There are all kinds of widows in the Sundarbans, not just tiger widows. The men folk fall prey to tigers, crocodiles, the strong river currents, and even a lack of jobs, prompting them to leave home, sometimes never to return.
But beyond the lure of eco-friendly tourism packages and floating on steamers day-long on the vast placid waters, life is indeed harsh. The irony, however, is that the people need the jungles just like the sea, as in the Irish writer John Synge’s play Riders to the Sea.
The rivers and jungles take away as much as they give.
It is a love-hate relationship with nature. But post Covid, the two battering cyclones—Aila in 2009 and, even before that, Sidr in 2007, which devastated the coastal region—some valuable lessons have been learnt. To protect the cherished mangrove forests, women are playing a big role in ensuring conservation of the ecosystem through the Sundarban Mangrove Forest Protection Committee (SMFPC).
On my visit way back in 2012, a woman helping at an eco resort that provided employment to the locals told me, “How can I stop my daughter from bunking classes and eloping with a young man? I cannot be around all the time. It is no one’s fault; maybe it is her age that is to blame,” she says, adding that she does odd jobs to supplement the family income. Her husband, a farmer, cannot grow enough paddy to sell, as the water here is saline. Whatever little is grown by way of fruits and vegetables is by the sweet waters of the inland ponds and canals. The largest mangrove forest yields mango fruits that are non-edible. The wild dundhul fruit is also non-edible. Whatever is grown is for home use, which sustains families during the lockdown days, and villagers have a way of preserving foodstuffs like dried fish, etc.
This pragmatism is visible everywhere. With due interventions from the Child Rights Commission, awareness against the trafficking of girls under 18 years of age has risen. I recently visited one of the 54 deltaic islands; the rest of the 104 islands are segregated by the jungle and are on the other side. Most of the women employed in tourist resorts as cooks and helpers have a lesser number of children. Each village has a high school, and electricity has been reached when not lit by solar panels as an alternate means. For college education, you have to go to Gosaba or Canning.
The home of the ferocious Royal Bengal tigers is the home of the stoic rural women who are increasingly relying on themselves to move ahead. Over time, they have come to rely on their common sense and survival skills to move on in a harsh world. It is not easy for the men either. Caught in a Catch-22 situation, they have to venture into the woods for honey gathering and fishing in the large rivers like Matla, Gomur, and Bidhyadhari connecting the various islands, falling prey to the deadly man eaters.
“My small uncle (kaka) does not listen,” says our guide Manas Mondol, a guide approved by the government but not employed by it, adding that even though another uncle has been taken away, this uncle will go fishing for 7 to 15 days at a stretch. They live in boats cruising the forest area and store the fish on ice. If carried away by the wild beast or eaten by a crocodile, only those with permits can venture into the forests. get a compensation of Rs 2 lakh.
There is a great deal of poaching and more unaccountable deaths this way. The women who try to catch the baby tiger prawn, or ‘meen’, to breed into ‘bagda’ in the ‘bheri’ are also carried away by crocodiles that prey slyly from under water. Therefore, shrimp farming was introduced by authorities along the banks of the rivers. A picturesque tourism zone known for its man-eating Royal Bengal tiger and the intake of saline water creates a demand for the best seafood and fish at any cost.
The fall in the tiger population raises concern from time to time, but the radio collars to track them do not work because the saline waters erode away these collars, explains our guide. The male tigers are now killing male babies, and pregnant female tigers are being spread out among the various forest reserves. The tigers kill babies because there is a competition to mate the tigresses, explains our guide. The mating season is between September and November, and if tigers do not find mates, they move away to the Bangladesh side of the Sundarbans. It is difficult to enumerate their number, but a rough count puts the number at 100.
“Ekhane keu karo noi (no one belongs to anyone here),” laments Manisha Mondol, perhaps unconsciously equating her fate with that of a tigress. She cooks on a tourist boat, for which she gets Rs 350 per day. “Whenever there is a requirement, they contact me on the mobile,” she adds. She is dismissive of her husband and only son, who went looking for work in the Andamans but have since returned, looking for some work in Gosaba. Many men have moved away to other cities too, looking for work.
There are no guarantees here. The mangroves protect our city, but for how long? The ecological experts have warned of the disasters waiting to happen if there is massive rain and floods due to stronger cyclones.
Yet every day, hundreds of Sikhas, Manasis, and Shakinas find some work as life improves by bits and pieces. “For childbirth, every village has a local health centre, but for any emergency, the patient is admitted 15 days prior at a hospital in Gosaba.
And as the song goes, as the sun’s golden rays look to rest on the rippling waters everywhere, there is calm and peace as another day begins and ends.