The Man Who Loved a Dolphin
[Inspired from a Polynesian legend]
PART-1
My mother told me the other day about a man who loved a dolphin. But before I go to the principal story I may catch a digression telling you about the area I live. This is one of the several Polynesian isles appreciated for its gorgeous panoramas and stunning people. Some of my readers might even have read the accounts of the voyages written by Fanny Stevenson and published under the title The Cruise of the Janet Nichol. Or even viewed the pictures taken by Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1894 Count Rudolf Festetics de Tolna, his wife Eila and her daughter Blanche Haggin visited these places aboard the yacht Le Tolna. The Count’s photographs as you know are very popular. The story my mama told me is a strange one and the occasion was one of the afternoons when I was slightly depressed after a conference with a cherished one. My mama reminded me not to take it very earnestly, as it is only a legend. And in many states, she warned that in the cycles of germination we take tales for actuality and un her case, she also had such flights in her youthful times in the hall, about personalities and situations, which she used to fabricate in restful periods. These consumed many insomniac nights in her life, but when they passed they were just tales. If you draft it on a leaf of paper and read it after a day, you are more likely to laugh about it. In case you read the same sheet after ten years, you will unquestionably roll in howling because it was just a story, Because if your affections to that fragments, everything seemed real, whereas it is not so. My mother told me not to worry about anything particularly, and in the vast framework of things, intentions count, not actions. …….That day I was descending the rungs of Tuvalu National Library when my mate came towards me and then in an abrupt change of moves, advanced to a totally different field which swayed me. I was profoundly scraped by the loss of volatile passion and my friend’s shift of respects to another man, who in fact was my friend too. You see, in such situations, man is overpowered by gleams of oppressive feelings, and I was also no exception to this dictate. My mother, after giving me my usual lunch plate of
pulaka, which is a swamp crop alike to taro, but with bigger blades and rougher roots and bananas, and a piece of breadfruit which I relished greatly. Seeing my face and the varied expressions on it and the fact that I was not giving much attention to the savory courses in front of me, my mama grasped my concerns as she is very intuitive and can foretell thunderstorm and black clouds. She kept quiet while I was lunching and when I retired to the thatched shed by the side, she appeared near me and seized a stool and narrated me the story of the man who loved a dolphin, which in fact was about one of the ancestors of our lineage………The title astounded me. How can a rational being love a dolphin, while breathing on this earth with its copious females, pure,beautiful ,wise, true or talented, in all stages and its full casts,that had often disturbed me with several chimeras in lone hours,causing me informed of the changes in body beats, which is like the sea in turbulent waters and that again from the bases carry out fishes and spill them on the sand- And when I glance in the reflector and discern my elegant profile and when one of my compatriots take photographs of me and confer them later, with my calf muscles deep in the Polynesian cerulean water, with an eerie coldness spreading through my follicles, and my limb line looking like a carving, I am amazed not at my frame’s worth but at the grand artisan who conceived it with such miraculous polish that he indelibly transfers to other spans.
PART-2
That afternoon ,mama retired to the upper cabin and rested beside the patio and she called me from up to come and join her to hear the story. And I took the stool that was in fact presented by mama’s father on her wedding day which was the greatest celebration of the hamlet. For mama’s father owned eleven fishing crafts and was a fellowship elder and hence mama was close to many people, even dignitaries who came for the investigation into the island to understand its people and practices. How God had made Polynesia, one of the most enchanting areas on the globe. About the tale- yes, I am talking about that tale that passed from generation to generation. In the beginning of the story, I was benumbed by the tiny line of grey on mama’s hair on the central section of the scalp and she was least agitated about it and I discerned that the shade is trespassing deeper into her cranium base. However, her appearance showed that blissful halo equal to a recluse hermit. She told that she was in a way a household nun having been subjected to the state of widowhood from an early age. She did not grieve about her externals and told me formerly, that you need not bother about what other people think and speak about you, but on the other hand, you have to be extremely careful about what you think and talk about others, for it is going to decide finally your destiny.Inthis connection, she showed me the copy of the painting of Leonardo where Jesus and Judas were present together and told that the virtuoso master modeled the two characters from the same person, though in different periods. Meeting the same man at two phases of life. However, she told that the above story is only a conjuncture of certain da Vinci scholars and is not proven as an irrevocable truth. The inner meaning of this saga is how experiences inner and outer change man’s features and appearances in this world, causing sometimes deep furrows on the face which in fact are the expressions of inner turmoil that man suffered on this earth. And about the story-Mama told me then, looking out into the fine afternoon, when the sun was modestly going down to the Polynesian sea after a fruitful day, blessing meantime folks who come to its glorious fold…..From the window, we could see our big garden which was begun by dad but before its completion, he expired of a stroke. He was a hard laborer. My mother was a radiographer in the Princess Margaret Hospital on Funafuti and after the work of twenty years, she wanted to resign and devote herself to the study of corals.We have a garden by the back of our house, comprising Pouka, [Hernandia peltata ]India bush, Miro, [Thespesia populnea], woman’s fiber tree [Hibiscus tiliaceus] and coconut trees and native fig and Fala or screw pine.This tale is about a Bottlenose Dolphin who was enamored of a human being and the man in return., This dolphin frequently swims ashore and in the lagoons. It recounts a legend from the Isle of Niutao long before the discovery of Tuvalu. The young chap who married a dolphin. This young man had a ranch of coconut trees, and one daybreak he discovered that some coconut trees have been cut. A few weeks following, the identical situation occurred.The man began to investigate but, he did not find any miscreants or thieves. Some weeks later the same circumstance arose again, but this season he recognized that the theft befalls during the full moon. On the next full moon, before sunset, he sneaked under a bush in his hacienda. He anticipated and viewed the moon was rising from the horizon, and after a while heard noises of youthful women and men. They came straight to his farm and started chopping the leaves of the trees. The man rose up and yelled at them, and they fled towards the beach. He followed them and succeeded to grab one of the young women. The rest went directly into the sea, and they transformed into dolphins when they plunged into the ocean. The gentleman took this youthful lady to the community and wedded her. They begot two sons. As time passed, the spouse got so nauseous and asked her mate that she desired to tour her species living in the ocean. She said adieu to her sons and husband and went towards the advancing curls of waves of which she was not afraid. Swiftly she transformed herself into a dolphin and raced towards the party of dolphins expecting some distance beyond. The offsprings turned up healthy and smart and became the greatest casters on the island because their mama instructed them on the mysteries of fish that no human being in the land could ever know.It is said, mama concluded that her people from the father’s line have felt a rare enigma that is related to the fish and the ocean world.
Though my mother did not know what that secret is some of the members of their ancient lineage knew it enabling them to continue a successful race connected with the fishing industry.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
