7
As the fisherman had been struggling in the sea, the weather bureau had released a red-alert. People on the shore knew well that a fierce storm was coming to smash the shoreline. Coast guards were making people aware of the ensuing danger and they were shooting the frequencies of their megaphones higher and higher. Constant warnings and precautions were being broadcast through the radio-transistors and televisions. Many searchlights tried to find out men and women and children and even animals not evacuated till then.
The wailing of the sirens reached his hut in the colony of the fishing community, but could not reach him far away in the middle of the sulking sea. In the hut, the wife of the fisherman and his little daughter cowered in fear on the corner of the room. They could not find him anywhere. They were scared, they were anxious for the man missed in the room.
A commotion was going on outside. People were moving about excitedly.
Suddenly someone knocked on the door. The knocking became repeated and more violent, about to break the already cracked door.
As the fisherman’s wife unbolted the door, a number of known and unknown faces came forward.
Somebody wearing a metal hat said, ‘your place is not safe. We’ll take you to the safest one’.
The family of the fisherman was taken to the safest building on persuasion. There she found many others in the shelter.
Then one of the guards broke the news to the fisherman’s wife that someone in the area saw him by the sea.
Tears welled up in her eyes. The little daughter could read the bad omens and misgivings in her mother’s eyes.
A fierce storm raged through. The fishing boat of the fisherman was being attacked by the engulfing sea waves. The storm wanted to tear the sails apart.
The boat was swinging right and left violently. No radar, no helm worked.
He was the lone fisherman in the lonely sea. He was not novice to this kind of fury of the nature. But, this time the storm seemed much more powerful.
The fisherman tried hard to keep his fishing boat perpendicular to the direction of the storm, but the storm was not to be tamed down. Like it had every malicious intention to break the fishing boat into pieces and mix them evenly in this water without a sign of the wreck.
His hands jammed, he cried in pain. He was not able to keep the position intact.
The overhead sky was looking so fearsome now. It blackened to shroud his vision. The unrested thunderous cloud burst randomly to pour deadly.
The fisherman drenched in the pouring. This way a jackdaw gets caught in the spearing rain in monsoon.
His vision was obstructed by the water dripping down his face constantly.
The giant waves were coming towards the boat like never before. They were increasing in height and rising to the boat to hit this plaything again and again. The fisherman’s ankles were dipping in the water on the deck.
All of a sudden, he discovered a crack in the hull. Before he could fix the crack, three or four huge waves broke the joint at the crack and water forced its way in with more vigor.
He forgot about fishing and began to bail it out.
But flushing water out of the boat was very difficult with the help of a bucket.
The boat began to move violently. It was no stronger than a paper boat now, about to sink in the middle of the sea.
Water was getting into the boat from unknown number of cracks and holes now.
The boat was getting heavy from inside. His cooking utensils came forth swimming.
Nothing worked this way or that. All the resistances broke and the boat swam after the will of this indomitable tide.
It headed towards, God knows, what unknown destination. It will capsize, anytime.
Suddenly he heard a beeping sound. He took out his compass.
Yes, his compass was beeping.
It beeped louder. The fisherman’s eyes were bulging out.
