A Calimere Christmas, 2

... at MGR's shrine and at a bird sanctuary

Inland from the beach lay a huge lagoon. Across it, in the distance, was a line of telephone poles. Beyond them we could just see another lagoon. That one, the park officer in the village had told us, was where a small flock of flamingos had flown in for the winter. Only a few, because there had not been much rain here this year. Small flock or no, I can't resist flamingos. I knew we had to find our way across to those telephone poles. Somewhere, we were going to have to cross the lagoon.

We'd cross that lagoon when we came to it, we decided. Several small brown birds -- little stints, we found out later -- rose from the water's edge, startling us because we hadn't seen them till they moved.

Dozens of tiny undersides flashed white as they turned and twisted swiftly in the air. The birds settled just as suddenly as they rose, only a few feet further away from us. Somehow, they seemed considerably more nondescript on the ground than in flight, even scurrying about at a frenetic pace as they were.

In a clump of thorny bushes off to the right, we caught a flash of colour as something darted from one bush to another. Before we knew what was happening, the flash turned into another bird, posing handsomely on the end of a branch: a jewel-green bee-eater. An egret stood motionless in the water, staring intently in. And on a thatched roof ahead sat four regal Brahmini kites, ignoring us with imperious elan.

Turning from one bird to another, I realized suddenly that in less than twenty minutes walk from the gun and the jetty and the Maruti Gypsy, we now could not hear a single human sound. For that matter, we couldn't see a single human apart from each other. It was a curiously happy thought.

Unless ... was that spindly shape out in the middle of the lagoon human? Startlingly egret-like, the distant fisherman stalked about, seeming from here to be walking on water. It dawned on me then. He was in ankle-deep water that far out in the lagoon: the lagoon was very shallow indeed. That was good to know, especially before we attempted a crossing.

Many egrets and snipes later, we did just that. It went well for a while. The sparkling water never came up above our ankles and it was decidedly pleasant to feel mud squishing between our toes as we walked.

Abruptly, we sank almost to our knees in a brown, gooey slush. Just a bit further on, it turned black and oily too, and we sank even deeper. I panicked for a moment, but Vibha's strong hand calmed me. Thank God --- or MGR, again -- we had removed our pants to wade through the lagoon. Not very dignified, but at least our clothes remained dry. When we finally stumbled out of the slush, we looked like we had fancy black stockings on. No, perhaps we did look dignified. Elegant, even.

And speaking of elegance, there were the flamingos, a hundred yards away: little clumps of white on long pink stilt legs. Some had their heads completely submerged, picking up flamingo delicacies from the water in their curious upside-down beaks. Some stood on one leg, the other either hidden away or held stiffly behind like a "L" flipped over. Others strode along in that comical high-stepping way, unique to flamingos. Through binoculars, we could see them flapping their wings every now and then, giving us tantalizing glimpses of the breathtakingly lovely delicate pink and orange feathers underneath.

Where had they come from? Why had these 36 (Vibha counted) landed here? Why do they hold one leg in that clownish way? As we sat down to lunch with the flamingos, I mulled over these imponderables. Bouncy buses and the Navy seemed very far away as we soaked in the strong wind, the occasional ray of mild sunlight, the sound of small waves in the lagoon. And the flamingos. Krackjack biscuits and oranges in Point Calimere: best lunch of our trip, no contest.

Perched on the telephone line behind, a lone pied kingfisher also lunched with us. For a long time, this handsome black and white fellow just sat there, doing very little. Suddenly, he zoomed off the line and hovered above the water in front of us for several seconds. With startling speed he dove in, came up with a small fish in his beak, zoomed over to a nearby rock and began bashing the fish over and over on the rock. Then the fish disappeared into his throat.

Though you had to feel some pain for the fish, it was a spectacular, bravura performance. In my excitement, I was about to leap up, shouting "Encore!" Vibha's strong hand calmed me.

Much later, exhausted but happy, we trudged back into our little hotel in Vedaranyam, only to be accosted by our avuncular proprietor. "Did you see flackbuck?" he demanded. I realized he meant blackbuck, many specimens of which are residents of a part of the Point Calimere sanctuary we had not visited.

"No", I said. But before I could explain, he went on: "Why? Didn't you use finoculars?" I wanted to tell him yes, we did use "finoculars", but I never got a chance. He swamped us with other questions in quick succession. Had we eaten? How was the bus ride? Did the mosquitos get us last night? What were our plans for tomorrow?

Rapid-fire, like from a machine gun, the questions came at us. My thoughts returned to another machine gun, earlier in the day. That one that was keeping Sri Lanka at bay. I felt immediately safer.

Sketch by Dominic Xavier