Rock and Blue: underwater symphony

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‘Saddam Beach’— the signboard with the executed Iraqi dictator’s picture greets visitors to Kavarathi, the headquarters of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep. Similar nomenclature on the other side of the Arabian Sea - in Kozhikode in Kerala - had hogged news space. The island doesn’t come under media radars but for its tourism potential.

Despite familiar signposts, Lakshadweep has little in common with Kerala as far as politics is concerned. Elections to the lone parliamentary seat and ten panchayats are keenly contested by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, allies at national level. A poster in red letters, pasted by the nascent branch committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), blames the Congress-led Union government for everything from Israel’s attack on Gaza to erratic ship services to anomalies in granting Scheduled Tribe status to islanders born (often in better hospitals) in the mainland.

K M Muhsin was waiting for us at the jetty. He introduces us to the scuba diving instructors and leaves his motorbike key with me. “Enjoy the sea and roam around. I will come after the Friday noon prayer to take you home for lunch,” he said before going to office at the registration department. His friends stay back to ensure that everything is alright. Tourists who couldn’t scuba dive at Minicoy make a beeline for it. Others put on their sunglasses and gather a quick game of beach volleyball. Liaqat Ali leads us to the glass-bottomed boat before the tourists crowd it.

We set out to the lagoon with downcast eyes. A wonderland appears through the glass bottom of the boat. A maze of corals and bright fish swimming through it. Potato corals (capsicum, as a fellow traveller qualified it), brain corals. Live corals with bright blue tips. Dead corals ready to disintegrate into grains of calcium carbonate, which make up the white sand of the atolls. Thousands of polyps are forever at work here, creating the calcium carbonate castles that make up the coral reefs. Innumerable corals stretch their hydra heads to the sun, eating its rays. The organism survives on photosynthesis.

A school of blue fish with yellow fins. Sea cucumbers. A huge turtle. Even octopuses and sharks are spotted in the indigo lagoon sometimes. Ali steers the boat to Anemone Rock. Sea anemones sway like lemon grass in wind. The predatory organism is toxic, but it’s kind on certain species like clown fish. The marine mutualism between anemones and clown fish is beneficial to both. The anemone dwellers are an interesting case study in hermaphroditism. Every small group of clown fish has a dominant male-female pair and a few bachelors. When the female dies, the dominant male turns into a female. Life goes on.

The game is still in on at the beach. Shoukat Ali and his team have taken a batch for scuba diving. The programme is organized by the California-based Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). Thaha is training the next batch in knee-deep water. He straps the oxygen cylinder around me and tells me to hold the regulator between my teeth. A transparent mask covers my eyes and nose. Lessons are given in sign language. Form a circle with the thumb and the index finger and the trainer knows you are comfortable under water. A thumbs-up means go up and a thumbs-down to go deeper.

Seems okay. But the moment I go under water level, panic sets it. I find it hard to gaze at the haze of green water. While filling the application form for me, Delma had teasingly asked if I suffered from claustrophobia or agoraphobia. Breathing through my mouth into an aluminium tube under water, I realize I had both. I come up and give an ‘okay’ sign to Thaha. A smaller boat takes us to the boat in the lagoon, where Shaukat Ali takes people to the underwater wonderland. Delma can’t swim but can’t wait to take the plunge. I hope Ali and colleagues decide to call it a day before our turn comes. They have to wind up the assisted programme before the Juma Masjid gives the call to the Friday prayer.

The clear lagoon is irresistible. The water over the white sand reflects the blue above. Clown fish swim around the boat. A line of white form borders the lagoon. Beyond the surf starts the deep sea. Our underwater expedition is strictly limited to the lagoon. Thaha refills a cylinder from a compressor fitted on the boat. The compressor purifies the atmosphere of water, salt and other minerals. A milky fluid is sprayed off the machine. The compressed air in the cylinder lasts for two hours under water.

