The alarm went off at 3.30 am and without hitting the snooze button, I switched it off. First triumph of will over habit. The rest of morning chores were easy enough and I was out of the house by 3.45 am, with my trusted cameras and ready for the encounter with Olive Ridley turtles that roost and lay eggs across a wide swathe of Orissa’s long coastline. After a breezy journey of about 30 km from my home in Gopalpur on Sea, after crossing the Rushukulya river, we were on the lookout for a village called Gokharkutta. And a pointer by WWF that showed the way to Rushukulya Rookery, the largest nesting ground for the endagered Olive Ridley turtles.
Off the NH5, we were zipping on a village road that was as smooth as the pimpled cheek of a teenager, though it was made with concrete. We had a cellphone number with a promise that the person would show us the hatchlings, but we will have to give him Rs 300. When you want to make a discovery, do you want to take a short cut and a guide? Heck no. Dr Ram Kulesh Thakur, the English teacher of NIST playing the role of a guide as well the driver, said his Maruti Alto can match a Merc and his knowledge of the place would be better than a local's.
And there we were driving beside the irrigation canal (old travel tale: all rivers lead to the sea), and we saw a pile of concrete chips heaped on the road. “Oh! It is a moment’s work,” said the guide and drove bravely on. Grrrr, grree, the wheels started spinning wildly while the car remained in its place. A little investigation revealed that the undercarriage of the car was stuck on the chips while the wheels were free! After some sweating and pushing, as first rays of sunlight shimmered like gold in the river channel, we were as stuck as ever. Then a passing bare torsoed jogger, with a red gamcha (loincloth), stopped and gave a push and with a bit of luck, we reversed the car for yet another adventure, as the guide said he got confused by a new temple. “This road is closed, you have to take the other road,” someone advised and we discovered that turtles are called ‘kancho’ in Oriya and ‘tabelu’ in Telugu.
Driving through a diversion that passed over agricultural fields and through a one-car road village, we were near the sea. About a km away, as we walked in the sand, we could see a gentle orange ball of fire shimmering in the sea. And at a distance, the cawing of crows.
A clutch of local boys in shorts started walking along with us.
On the sandbar, the WWF signboard on the green plastic net perimeter had a stern warning about the rookery and the signature of DFO, Berhampur with two entrances for dogs and foxes. The pug marks were everywhere. And there were fresh marks of something big walking on the sand. “These are the prints of a mother Olive Ridley turtle, she must be here somewhere,” said Ram, and sure enough ahead of us was a huge lumbering turtle with yellow, green and black pattern and eyes the size of oranges.
Inside a small lagoon were bobbing heads of the other turtles waiting to cross the sandbar into the sea. Aim the camera, and whoosh, they would were gone. The pattern kept repeating itself. Between the lagoon and the sea, was the heartbreak of white shells that could be seen for yards. Crows, crabs, dogs feasted on the eggs and hatchlings. An occasional fish eagle would swoop down to pick up a hatchling for a snack. On the other side, as high waves of new moon crashed ashore, sweeping away the sand, rows and rows of eggs were there for picking by a clutch of ravens. The eggs looked like a bunch of grapes, stacked as they were one on top of other.
“A few days back, when I came alone to see how the turtles lay their eggs, I was in for a surprise. Around 2 am, a big turtle waded ashore and after crawling a few feet away from the sea, it started digging using its hind flippers. Once the hole in the ground was sufficiently big, it started laying eggs as I noticed it had ceased digging and was stationary. I switched on my Lava phone’s torchlight and I could see round white balls covered with a shiny substance fall one after the other: plock, plock, plock. Then the turtle stopped laying eggs and began covering up the eggs with sand. And then it began the process again,” informed Ram Thakur.
“We have come here to see turtle hatchlings make a dash to the sea, and all wee are these lumbering helpless beasts?" I mumbled as we started walking back to the Merc-Alto. "Ye dekho, ye dekho chota kachua," shouted Ram with excitement pointing at a small black thing, which moved occasionally. As I shooed away the boys following us from trampling on the baby turtle, we were in for a dilemma. Should we interfere with nature and its survival of fittest rule and watch the struggle that may end in a heartbreak? Or should we give a helping hand to nature, and carry the baby turtle to the sea and release it?
To hell with Darwin and environmentalists, I picked up the turtle in a small patch of sand and ran to the sea. As the waves lapped the shore, I gently put down my patch of sand with the turtle and waited. Shwoosh, shwoosh and the small ball of blackness was washed away. Then, it got washed back. Swoosh and the bigger tide just took it away with the small flippers wriggling before disappearing forever. From the time I saw the big turtle to the time of holding the baby turtle and releasing it into the sea, and watching it disappear, it was an exhiliarating transcendental experience, that I never knew.
On the other side of the netted enclosure are two cordoned off squares with round wicker baskets and a pointer about the number of eggs and a date. Inside one of them, a hatchling kept walking to find a way out, when a WWF person walked in like a king. Stripping himself to shorts and tee, the young man pulled of a violet rubber glove onto his right hand and started digging furiously. He would stop, pull out a dead turtle that couldn’t dig its way out and throw it aside. “Today only four have hatched, yesterday there were 80,” he said.
But I had released one baby turtle to the sea. Who knows, years down the line, some 80 years later the same Olive Ridley turtle will waddle ashore and lay its eggs and another generation will have the transcendental experience of seeing the circle of life in a few hours in a small patch of sand between a river and a sea! That would be something.
