The Hungry Tide: Part 1: Canning Summary & Analysis

Kanai watches Piya walk away, hoping she'll visit—he's unmarried but has had a long string of sexual relationships with women, the most recent of which ended badly. He hopes Piya will be a grand distraction. When he steps off the train, he remembers being here 30 years ago, and how he had been astonished at how many people lived in Canning.

Kanai also thinks about the last time he saw Nirmal in Calcutta in the late 1970s. Nirmal had been perusing books when Kanai barreled into him on his way to class. Kanai bought Nirmal the book he'd been looking at, and he always thought he'd run into Nirmal again like that. However, Nirmal died two years later after a long illness. He'd mentioned some writings that he wanted Kanai to have, but nobody could find them. Suddenly, two months ago, Nilima had found them and called Kanai, asking him to visit. Kanai had tried to put her off, but finally agreed to come.

Back on the platform, Kanai spots Nilima sitting, surrounded by admirers and well-wishers. When she spots Kanai, she snaps her fingers, which causes the crowd to disperse, and greets Kanai. As she leads him out of the station, Kanai tells her about meeting Piya on the train and says he invited her to visit. Nilima asks if Kanai read the papers she sent—the papers Kanai read on the train—and Kanai is disappointed that they're not from Nirmal's packet. Nilima asks why Kanai insisted on coming through Canning, and explains that the river has changed.

When Kanai and Nilima reach the river, Kanai sees what she meant—at low tide, the half-mile wide riverbed is mostly mud with a ditch running through the middle. He watches in disbelief as passengers jump off a boat in the middle and wade through the hip-deep mud to shore. Kanai apologizes for insisting on coming through Canning and explains he just wanted to revisit where he arrived in 1970.

Kanai starts to reminisce about Nirmal, but Nilima stops him. She explains that they "found" him in Canning, and he died months later. It was around the time of the Morichjhãpi incident, which she explains was a violent confrontation between police and refugees who had settled on an island. They bused the refugees away, and she believes that Nirmal was let off of one of those buses. Nirmal had been so disoriented, he could never tell them what happened. He'd simply yelled that the Matla would rise.

Kanai says that that was surely a reference to Nirmal's favorite story about Henry Piddington and the port of Canning, but Nilima cuts him off; she insists it's too hard for her to talk about Nirmal. Kanai goes silent and remembers the first time he was in Canning. He and Nilima had waited while Nirmal, a copy of Rainer Maria Rilke's Duino Elegies clutched to his chest, unsuccessfully watched for a boat. A local named Horen had rescued them. Horen told Nilima that Bon Bibi, the forest goddess, had granted him honey. Kanai had laughed that people believe in such nonsense, but stopped quickly when Nilima suggested Horen could teach Kanai a lesson.

Horen had offered to take them all back to Lusibari, and Nilima accepted. She explained to Kanai that Horen was a fisherman with three children, though he wasn't yet twenty. He was also caring for Kusum, a teenage girl. Kanai didn't understand Nilima's euphemisms as she explained that Kusum may have been forced into prostitution without Horen's help, but Kanai was intrigued regardless.