Yesterday KNR was talking about the 1977 cyclone in A.P; the Diviseema Tragedy. The topic came up from the Sardar Sarovar project which KNR had visited that day. He said he remembers it all even now, 1977 when he was just 14 years old, he had seen it. Tragedy struck A.P that year. His Grandmother was talking about her days when the tidal waves (that struck the villages that day) were last seen a good 90 years ago.
People said the Goddess of the ocean had been slighted. So she is spitting fire. Fire moved around in circles in the ocean chasing the waters, first to deluge the people, itself sauntering at the back to survey. People from afar clutching anything, standing atop roofs, buildings, could see the black fire, at times alternating into white coming and going like some primeval force being charmed into the world by the play of the waters.
For 3 days it reigned; ‘the epic flood’ after taking some 40,000 people with it to their watery grave. After another 2 days this was all forgotten. The mourners mourned as long as they could .Then they consoled themselves. Slowly the world filed back into a rhythm. Politicians expressed unhappiness at the suffering of the masses. People once again started cheating each other. Businessmen back to their ways of cheating people and officers to ways of getting extra official income. In short Diviseema was forgotten,the tragedy was gone and what remained was the marshy smell of the whole town with the waters receding and drying up, with bloated carcasses of unknown animals exposed , the human corpses all having been claimed.
The fishermen after hesitating the first few days to venture into the sea however (forced by their wives) made themselves bold, entered the sea on the fourth day. The coast of Machilipatnam has a long swamp area which is shallow. During high tides this is invaded by the sea.
The fisher folk enter and come out of the sea from there.
In the town new topics were taking the place of the cyclone: the price of kerosene which was really related to the calamity, the latest movie of the top hero which had been pending because of the cyclone and matinee actors and actresses coming to collect funds and donations for the cyclone victims.
But for one creature the tussle was not yet over; the big shark which had been pushed by the waters of the sea into the shallow swamp. It was now fighting with all its energy to go out of this shallow sphere into the wide open kingdom of the great sea.
He was annoyed why the sea was like that though the water was there. The fishermen saw it, and tugged it along with all their might. It did not resist but would not move an inch. It was heaving and gasping unable to find its way out of a web.
Soon a crane was got from Vijayawada which when found to be inadequate was replaced by a bigger one from Guntur. When it was hauled to the shore; it lived for one day and died the next. Meanwhile the municipality had thought inventively and arranged an exhibition of this huge aquatic creature (with good publicity) at a charge of 5ps per head. I later heard that some enterprising young boys even played Kabbadi on it. Men and women flocked to see this creature which suffered as much as they did in the storm. In an open auction one business man from Calcutta got it for 80,000 rupees. The stink of its flesh didn’t leave even after he had taken it. The last I heard of it was that he had extracted oil out of it and made profit.