The adventures of a boat on land

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Hi, I am a Mariambika. I am a fishing boat. I am a native of Kerala and I live in the Kochi coast near Vypin where I spend most of my day. My normal day is very routine. My master, Rajan comes for me when it is still dark. We go to sea and there, I see the sun come up. For a few hours there, I am the happiest because I am fulfilling my destiny. Once we are out for some distance, he throws out something and he lifts it full of fish. I feel very sad for them because they have such great stories that I will never hear. Most of the things that I know, they told me. They know so much, the fish. They tell great stories of the bottoms and the distances. They hate humans very much. Even Rajan. I know that that is because humans kill fish. But nowadays the fish hate them even more. The fish tell me that sometimes the humans kill even the children. When I hear of that, I feel like smacking them hard, the monsters. Sometimes I even think of rolling over and sinking Rajan. But then I feel bad for being so horrid. After all, Rajan isn’t doing those kind of things. Also that will make people sad. I have seen the response on the people on the land when one of them doesn’t turn up after going to sea. I ask the fish to look for the boat and they usually tell me some time later that they saw it on the bottoms. It’s the worst thing to see.  The women cry hard and the children too. Then we all have to go out again to look for the missing one, but we rarely find them. Sometimes, we do. They might have decided to fish for longer or have got lost. Sometimes, the boats will be in pain and the man might have just been lucky to have been found by the metal ones. Rajan and the rest are always so nice to the people in the metal ones. They seem to think that the metal ones will look after them. Sometimes, people who look like those in the metal ones, come to the beach to see the men. And they are treated as great heroes. Don’t the humans understand that only the Mother Sea can protect them? I don’t know. Anyway, we come back to the beach some time after the sun is up but before it gets hot. The men put all the fish and another man comes to take it away. He also gives Rajan something, which he gives to the other men on the boat as well. I don’t know what it is but they all seem to want more of it and treat it with great respect. The men then do tie the holes in the thing the fish hate. And talk. They say all kinds of things. Sometimes, it will be about their ‘wife’ or about their ‘children’. I don’t know what ‘wife’s are but I think ‘children’ are the small humans that seem a lot happier than the big ones. And the things they do. They take the earth and make things out of it. Or they run up and down the beach. But sometimes they are followed by different looking big humans. They often have only a single cloth around them and in these cases always seem to carry a thin thing. And when these are behind the children, they are always looking sad and making a horrible noise especially when the draped ones move the thing fast. It breaks the heart and makes one want to take the child to the Mother Sea. But I can't, of course. So I look on in despair as these terrible things happen.

That is how my day looks like. Anyway, the reason I put up with this stupid man (the author) who doesn’t even know how to write his own language is to tell you the story of a certain few days from long ago. Now the Mother Sea is horrible thing. She does exactly what she wants and lets nothing stand in her way. I have seen my friends at them bottom and the things She sometimes does to the humans and their things. I have even heard from the other boats of the time She came to visit the beaches. A lot of men and boats died that day. But the boats of those lands tell me (through the fish and very occasionally when we meet at the sea) that those places look the same as they did before the Mother Sea came to visit. But in this case the Sea seemed to be coming out having somehow been caught up in the wrong place. The little sea was missing it Mother and wanted her back; violently.

From what I heard the boatmen say, all this started when it rained. I hate rains. They come from the sea and fall everywhere. On those days, we can't go to sea. I can't make myself useful. And the water falls inside of me. I don’t know if you have ever had water inside of you but it's horrible. And you feel really bad until the Sun comes out and we are dry again. It continued on for many days in a row and then they took me and put me in a ‘lorry’. Putting me in was a long process. First they lifted me up. This took a lot of people. I was used to being pushed up the beach and used to think that this was such a great effort. Until I saw this. About 20 people stood around me and lifted me almost half a man’s height to the flat part of the ‘lorry’. Then I was tied down with what was quite likely the longest rope I had ever seen. Then they lifted me with a huge arm kind of thing which they called a “crane” for some reason. Stupid humans dont seem to realise that a crane is a bird. I know because sometimes I see them fly over me when we fish. After that I went for the longest trip of my life. The lorry was going at full speed and I could see water. The water was splashing away from the round things on which the lorry stood. And the lorry was going fast. Really fast. I really don't know why they were so anxious. People  standing on both sides of us looking on. Their expression was like they had never seen such a thing. And then I saw that the water was getting deeper in some places as we went on. The lorries were smashing more water away and the lorry was going faster and slowing down less. Maybe they want me to swim in this water I thought. Later I learnt that I was right.