The Salt Breeze of Panambur: Verses on the Monsoon Trawlers

Before the trawlers head into the Arabian Sea at daybreak, the docks of Old Bunder exist in a state of suspended breath.

The water in the Gurupura river is thick with diesel shimmer and crushed ice. Men in checkered lungis roll wooden barrels of coarse sea salt toward the hold, their skin cured by decades of salt spray and relentless coastal sun.

I. The Tides of Panambur

The waves break against the tetrapods with the heavy sound of wet timber.
Out beyond the lighthouse beam, where the green water turns into ink,
The fishermen know that courage is not the absence of fear,
It is simply the weight of four children sleeping in a tiled hut behind the casuarinas.

A red net hangs drying between two bamboo poles,
Catching the morning wind like a sail that has nowhere left to go.
Every knot in the nylon mesh was tied by hands
That learned to count by tens of sardines.

II. The Coconut Husk and the Iron Anchor

In the courtyard of the fishmonger’s house,
Smoke rises from roasting spices in cold-pressed coconut oil.
Byappari talks of fuel subsidies and Chinese nylon twine,
While an old grandmother sorts dry prawns with fingers as curved as cowrie shells.

The sea does not belong to the port authority or the shipping container flags;
It belongs to the man who knows which wave will lift his keel
And which one will ask for his name.