Read:
The Pearl Diver
by Hameedha Khan
Muthamma:
They discovered Muthamma had inherited her mother’s curse by trying to drown her. The merchant man had lifted the writhing baby above his head in triumph: she emerged from the sea as a wet choking thing with her eyes squeezed shut, nostrils flared, and mouth open in a gurgling scream.
With the rising sun behind her, the baby
appeared shadowlike and divine, outlined with a glowing halo. “She lives!” the merchant
man cried, and a conch shell was blown, bells were rung.
Muthamma had lasted an hour underwater. She could have remained much longer, maybe even longer than her mother, but one hour was enough of a spectacle for the crowd. Witnessing this declaration, Muthamma’s mother wept at the shore for so long that the sand buried her. It is said her tears caused the highest tides Korkai port had ever seen.
As a young woman, Muthamma became the best pearl diver on the southeastern
coast. Only she could fish pearls so lovely that one could get lost in their reflection,
pearls so entrancing and luminous they seemed to glow even in the dark. Every day at
sunrise she would be taken out to sea, her dark skin greased with fats and nose clipped
shut.
She would say a prayer to Kadal Thai, sea mother, praying for her life to be spared before she would take heavy rocks in her hands and sink into the depths of the ocean, far deeper than any other diver. Once at the proper depth, she would let go of the rocks to collect pearl oysters, her nimble hands working quickly to place them into her netted sack.
For years, the pearl merchants worked her for long hours every day. Their profits doubled and tripled, while Muthamma grew lonely, weary and found little joy in her life. The pearl merchants pushed Muthamma to get married, and more importantly, have children. Children will bring you happiness, they insisted, and how ideal if they’re daughters. The Portuguese are demanding more pearls and we must meet their demand, they said. When Muthamma said she was uninterested in marriage, the pearl merchants snapped that the marriage was a generous offer simply for the sake of her dignity, and if she’d rather have babies without a husband then they could arrange for that, just like they did for her mother.
There were very few with abilities like Muthamma, and all were women: some who were elders who survived the decades of labor, though many died young. Some, like Muthamma’s mother, died of grief after they realized their daughters were cursed by the ocean. The diving was difficult and exhausting, and there was little time for much else. Muthamma would often lose consciousness after long dives, her chest aching from the strain of not breathing. There was no escape, they were the open secret of how the Pearl Fishery Coast was able to flourish.
When Muthamma turned thirty-five she left Korkai for a quiet fishing village to start a new life, and hide from the pearl merchants who would try to find her. That was where she met the Fisherwoman.
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Fisherwoman:
None of the villagers knew much about Kuvalai, except that she lived alone in her thatched hut among the mangroves for as long as anyone could remember. She had beautiful features which made it impossible to guess her age: broad nose, smiling black eyes, smooth skin the deep-dark of tamarind seeds, thick gray hair oiled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.
She was one of many ocean guardians: protector of alaiyaathi kaadugal,
intertidal mangroves. She had fewer and fewer devotees. Occasionally, someone might
leave an offering for her, a few bananas in exchange for a blessing. Without the
mangroves, all would fall into disarray. Mangroves balanced the earth and the sea:
alaiyaathi kadugal, forests that which calm the waves.
Disinterested, she witnessed the rise and fall of kings: Chera, Chola, Pandya dynasties, all from her quiet hut. She witnessed the foreigner ships arriving in greater numbers on the coast, their unwashed bodies reeking of bloodmoney. Over the years Kuvalai grew lonely, and she tried to create a daughter. She was a small thing fashioned out of blades of nighttime seaweed, tied together with jute twine. Her eyes were made of smooth black granite stones polished by the ocean dipped in sugary palm sap, so that she might always see sweet things.
Kuvalai spoke kind and
loving words to her for seven days, before she gently placed her daughter in the ocean,
sending prayers for Kadal Thai to breathe life into her.
Her to-be daughter floated delicately atop the sea foam for a moment, before the waves jerked her down into the sea. Kuvalai had cried, her prayers neglected. “Why must you hate me so,” she weeped into the sea, “can you not see, I am alone like you?” The waves roared against the sea rocks. You are foolish. I have never been alone, Kadal Thai seemed to say.
