The Hindu Business Line : These migrants come and go

No politician in Mumbai is yet asking for the exit of the sizable migrant population of greater flamingos crowding the Sewri mudflats. By end-March, the flamingos will go without the bidding of politicians as they have done for years.

Last year, same time, there were few greater flamingos (most fly in from Kutch) and other water birds; but this year, experts estimate the numbers from “sizable” to “at least around 10,000” and the birds spend days and nights, high tides and low tides at Sewri with others without a fuss.

At one time, Mumbai was like that. It is no more. Mumbaikar is shrinking. This writer is also a migrant from Kolkata where his parents were migrants from Kerala and will always be on the side of my Bhaiya friends from Lachman Singh to the milkman, dhobi, bhajiwala (vegetable vendor), newspaperwalla, office peons, the poor waiting outside temples, darghas and churches and, of course, Amitabh, the actor (not the politician).

The migrant (mostly male) is a queer fellow having nothing of his own – no culture, no tradition, no past, no future. He may get angry, he may feel hurt but not, being always outnumbered. For the migrant the moment is important. “Saab, humse poochthe hain aapko kya maloom (What do you know, they ask me),” said my dhobi in Hindi and added with a smile, “Saab, ab kya boloon, hum tho anpad hain, gaon mein bhi anpad, Mumbai mein bhi anpad (Saab, what to tell; I am an illiterate in my village and in Mumbai).”

Generally, living alone or in clusters in a 6 ft x 6 ft shanty with the toilet being the railway lines, my bhaiya friends open up to “a Siya Ram ji ki” from a Mumbaikar fleeing in a car to make money on stocks or watching on the TV screen an R.P. Singh from Uttar Pradesh and Ishant Sharma from Delhi bowling India to victory in Perth. It comes from an occasional left out feeling felt by an outsider (a touch of Albert Camus) with the family many miles away and no tickets available on trains going to Lucknow or Azamgarh, despite the super profits made by Laloo and the Indian Railways.

The Mumbaikar gets up at 5 in the morning to watch cricket in Australia and frowns at the bhaiya milkman, late by five minutes at 5.05, as the tea or coffee gets delayed. These poor men without intros to their lives have built the Laloos and Mayawatis, while taking the bricks and sticks in Mumbai today. It was 12 in the afternoon and one was sitting alone on the steps of the Sewri jetty leading to the sea floor.

Vyjayanti and myself met up at Sewri to watch flamingos at around 9.30 a.m. Sewri is a place of trucks, truck drivers and helpers with the price of human lives lesser than some of the second-hand trucks they ply. They park themselves and their heavy duty vehicles on the broken up roads leading to the Sewri jetty. It was low tide and the sea waters had gone away leaving the sea floor for feeding greater flamingos (adults and blackish brown sub- adults), curlews, crowds of little stints, common sandpipers, gullbilled terns and what seemed to be black-tailed godwits; hovering over the boats of fishermen were a few brownheaded gulls.

The flamingos were far out at sea near the mangroves on the outside of a refinery throwing up smoke and yellow flames into the air. We crossed over to the other side of the curvaceous Sewri bay, climbing up to a dargha in the Sewri Fort and down past the Colgate factory to rest under a peepal tree to watch from about 20 ft. sub-adult flamingos feeding in groups of 10.

We ate sandwiches and chatted as a wind blew to ease us. Vyjayanti left by 12 having to track the fall and fall of the Sensex and one walked back to the jetty in the hope of seeing flamingos from near. While having their food through the day, the flamingos dip their heads deep into the muddy flats and look like old men with faces stuck into newspapers eagerly reading learned, air-conditioned edits; sometimes the sub-adults look like kids at school chatting away behind books. Except for the common kite, there were no raptors.

By 12, the first whispers came from the sea and one noted small waves – the beginning of the high tide. From a soft purr, the decibels rose to a steady roar as the Arabian Sea started flowing in and the flamingos imperceptibly made their way to the mangroves at the far spaces of the Sewri Bay. A couple or two flamingos did some hopping flights while the others moved without showing any movement. In packs, little stints flew back to near the shore to beat the waters.

By one in the afternoon, the water levels had moved up and would fill the bay in another hour. With me there were two bhaiyas, reluctant to reveal their identity. One got them to talk and they seemed to be off duty, truck drivers or helpers. They knew a detail or two when they told me that by 3 in the afternoon, the sea would cover the steps of the jetty.

By one, as one thought of going home, one watched fishermen moving in their boats full with the catch of the day, like scoops journalists carry in their notebooks. A week earlier, Paul and myself went to Sewri between 3 and 5 in the afternoon and saw a pink string of flamingos hung far out at sea with the tide being down.

Fishermen skiied on the mud flats using wooden boards to catch lobsters and crabs. “They will sell the crabs to hotels for Rs 300 a piece,” remarked Paul, while upset at not getting close-ups of flamingos.

Possibly, the birds have heard the political news and decided to keep away from the humans waiting for them at the jetty. Migrants do not take risks.

P. Devarajan

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