Outside Konark, the branches of pale-barked trees interlace over the road like a trellis until we reach the coast and shoot out of the leafy tunnel into brilliant sunshine. On one side, a sign posted amid an arid landscape of boulders and cactus scrub announces the Balukhand-Konark Wildlife Sanctuary, which harbors sambar, barking deer, and more exotic species such as the striped hyena. On the other side, the sun plays off a startlingly blue sea. Apart from the Lotus Eco Village, where I’ll be lodging for the next two nights, there are few other buildings of any kind, and none much larger than a toll booth.
After checking in, I discover that my “room” is a tiny but cozy cabin on the sand, Martha’s Vineyard–rustic, with pine-paneled walls and the usual amenities. From the cane chair on the thatch-roofed deck, the surf is literally a stone’s throw away across an empty beach. There are only two dozen or so other cottages here, and because it is a weekday, most of them are unoccupied. My only company is two Indian families intent on enjoying a tranquil vacation.
The next morning, I watch a trio of fishermen paddle out with an inner tube and a net to a sandbar 100 meters from my deck chair. After the tide comes in, I head down the beach in the direction of Konark to work up an appetite for lunch. I walk about a kilometer, seeing nothing in the golden sand but footprints and driftwood, before I again come upon the fishermen, who are now trying to net their lunch from the broken pilings of a collapsed highway bridge. While I watch, the man with the net calls out that he’s caught one. The other two pick their way out along the rocks to help him drag it in.
Later, squatting around their campfire in the shade of casuarina trees as they carefully extricate strands of the fine nylon net from the fish’s scales, I venture a little Hindi.
“Is it five kilos?”
“You hear that?” says the largest of them, a fellow with a thick mustache. “Five kilos, yes. He’s a good man!”
“What kind of fish is it?” I ask.
“This is a bhekti,” he tells me, identifying the glistening silver diamond as one of the staples of Bengali and Oriya cuisine. “Will you eat some with us?”
I won’t—a big lunch awaits me back at the resort, and I’m keen to take a dip in the ocean first. But it’s good to know that even out here, a little Hindi goes a long way.
