It was evident from above that the tsunami had been peculiarly selective in the manner of its destruction. Had the island been hit by a major cyclone, not a frond would have survived on the coconut palms and the forest canopy would have been denuded. Most human dwellings, on the other hand, would have retained their walls, even if they lost their roofs. Not so in this instance. The villages along the shore were not merely damaged; they were erased. It was as if the island had been hit by a weapon devised to cause the maximum possible damage to life and property while leaving nature largely unharmed.
We came to an intersection that was flanked by low whitewashed buildings. This was the administrative center of the island, the Director explained; the settlement of Malacca lay a good distance away, and we would have to walk. After getting off the truck, we came to the district library, a building of surprising size and solidity. Like the surrounding offices, it was unharmed, but a medical camp, manned by the Indo-Tibetan Border Force, had sprung up on its grounds, under the shade of a spreading, moss-twined padauk tree.
The Director spotted a doctor sitting in a tent. He darted away and slipped under the tent's blue flap. "Doctor, have you heard anything about my family?" he said. "I've come because I heard some survivors had been found…"
The doctor's face froze, and after a moment's silence he said, in a tone that was noncommittal and yet not discouraging, "No news has reached me — I've not heard anything."
We continued on our way, walking past the airy bungalows of the island's top officials, with their well-tended gardens. Soon we came upon two men who were sitting by the road, beside an odd assortment of salvaged goods. "That's mine," said the Director, pointing to a lampstand of turned wood. "I paid a lot for it — it's made of padauk wood." There was no rancor in his voice, and nor did he seem to want to reclaim the object. We walked on.
A few steps ahead the road dipped toward a large clearing fringed by thick stands of coconut palm. It was a maidan, a space for people to promenade and forgather, and as with many small town maidans, there was a plaster bust of Mahatma Gandhi standing in its center. So far on our journey from the airport we had seen no outward sign of the damage caused by the tsunami, but now we had arrived at the periphery of the band of destruction. Mounds of splintered planks and other building materials lay scattered across the clearing, and the red, white, and green fence that surrounded the bust of Mahatma Gandhi was swathed in refuse and dead coconut fronds. Everywhere, evidence of the tsunami's incursion could be seen in pools of water that had turned rank over the past few days.
At the far end of the maidan, a fire was blazing among the coconut palms. The warehouse that supplied the island with cooking gas had stood at that spot. The tsunami had swept the warehouse away, leaving the canisters exposed to the sun, and a fire had ensued. Every few minutes the ground shook with the blast of exploding canisters.
Oblivious of the fire, the Director stepped away to accost a passerby who was wheeling a loaded bicycle. Over his shoulder, he said to me, "This is Michael. He worked in my office." Michael was a sturdy, grizzled Nicobarese dressed in green shorts and a gray shirt. Laying his hands on the bicycle's handlebars, the Director said in Hindi, "Michael, listen — has there been any news of madam? You know what she looks like. Have you seen any trace of her?"
Michael dropped his eyes, as if in embarrassment, and answered with a tiny shake of his head.
Lowering his voice, the Director continued: "And have you heard anyone speak of a girl roaming in the jungle?" When this too failed to elicit an answer, he went on. "Michael, I need your help. Bring some men and come. I need to dig through the rubble to see if I can find anything." Even as he was speaking, his attention shifted to the contents of the plastic bags that were hanging from Michael's handlebars. Flinching, he let go of the handlebar. "Michael!" he cried. "What is all this stuff you've picked up? You should know better than to take things from over there — they may be contaminated."
Michael hung his head and wheeled his bicycle silently away.
"They're all looting," said the Director, shaking his head. "I've heard the bazaar in Port Blair has received three sackfuls of gold from the islands…"
In the clump of burning palm trees, yet another gas canister exploded. It was close enough that we could feel the rattle of the blast in the debris under our feet; a shard of metal struck an onlooker, fortunately without injury. Oblivious of the flames, the Director hurried toward a spot where a mound of mangled household objects lay piled, having been pushed through the screen of coconut palms like dough through a sieve.
"Look, that's mine," he said, pointing to a blue Aristocrat suitcase made of molded plastic. It had been hacked open with a sharp-bladed instrument and its contents were gone. The Director picked it up and shook it. "I saw it the last time I was here," he said. "It was already empty. Everything had been looted." His eyes moved over to a steel trunk lying nearby. "That's mine too. Go and look." Stepping over, I saw that the trunk's lock had been forced open. On the side, written in large black letters, was the Director's name and designation. "You see," the Director said, as if in vindication. "Everything I've been telling you is true. These things were all mine."
A short distance away a wooden cabinet lay overturned, and heaps of paper could be seen spilling out of its belly. The Director beckoned to me. "See — there are all the records from my office. Thirteen years of research, all gone." We went to kneel beside the cabinet, and I saw that the papers were mimeographed data sheets, with the letterhead of the Malaria Research Centre printed on top.
Somewhere among the papers I spotted a few old photographs. Somehow it was a matter of great relief to me to come upon a retrievable memento, and I was quick to draw the Director's attention to the pictures. On examination it turned out that most of them had been defaced by the water, but I found one where he, the Director, could be seen standing among a group of people. I held it out to him, and he took it with an indifferent shrug. "That photo was taken at the air base, I remember." He let go, and it fluttered into a puddle of stinking water.
"Don't you want to keep it?" I said in astonishment.
"No," he said simply. "It means nothing. These are just work pictures."
Then suddenly his eyes lit up. "Look," he said, "my slides…" A drawer had come open, shaking loose several decks of white-rimmed photographic slides. Most were sodden, but some were dry and had preserved their images. To my untrained eyes, the pictures appeared to be of bacteria, hugely magnified by the lens of a microscope. The Director sorted quickly through the slides and chose a dozen or so. Close at hand there lay a roll of unused plastic bags that had been washed out of a drowned shop and dried by the sun. Peeling off one of these bags, he placed the slides carefully inside before fastening his fingers on them.
"Your home must have been nearby?" I said.
"No," came the answer. "The wave carried these things right out of the town. My house is still a half a mile away, over there."
I had imagined that his possessions were bunched together because his house had stood nearby. This was an indication of how little I understood of the power of the surge. Its strength was such that it had tossed the Director's house aside, picked up his belongings, and punched them through a half-mile-wide expanse of dense habitation.
The place the Director had pointed to was on the far side of the burning coconut palms, and it was evident that to get there we would have to pass quite close to the fire, which was now spreading rapidly. We set off almost at a run and soon came to a point where our path was blocked by a fallen tree. He clambered over, hanging on to his slides, and I followed. The fire was now about a hundred yards to our right, and as I was climbing over, there was another detonation, followed by a crackling, whooshing sound. I fell quickly to the ground and shut my eyes. When I looked up, the Director was still standing, gazing down at me with puzzled impatience. "Come on, come on — that's where we have to go, over there."