An early morning jog is healthy, the beach accentuates it
and company removes the monotony. The sun had not yet risen and I and Tejaswi
were treading upon the surf with our bare feet. It was one of those rare
occasions when you could find crabs, urchins, gulls and all of nature’s bounty
except the curse, human beings.
Apparantly, Tejaswi did not have a wink of sleep; not the
least bit due to euphoria but due to his distorted love life. In his words,
“What wrong did I do you ! My life was so peaceful, serene and beautiful. Like
a holy temple, like this morning sea, like a bouquet of roses. Why did you have
to spoil it? Like an atheist defiling a temple, like the tourists dumping trash
in the sea.., like a mad elephant trampling upon roses.” I laughed shamelessly and appreciated the
beautiful similes. His tale of misery showed no signs of conclusion when we
heard a spine chilling cry alongwith the
regular barks of stray dogs. We stood rooted at our place.
“Places of natural beauty are said to be inhabited by
yakSas, perhaps it was a yakSha or could it be the wail of some intermediary
spirit at the nearby cemetery.” My mind
raced through all possibilities when another of those unnerving sounds echoed
through the morning mist. We looked around but could find nothing except a few
screw pine trees nearby and a mound at a distance. After a momentary pause the
wail which now seemed to be impregnated with agony came once again. It seemed
to be coming from the mound. We stood still with our T shirts drenched in
sweat. The morning rays had started to stream down the horizon. Another of the
heart wrenching cry and we moved forward to find out the source. A few
reluctant paces forward and we could see the mound turning into a large turtle,
being pestered by a pack of dogs. We strode along the way when the large turtle
gave another shrill cry.
Seeing a turtle early in the morning on the Vizag beach was
not new for us. We had seen numerous small turtles at numerous occasions.
Anyone can see the tens of six feet high carcasses in various stages of
disintegration, scattered around on the beach at any time of the day all round
the year. But this was the first time when we had seen a live six feet high
turtle wailing on the beach. We went near, the turtle was perhaps one of those
endangered olive Riddley turtles which come to the coast of North Andhra and
Orissa every year to lay eggs. Whatever it was, we could see its body
crisscrossed with nylon ropes, carmine coloured liquid oozing out of the thick
skin at numerous places. It was obvious, the turtle was caught in one of the
fishing nets and managed to escape and land at the beach, but the poor creature’s
agonies were long from gone.
We did not know what to do, the barking dogs added to our
confusion. Fed up of the commotion we drove the dogs out of the site. We had
jogged a long way and were at the wild stretch between Sagar Nagar and Gitam
college , where except a thick casurina groove nothing else exists, to reach
the road one had to climb a 20 feet high rocky cliff. Either side we had to go
about 3 to 3 kilo metres to find another human being. Tejaswi’ s bike was
parked at Tenneti park, which was about 2 km from our current location and our
cell phones were at home. Tejaswi volunteered to go back to his bike and get
help while I stood guard to the Turtle. He sprinted, I had never seen him
sprint on track leave alone on sand, but that day he did.
The turtle wailed once again. I could see its source of
agony. It’s body was brutally cut, blood was oozing out anywhere and
everywhere, the nylon thread bore through its gaping wounds. The poor creature
was experiencing perhaps a combination of the most tortuous punishments
described in the hells of Garuda Purana while it was alive. I could not stand
witness anymore to the ghastly scene. I ran around the place at the foot of the
rocky cliff I found a dark, broken bottle one of the sides was covered with a
label with a large “5000” written upon Red background. I broke it, armed with a
sharp shard I returned back to the turtle. I held upon one of the nylon thread
which had dug almost an inch into the flipper of the whining turtle. A few
minutes of gentle coercion and the thread gave way. I peeled the thread off the
turtle’s wound as gently as I could, the turtle gave a horrendous ringing
cry. Unperturbed I held another thread
and repeated my act, the turtle continued wailing each time more pitiful than
the previous.
