The Hungry Tide: Part 2: A Pilgrimage Summary & Analysis

Piya is touched when Moyna brings her dinner that's plain. When Kanai asks about dolphins, Piya insists that he should be interested in river dolphins because the first specimens were discovered in Calcutta. Piya mentions the Englishman who "discovered" the Gangetic dolphin in 1801, and then a man fifty years later who caught wind that a flood had brought "giant sea creatures" into a wetland area that's now a Kolkata suburb. The man found twenty dolphins in an evaporating pond. He thought they were pilot whales, and asked that the locals who had been trying to evacuate the whales keep two for him. That man decided they were a new species of pilot whale.

Twenty-five years later, a skeleton made its way to the British Museum, where scientists realized it didn't belong to a pilot whale at all. They discovered that this new species was a relative of the killer whale and called it Orcaella brevirostris. It became known as the Irrawaddy dolphin when someone found slight differences between the river and coastal dolphins. Though there's actually no difference, the name stuck.

Kanai feels tender towards Piya and asks if he can accompany her as a translator. She's not convinced it's a good idea, but Kanai insists he could be useful. Finally, Piya agrees.