© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
After a mercifully brief ferry crossing in a contraption powered by a deafeningly guttural diesel engine belching fumes all over us, we get off, walk a little distance to the channel where our 25-seater boat awaits to take us on our ‘crocodile safari’ amid the mangroves beyond Old Goa. She has ‘Jakes Snakes’ painted in red right up front, and the majordomo who warmly welcomes us aboard, (presumably Jake) heartfully thanks us for our money. He looks like a squatter, a shorter version of Bob Marley, complete with curly locks (but with dark glasses), so what can possibly go wrong? He’s assisted by a crew of two or three thin youths who run up and down the deck like monkeys; they’re his spotters. There are about 20 tourists on board — and we are the only two locals.
“Welcome, welcome! We are going to see birds and crocodiles,” we are assured as the boat slips into the olive-green channel. “And midway we shall serve soft drinks, beer and snacks!” Jake and his crew, station themselves on the prow and excitedly begin pointing out birds: “See that white bird – little egret. And that one, small kingfisher. On the right side that big bird — Brahminy kite…” He has the local birds on his fingertips.
The boat glides through the water. And yes, there are birds: little blue kingfishers squeak and dart like sapphire sparks as they lance into the water and emerge triumphantly with a tiny silver fish. Handsome in russet and white, Brahminy kites, wheel and circle above, corkscrewing down into the water and picking up fish, which are taken into the trees. Sandpipers wag their trails in approval as they dart around the muddy shore picking up breakfast.
There are some areas which are no-go, private prawn hatcheries, where nets have been spread. A friendly fisherman waves out from a blue boat and holds up a dark, glistening mud crab, his morning catch. “Some fishermen are friendly, some are not!” Jake tells us. He’s up in on the prow again, indicating with a hand to the ‘pilot’ behind whether to slow down or speed up. We pass a small clattering boat-building yard and glide under an arched bridge carrying traffic.
The mangroves hunch over the banks on either side: their above-water roots are mud-colored and remind me of ill-fated Wi-Fi antennae, the trees themselves are not the most pretty: but they are so invaluable to this ecosystem. Black-headed white ibises hunch their way through the mangrove thickets, and a white-breasted waterhen prowls around on great spider feet. So far nothing too exciting, but wait. Ahead you glimpse a large olive and pale russet bird, with an outsize red broadsword bill javelin into the water: a brown-headed stork-billed kingfisher. And then, in the blue heavens above, disappearing behind the trees, an osprey that is sadly uncooperative and doesn’t return. A little later amid the gloom of the undergrowth, a tall bird stalks like the harbinger of dark deeds: a lesser-adjutant stork no less, keeping its reputation intact!
Jake and crew amidst manning the prow are walking up and down, asking everyone if all is well. All is well, except… The boat glides around a gentle bend, and then there’s Jake excitedly exclaiming, “Crocodile!” He points to the mudbank on the right. And sure enough, there it is, sprawled on the mud, its scaly clay-coloured hide looking like a cracked mosaic of mud. These are muggers, aka marsh crocodiles, and this guy is big. He lies there and then slowly lazily, opens his mouth…as everyone oohs and aahs. Like a work-from-home dentist, I examine his teeth through binoculars: they are sparklingly clean but sadly, many are missing and I’m immediately murmuring that line from Bob Dylan: … ‘old men, with broken teeth, stranded without love…’ Is this big old fogy one of them, lying there alone on the mudbank? The boat has slowed so we can get a proper eyeful of him. This broad-snouted fellow, whose ancestry goes back 400+ million years unchanged, is recharging his batteries in the sun.
A fawn-coloured dog skirts the mudbank, edging towards the croc…unaware. Breakfast? But no — it figures and warily circles the grinning reptile. Which, with enormous grace, just shimmies forward and glides into the olive waters, only his eyes and the scaly ridge of his back and tail visible and the wake he leaves behind… And then, there, already in the water a second crocodile, swimming ahead of the first…
“Will they fight?” someone asks. Ah, Animal Fight Club here we come!
“If they are boy and girl, they may kissy-kissy,” Jake tells us grinning, and I think, it’s only in Goa that your tour guide can get away with saying something like that without having killjoy protesters feed him to the crocs! “But if they are two boys, they may fight over the girls!” Ten years ago, he saw two boys-boys fight, making the water all bloody.
Both he and the crew are obviously relieved. “We’ll now serve refreshments,” Jake tells us smilingly as his spotters courteously ask us what we’d like — beer, sprite, coke. He’d promised us crocodiles and delivered, and I thought it really must be tough on him, on those occasions when the crocs were not cooperative. The British lady sitting in front of me tells me she would have been ‘ gutted’ if they hadn’t seen any…The beer is chilled but alas so are the samosas!
As we get up to deboard, I notice, there are virtually no young people on board — just a couple of toddlers brought by their parents. And apart from us, no Indians at all.