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The Meeting:
In her new village, Muthamma was most intrigued by The Fisherwoman, who kept mostly to herself. The Fisherwoman spent most of the day at sea- she was the first to take her boat out to sea and the last to return. Muthamma and the other fishers would watch her draw empty nets to shore at midnight as they drank kallu, palm toddy, wondering how someone could be at sea for so long, yet catch nothing. She’s useless, the villagers said, she must be cursed. She doesn’t do jackshit for the village. They said they offered her their catch, but she never once accepted. Muthamma ached for her, she reminded Muthamma of herself.
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Muthamma often took long walks at night after drinking. Sometimes she would fall asleep on the shore among the stray dogs, staring up at the moon. She took long walks at night because she would sometimes see the Fisherwoman doing the same.The first time, they sat together in shared silence, watching the tides until they fell asleep on each other’s shoulders. The second time, they talked until the fishermen readied the kattumaram boats at sunrise.
“It’s a curse,” Muthamma said, “to not be able to drown. I’ve tried.”
“It is not a curse, but a gift from Kadal Thai. You are able to do something
extraordinary which most humans cannot.”
“Then how is it that we are made to suffer and toil everyday?”
The Fisherwoman did not know how to respond to that.
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Once, Muthamma heard pained wimpering from the shore, and wandered closer
to the sound. She had crouched behind a fishing boat, still shaky from the kallu. That
was the first night Muthamma saw Kuvalai turn into a crab.
Kuvalai was facing the sea nude, her muscled body convulsing and bent forward in pain, her grey hair loose. The skin on her arms and legs began to rupture, revealing her coral bones while her blood ran in black rivulets to her feet and into the sand. The wet cracking sounds of Kuvalai’s body was the most terrible thing Muthamma had ever heard. In a violent motion, her bones split loudly and elongated into crab legs. The skin of her back peeled and hardened and streched in front of Muthamma’s eyes, a smooth red expanse with darkened ridges gleaming bloody in the moonlight. Muthamma gasped. The crab stilled and slowly turned to watch Muthamma, who had since stumbled out from behind the boat. She realized that Kuvalai’s head still remained, tucked into the shadows of her shell. The sand beneath her began to ripple and part,gradually swallowing her. Their eyes met, and Muthamma’s heart lurched against her chest, drumming against her ribs, a dance. Kuvalai regarded Muthamma with a thoughtful expression as she sank into shore, the sand hissing against Kuvalai’s hard shell. The tides swept away her footprints. Muthamma remained on the shore, clutching her neck and panting as the waves crashed against her legs.
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Muthamma imagined she might have dreamed the whole incident, some terrible,
drunken hallucination induced by too much kallu. She vowed to lay off the drinking for a few days.
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It didn’t last long. The Fisherwoman’s head was in Muthamma’s lap, and the kallu loosened their tongues and bodies. Muthamma asked the Fisherwoman if she was really a crab. The Fisherwoman revealed her name was Kuvalai. She was not a fisherwoman at all, but rather one of the many guardians of the ocean. She had a daughter, who the sea swallowed many years ago. Everyday she would take her boat to the sea and search for her daughter in hopes she would float to the surface and be returned to her. She could not swim in the ocean for long though, and she suspected her daughter lay somewhere in the depths. There were once many guardians like her, she said, but they have faded over time.
I am the mangroves. I am the kuzhi nandu, the ghost crab which lives in the sand, the borderlands of freshwater, land, sea, she said. “I
am the cresting wave, and I am the shrub roots which dissipate it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think so,” Muthamma said, swaying slightly. She watched Kuvalai’s mouth
intently, the way her lips melded and parted like waves as she spoke, yet saddened by the stones weighting her.
“You will understand more later,” Kuvalai said, reaching her hand up to caress Muthamma’s cheek. Her hand was a cool salve against Muthamma’s face, glowing hot from the kallu and overcome with an intense feeling of longing for this woman, this woman who perhaps understood the ancient depths of her sorrow mirrored in her own. A slow fire spread from her tongue to her chest to her belly, it ricocheted through her body like a dozen flipping fish. She looked into Kuvalai’s eyes, searching and searching. She leaned down, breathing in Kuvalai, her salted cheeks, her sea-stone softness, and kissed her.
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I wish we could go somewhere, just me and you, Muthamma said. Somewhere away from all this.
There are dozens of islets off the coast. Do you know about them? Kuvalai asked.
Muthamma did not, and stroked Kuvalai’s hair. She kissed Kuvalai softly, tenderly and said, We could live on an island, bask in the sun all day, roast all the delicious fish we want. Start a family. Start a family? Kuvalai’s heart ached. Muthamma shrugged and leaned in closer. Her blood raced, charged with a sense of urgency and purpose. What, you think we can’t? She said, let’s leave tomorrow. Kuvalai smiled and sat up.
