept up on each of our lips  begging the Perumal to allow us to sleep on her white sandy lap shimmering in the moonlight  . Dinner was cooked on the boat while we made a bonfire out of the driftwood and tried our luck at smoking the fish that we had caught earlier . It was the first time in my life that I relished the taste of half cooked fish without even a salt seasoning. By the time we got the food from the boat it was ten and wasted no time polishing it off like savages. We all got our bed sheets spread on the available bit of dry land which was spanned just about 6 metres across from north to south, with the waves all around threatening to dampen our spirits. The east and west ends were occupied by millions of terns  squeaking curses at us for taking away their perch in the middle. The crabs were not that shy and kept crawling near us like a commando unit in action. One bloke got bit on the lip in the middle of his erotic dream  and got up disappointed to find it was a crab . To find a place in the boat to sleep which was tossing about wildly in the lagoon was even more crazy. I stayed awake until wee hours not by the marauding crabs but by my doctor buddies  flanking me, snoring away to glory. An early morning snorkelling session got us chirping again and we set sail before the sun could made a tandoori dish out of us .Out of the lagoon into the sea we found a stretch of snorkeler's paradise and asked the boatman to stop for a while. From the corner of his lip we could hear him saying "shark territory" and time stood still for a while. I jokingly said that if I have two more jumping along with me it would reduce my chance of getting attacked to a third, and climbed down the boat first. I was filming these two wiry guys who volunteered to jump in with me  and suddenly it dawned upon me that my corpulent self would look far juicier for any fanged predator. Amen

Heading towards Bangaram to join up with the lady folk for lunch ,we were  straddled across the floor of the boat like zombies  tired to the bone. While dreaming about the defunct bar in Bangaram serving us a welcome cold beer it dawned upon me that the Par of Perumal was in fact the Lord's private bar where he gets intoxicated by the very nature he created. Narcissism is not just a human phenomenon. Lakshadweep has a lot of Pars scattered for his entertainment . We had just stepped into the mother of all bars to toast in unison with the Perumal !!! Cheers!!!!!!!

Some random pictures of our trip to Perumal Par

Ahhh Kathis of mine