A Crab called Freedom

It was a beautiful day. We were on the beach in the front of our college. The sky was clear blue, a vast dome stretched and kissing the sea, somewhere very far the horizon. It was afternoon, but I could see the pale yellow full moon through the clear sky. The only sound was the sound of the waves and the sea breeze. In the sky were two white cranes. It was a picture of peace,a beautiful sight that has not and will never fade from the mind. Yet it was not a expensive tourist place, far from expensive, it was one of the poorest and unknown piece of beach along the Arabian cost. Looking back over the years and from all the new experience that I had, I guess it could be one of the places some would spend a small fortune to have a vacation in. Or maybe for a people thats always carving for peace, I could think of no better therapy than sitting under one of the many coconut palms,almost all alone on the beach; and in the immensity of the sky and sea the mind lets go of all worries. However beneath this external visage of peace and beauty lies stories of hardship poverty and violence. If you are alone there is always a slight chance that you might get mugged or plain beaten up for no reason at all. It could be that a few jobless and wild youngsters wants a few rupees of you, or it could be that they cant bear to see you in your latest Nike shoes. The majority of the people are poor fisher folk,with arms like iron, having to daily struggle with the sea, the sun and the nets, who spend their free time mostly wasting what little money they get by gambling and drinking. It is a sad cycle where education is the only way out, and maybe it could be the reason that far away from the city in this place the church had built this college. There were many from the community in our college and some in our group. Everyone in our group was dead serious about college and knew it was the only way out. I had come from a city college and for me too this was very important. The people I came to know there were so sincere and stripped of all the nonsense and vanity that comes with having too much. I remember one particular friend who used to come daily from some thirty kilometers away. Once we went to his house, when his father passed away. It was a thatched brick house literally just next to the sea, on the courtyard were hung on iron rods the yamaha engines of the fishing boats. The sea was so clear there and it was very very beautiful. It was a harbor and we went to walk on the sea bridge, which extended a long way out into the sea. On the edge when we looked back, we could see the whole beach at a glance,people like colored flies, lots of activity with small boats coming in and going out and fish getting sorted and sold. Suddenly one boat came in and I saw all the people on the beach rushing in towards the boat. I thought it must be the catch, but came to know later that it had bought back after five days,two missing fishermen whose engine had died in the deep sea and who were floating around under the sun. I don't know what became of them, but then as soon as it had converged the crowd diverged and the beach was again buzzing with activity. Business as usual. Well that day as I was sitting on the beach watching the pale moon some of my friends spotted a crab and caught it with a coconut husk and tied its claws together with a piece of a nylon cord from a fishing net. We took it back to the classroom and made it walk through the desk. There were no more class and it was time to leave home. However then the question came on what to do with the crab. I was quite fascinated by the crab and I volunteered to take it home. The crab was the size of a big saucer and it was quite spirited. So there was this question of safely transporting him the distance of about 25 km to