After five minutes one of the flippers was free. Perhaps the
turtle felt it. Perhaps it was happy, Perhaps it was relieved, perhaps it was
thankful, or perhaps it was sarcastic that a man was trying to help it out of
agony induced by “Man”, perhaps it was afraid that in the guise of helping I
was trying to inflict some greater harm upon it, or perhaps it was just too
sore from its ordeal that it twitched the now freed flipper.
I continued my exercise. After about half an hour, when the
tail, head and two flippers were freed, Tejasvi returned with a man in his
forties. The man was in a white lungi and had a satchel. There was a third
person in a guard’s uniform, he was surely 60 years old if not more. The man in
lungi prodded under the shell of the turtle where perhaps the neck was. He
looked at his watch. It reminded me of our family doctor checking my pulse with
the sole difference being he checks at my wrist. The uniformed man, who looked
confused, pulled out a large kukri from his waist and joined me in cutting the
net.
The turtle had stopped wailing, perhaps it was exhausted, or
perhaps it was aware of the imperative. The lungi clad man after his mysterious
activities, which made him look more and more like my family doctor performing
tests, took out a few lotions and applied to the wounds of the turtle. He
sighed and told to us, “It’s about to return to the elements”.
I was shocked. I never knew the compassion that I, humans in
general, have for fellow creatures. Humans have always challenged death, and I
was no exception. I franticly started cutting the ropes with the shard, it
pierced me. I was not going to die but the turtle was. The small cut inflicted
by the shard was unbearable for me. The turtle had born the agony of nylon
ropes digging into its hide perhaps the entire night or even longer. The injury
caused to me was due to a shard created by me, for my use, out of a human made
bottle which in some form I have always used. But the turtle was injured by
nylon ropes which it had never created, which it could never use and which was
out of a fishing net which none of the turtle species could have made or used
in any form. It was injured purely due to humans and by humans.
It was perhaps the shame or perhaps the guilt of being a
human that I continued breaking the ropes. I was working upon the fourth
flipper, my grey T-shirt and white capry were carmine,my heart was pounding and
ears ringing with the words of the man in Lungi. I was frantically working upon
a blue nylon rope while the large, heavy, bluish green, triangular flipper lay
on my lap; The turtle let out a loud shrill wail and fell silent.
The flipper lost its weight, somehow I was no longer feeling
the weight of the flipper on my thigh. I looked at the Lungi clad man, his face
was as composed as it had always been. I then looked at the turtle. It no
longer resembled a turtle but seemed to be a mound in the shape of a turtle.
Blood was still oozing out of the gaping wounds, Nylon was still digging into
the hide, The shell was still majestic but The flippers no longer twitched, Its
wrinkled neck no longer had the rhythmic movements, Its eyes no longer had the
sorrow, infact they were devoid of any feeling.
I was confused, I had never seen a living being die so
closely. I tried to brainwash myself and continued to remove the nets but was
of no use. Death no longer remained the joke that it used to be, it now became
the fine thread of hope that could take life out of agony and throw life into
the dungeons of apathy. The uniformed man and the lungi clad man came next to
me.
The uniformed man said, “Don’t feel bad. Think of it as a
fish that you could not eat.”
I felt the storm of anger and guilt turning into a hurricane
in my heart.
Tejaswi whispered, ”He is a Brahmin.”
The lungi clad man said, “don’t be upset boy! death is a
part of life. Be happy that now the creature is liberated off all its
agonies…………………………………”
I never heard beyond this for my mind was now questioning
the very source of this agony of the innocent creature.
The corporates, the governments and even lay men may show
near zero impact on environment. But Zero is not a natural number it is an
arithematic unit which can be achieved through numerous ways of arithematic
appropriation at the cost of life.
Humans are those dervishes who could never snap out of the
ecstasy of “Development” which in reality is destroying the well developed,
infinitely precious life.
A thousand thoughts swirled in my mind, Tejasvi whispered a
silent “Come” . I could not see the Lungi clad man nor the uniformed man
perhaps both of them had left long ago.
The walk till Tenneti Park was unusually silent. He took the
bike out of the parking lot and we reached home. My aunt was aghast seeing us
covered in blood. I headed to the bathroom while he spoke to my aunt.
* The words from Indian languages
with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto
convention for romanisation.