We are the last to dive. Others have come up. Their excitement is contagious, but I still hope for a divine intervention. Shaukat Ali instructs Thaha and Abdu to take us to Anemone Rock. Delma wears the lead belt, mask and the cylinder and disappears into the water. I follow her. The mask is on. I bite the cylinder’s regulator and begin the breathing exercise. I request a moment more at the surface before going down.

Fear melts in the silent water. I forgot to breath. I forgot to swim. I just gazed and gazed. Corals of different colours appear in the blue like a wild garden. The sea bed rose to form hills and vales. I was flying over a rolling meadow and Thaha was my god. He led me through coral reefs occasionally asking for the ‘okay’ gesture. I felt water seeping through the mask. I signaled ‘not okay’ but corrected it with an ‘okay’ sign the next moment. I didn’t want to leave this world not even for a moment. I began to breathe and swim and repeat the breathing technique to adjust the pressure in my ears.

Our trainers inflate or deflate the jacket connected to the cylinder to let us go up or down. We touch the sea bed. Seascape turns a landscape. The surface of the sea turns a radiant sky. Then come the fish, reminding me that I am waterborne. Fish of all colour, nibbling at my knuckles. Butterfly fish, surgeon fish and a variety of clown fish swim around sea anemones. A giant clam clams up at our presence. As we wait, the rugged opening opens up. A flower-like thing retreats into a rock. Christmas tree worm. The spiral structure is the tentacled respiratory organ of the worm, which lives inside porous coral heads.

I negotiate a coral growth and stumble on a steep hill. Anemone Rock. Here the lagoon is more than three metres deep. My navigator lifts me up the coral hill inhabited by sea anemones. I stand above it as Delma swims amid fish on the other side. A large school of fish illuminated by patches of sunrays. High noon under water. I suspected I was dreaming. The trance is broken by a red object in front of my mask. A ladder, leading up the boat. Shaukat Ali asks me how it went. Still breathing the dry air, I give him the okay sign, which really means “out of the world”.

We have covered quite an area. Hard to believe. Half an hour earlier, I was hoping that the dive would end quickly. Now I want to go down again. I promise Thaha that I would be back to attend the week-long certificate course by PADI. I have conquered my fear.

“You must eat well after swimming,” Muhsin tells us as we help ourselves to the delicious meal at his parents’ house. He had picked his wife and son on our way. Pathiri, coconut rice, beef, tuna curry and fry. An additional item was kilanji, ultrathin pathiri to go with sweetened coconut milk and banana flakes. We pack the coconut burfi-like balls, another specialty of the island. As we say our goodbye to the family, Muhsin’s father gives a 100-rupee note to Delma. She struggles to hide the embarrassment but accepts the gift. Muhsin later tells us that it is the way with old-timers in the island. “it’s not that he is rich. He invites home for tea any outsider found collecting shells on the beach,” he adds.

We visit an old mosque, Ujra masjid, on the way. Women should not enter unaccompanied, a board says. They must use a separate stair. But thanks to the blessings of the Sheikh, women in the island are ensured of a painless delivery. The carvings on the tall wooden pillars are exquisite. Outside the masjid, a woman draws water from a well to bathe her infant. The water is believed to have curative powers.

Muhsin leaves us at the marine museum and returns to office. He tells me to leave the bike unlocked at the port. I the mainlander hesitate. I keep the bike in front of the port office and sneak in the key to its pouch, with the air of someone trying to steal it. Then I found that nothing is kept under lock on this island. All bikes have keys on it.

We get ready to leave this archipelago of surprises. Our ship seems to be overbooked. Students and workers are returning to Kochi after Christmas vacation. More groups of tourists have joined. A bit of chaos on board.

Another night of cradle-like sleep. Two days later, I was still dreaming of the gentle rocking of the waves and the treasure trove under them.

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Photos

Waterworld
A clown fish swims near its anemone home

Blurred beauty
A clown fish swims near anemones and potato corals.

Symbiosis
Lakshadweep's coral reefs are home to a variety of marine organism

Captured and captivating
A turtle in the marine museum at Kavarathi

Breathe n watch
Scuba diving in Kavarathi lagoon

Divers
Dolphins beat the ship on the way to Kochi.