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At sunrise, Kuvalai asked Muthamma if she was ready. Muthamma said yes, she
had never been more ready for something in her life. But first, she said, she wanted to swim. She had not swam since leaving Korkai.
Muthamma inhaled deeply, reverent of the expanse of ocean before her. Kadal Thai, sea mother. She dipped below the rolling waves, the warmth of these sapphire waters caressing her cool dawn skin. She extended her body downwards as she did so often, yet this time without the weight of stones sinking her, without the nose clip pinching her face. This time, she would swim as deep or shallow as she liked, for as long as she liked.
Muthamma opened her eyes and laughed, the briny water rushing past her lips,
tongue, throat. With her whole being she swallowed the vibrant colors of the exalted
sea, the multicolored blush of corals and glimmering schools of skittish fish, the shifting
crabs under the sand, patient and contemplative, the emerald turtles and smiling stingrays gliding through currents as smoothly as the birds above. She passed the
swaying waves of sea grass, and the gentle dugongs that grazed upon them. She marveled at the way the sunshine extended through the water in rays, shyly dappling the sand in webs of light. She swam past the rocks covered in oysters, filled with the beautiful marine pearls the Portuguese and Dutch desired so badly, the riches of marine
pearls that defined the wretched lives of so many.
Her boundless tears mingled with the salt of the ocean, the salt of the divers’ sweat, the salt of her mother’s tears from all those years ago. The tears gurgled from her eyes, nose, mouth, a bubbling stream. She understood now: she was the fish; she was the net. She was the pearl; she was the diver. She was nothing and everything. The ocean, Kadal Thai, rinsed the tears from her eyes, mouth, body. She was a river: anew, yet remembering all the places she has been, directionless, yet knowing where she must go, replenished, yet emptying endlessly into the endless sea. She was a mangrove, belonging to land, sea, sky.
Something among the oyster beds caught her eye, a small doll-like figure made of nighttime seaweed with granite stones for eyes. It seemed to be trapped under heavy stones. She felt inexplicably drawn towards it, something about it seemed so precious.
Muthamma pushed herself further down, stretching her hands to shove her weigh against the stones. Decades of diving and years of hauling fish nets had made her strong, and she pushed with all her might until the stone finally shifted. The doll floated upwards, slowly. Muthamma caught it in her hands, holding its slick limbs tenderly. She twisted her body upwards, swimming toward the light dancing on the sea’s surface. Reaching, reaching. She inhaled deeply at the surface, the calls of seagulls echoing around her. She imagined she heard the majesty of a conch shell, the clear tinkling of prayer bells.
When Muthamma emerged from the sea with the rising sun behind her, she appeared resplendent, divine, more luminous than a thousand pearls. She inhaled deeply, the sea-breeze air filling her with elation, the sun drying salt into her skin. Kuvalai was awaiting her at the shore, readying the kattumaram boat. She glanced up at Muthamma and her face began to tremble. You found my daughter, she said. For in Muthamma’s arms was not a doll, but a wailing baby with skin the deep- dark of tamarind seeds, and with eyes granite-black, jaggery sweet.
from Hameedha:
i began this story map when i was researching pearl diving as an industry on the coromandel coast in south India. the pearl divers were very much an exploited class, but what fascinated me was how a lot of the pearl divers were reported to be able to hold their breath for extreme durations. i was imagining that if there was such a gift belonging to ocean-dwelling people, of course, it would be exploited and of course, it would be seen as a curse in that time period. and then i was thinking about older cosmological perspectives from that region, Ocean Mother (Kadal Thai, which is still how a lot of elders refer to the sea), protector spirits, metamorphosis and non-humanness, and sapphic love. what might be more regionally accurate ideas of merfolk and what might they look like (in a tamil context)? and also thinking about the geography of the coromandel coast, with so many mini islands. and imagining a queer utopia of that. i also like the idea of children/life conceived through non-biological means, and the queer/mystical implications of that.
we are all water, the universe is water and we are the universe/life/light/energy/love remembering itself, and we are all writers of our imagination and memories. hameedha khan (she/they) is a writer and poet who loves encountering magic in the everyday. she has lately been interested in the processes of (mis)translation and translation of the self. their work explores the role of memory and remembrance: how we choose to remember and be connected with ourselves, those who came before us, and those who will inevitably come after us.
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