And the best laid plans…………….

Important note to people travelling to the Lakshadweep islands: However well you plan, there is one contingency you can never plan for…. the whims and fancies of the dreaded species called the “M.Ds”(that’s local parlance for the government VIPS) . This is a species unique to the Lakshadweep islands, and their powers are vast and sweeping. Changing routes of speed launches, throwing people out of previously booked cabins,-this is all in a day’s work for the “M.Ds”.

Picture this: Waking up at 4:30 am to be in time to get on the speed launch that goes from Kavaratti to Agatti enroute to Bangaram. We were warned time and again by the locals that we simply had to be at the dock by 7 or else we would miss the boat for sure and there wasn’t another one for days after. We did manage to make it on time after a lot of scrambling… only to be told that the vessel was waiting for the “M.D” who arrived 50 mins later!!!

Two hours later we were told, the vessel was heading to a different island altogether before carrying on to Agatti. The reason? The MD and his family wanted to visit this island. The thought of enduring another two hours in the speed launch was unimaginable to most of our group, so we decided to get off at Kadamth.

We thought we were rid of the pests for good when they surfaced again on the ship back to cochin!!

Thanks to them, we didn’t get the air-conditioned cabins we were supposed to and since it was unbearably hot, we ended up on the open deck of the “Tipu Sultan”, the ship hitherto used to transport cattle. (Is there a lesson here somewhere?)

The whole situation reminded me of the fish in A’s bottle. After a point of time, most of the fish came up to the holes punched in the plastic sheet covering the bottle, in search of oxygen, per A’s expert advice. Somehow, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between their situation and ours!!!

Ingenuity at work

After a too-short nap to while away the hot afternoon, I woke up to the results of A’s latest project. A jam bottle, complete with silvery sand, coral, sea weed and a few tiny black and white, striped fish that seems to thrive so well in the Lakshadweep islands. The mouth of the bottle was tied with an ordinary polythene bag with holes punctured in it. A miniature aquarium and a perfectly proportioned one at that!!!

Being a city girl, I was dumbstruck at how anyone could have managed this; that too in the short time that one took to take an exploratory walk. A, forever mindful of the gaps in my childhood experiences of the kind, decided to show me the contraption he had used work the miracle.

It was very simple fishing device. A thick long piece of wood, a long piece of cloth that had two ends tied to the wooden piece while a third end was held away from the piece of wood to make a makeshift triangle-shaped net. All one had to do, according to him, was to find a rock pool and scare some fish into the area where the net was held.. And hey presto… you had bagged some fish!! I was so impressed with his ingenuity that I decided to take a closer look. And hey presto, the net seemed to have a neat frill along one edge. Realization, though slow, did dawn; he had found some lady’s blouse to use as a net!!! And from the looks of it, it belonged to a pretty gargantuan lady at that!!! So now we have some poor lady wandering the island blouseless!!