my home in public transport bus Safely as in safety for others as well as him. I had a thick clear plastic cover in my bag and so put him in and folded it up without making it airtight. I had a square shaped blue satchel at that time. From the college to the main bus stop the public transport was pretty scarce. The only transport that was available was something called a trekker, which was more like a big jeep all of steel, and in whose every conceivable part expect at the top there were either people sitting or standing or hanging on. Usually there were about fifteen people cramped inside and some another fifteen hanging on the perimeter of the vehicle,with almost ten just on the slender steel rear bumper. Every part of the vehicle was made real solid; but of course it was a tough and tiring ride. So I used to use a bicycle to commute from college till the main bus stop. Near the bus stop was my friend's house. It was a small thatched house, and during the initial days of college when I asked him whether I could keep the cycle there he readily agreed. He too used to come to college on cycle and we were cycling companions. He was a quite and nice person. We used to go to lunch together. Lunch we used to pack from our house. The college had a lot of open areas where under the trees cement benches and tables were there where we could have our lunch. It was about half a kilometer from the college buildings, it was full of trees and tall grass with clearing just around the benches. It was pretty quite and usually very few would come that far for having lunch. But we enjoyed the silence and the serenity of the place,and sometimes there after lunch we would sit and talk and there sometimes I used to wonder where each of us be in the distant future. At that time we were at that place, in peace amidst all uncertainties and now that time has passed and I have lost touch with a good friend. The crab behaved well during the cycle ride. The sun was bright, the sky steely blue and a lot of small birds were sitting and singing on the high tension electric wires that were strung parallel to the road. It was about five kilometers to the bus stop. But the road was mostly empty. I loved cycling through those roads, physical exertion gave one a sense of accomplishment, each pedal seemed to be a pedal closer to ones goal. I put the cycle in my friends house and walked to the bus stop. There I met one of my seniors. I guess it was his last day at the college. He had come to collect the papers,.My bus came and I had to leave, so I wished him a great future and boarded the bus with my friend the crab snuggled in my satchel. Till now the crab was quite, but now he started getting fidgety. Luckily for the bus was not that crowded and the person sitting next to me was not of a very observant nature, as the contours of my bag was continuously changing as the crab was trying to wriggle a way out. I gave the bag a shake and for some time it was quite. After sometime when I just glanced down at my lap, to my surprise I saw his two legs sticking out of the bag. The person next to me was nodding already, else I am sure there would have been a small commotion in the bus. I somehow wrestled the crab back and from that time onwards was pretty careful of the bag. Reaching home showed the crab to my mother and family. Since I had such tendencies they were not that surprised. There was also the fish vendor woman there in the back of our house cleaning the fishes that my mother bought from her. She told that this crab was a beach crab. That it used to create a tunnel in the beach sand and basically live on the beach. We had a a big steel barrel which we used to store water in case of water shortage. I put a little water in it and put the crab inside. The crabs claws were very thightly tied together with nylon stands of a fish net. I tried to untie the knot, but it was a pretty risky maneuverer, as I was operating pretty close to the pincers. I though of getting some help from my friends to hold the crab still and then use scissors to cut open the rope. A crab has two smaller hands near its mouth using which it feeds. I put a piece of bread for it and I could find that it was able to feed itself in spite of its claws being tied. So I postponed the task of untying him to the morning. Next morning I was in for a big surprise. I found that the crab had untied the knots using which his

claws were tied and in the bottom of the tank lay the nylon wire,untangled and stretched out. For the life of me I am still today unable to believe how that crab could have done that,other than the rather implausible explanation that it must have been a Houdini amongst crabs. I fed him some bread and after that went to study. Our public exams were coming up. After each academic year there was a public exam. This was my second year. In-order not to be distracted by the sound of the TV in the house,I had put together a small shelter in the terrace. The roof was made of thatched coconut leaves, supported by dried coconut stems. A heavy thick sheet made up for the wall on one side, the other side was covered by the foliage of a nutmeg tree..In this using crude carpentry on a trunk of a fallen jack fruit tree, and bits and pieces of planks lying around the house I had fashioned a table. The climate of Kerela is also conductive to outdoor stay all throughout the year. Summers it is slightly hot but the shade of the Nutmeg tree compensated partly. Also there were lot of different types of ants and insects and other small birds always out there during day and night and observing them was really interesting. It is there I learned about the different types of spider, especially the wolf spider with four eyes in front hunting for its food. Also the different types of ants,there was a type of blind red ants that was more active during the night time, and it was pretty interesting on how by just running around they manage to catch the flying insects that were attracted to my table lamps light. Most of the time they used to miss, but if the fly was even a bit careless and dared to venture back towards the light, then there was a high chance that the blind hunter ants would have that eventually. I was sitting in my tent studying for exams and it was becoming darker and the noise of the day was starting to subside; around ten in the night I started to hear a scraping type notice coming from down. I walked over to the terrace and looked down to where the sound was coming. It was from the metal container in which the crab was housed. The crab was trying to claw its way up over the container. It went just a s high as its legs were extended and then fell down. Then it would move over a little over the side and try again, continually going round in circles. I went back to my study. But with the quite of the night, this scrapping and falling sound was getting more and more annoying. Perhaps a bit amplified by my conscious in imprisoning this creature of the wide sea. Minutes passed hours passed, but the crab never stopped for a moment. It had no concept of giving up, even though there was no possible way in which it could escape from there. Every time it clawed itself up it fell down, then it got up and tried again. I could not listen to the sound anymore,it was as if the crab was clawing at my heart. I went down to the house and tried to sleep. But still I could hear its claws against the metal from the backyard. I resolved that come morning I will release the crab. The crab has done the impossible,its thirst for freedom was powerful enough to drive me to release him. Early next morning I managed to coax him into a plastic container after a bit of wrestling. I could not take him back to the ocean with his claws untied. There was a paddy field some distance away and there was a small stream there. When I was small I used to go there and see the little fished in the water. I went there on my cycle and left him there in the bank of the stream. This happened a long way back, but I still remember that crab and the lesson in taught me.