The Blue Lagoon

1.34 am. 

The normally chaotic taxi stand of Dumdum airport was eerily silent. The pre-booking counter had dropped its shutters long ago. Most of those at the Arrival had personal cars already waiting for them. Apparently, everyone but Udayan had known about the strike. Well, not much he could do about it. He began his long walk to the main road. Were buses running? Unlikely. Still, he had to try. In the worst-case scenario, he would have to walk to one of the hotels and spend money to find a shelter in his own hometown. It started drizzling the moment the shed above him opened up to the night sky. 

A black Alto, unimpressive and severely dented, slowed down beside him. 

“Dada, where to?” 

Udayan stopped dragging his luggage for a second. 

“Shankaritola.” 

“Can’t go inside those narrow lanes. I can drop you at Sealdah Station.” 

“That’ll do too,” Udayan shrugged, “How much?” 

“Dada, a thousand.” 

“A thousand!” Udayan’s voice rang out through the empty road, “Isn’t going by the meter a thing anymore?” 

“What meter, Dada?” the driver laughed, “This is a private car. I’m free for a while and you have to walk such a long distance, so I thought I would help you out.” 

Udayan sighed as he gripped the handle of his luggage and started pulling again, “Very generous of you.” 

“Okay, I’ll take 25 rupees less.” 

“Also, very generous of you,” Udayan called out as he moved on. 

“Traffic strike, Dada! You’re not going to get anything even from the main road,” the driver shouted back, reluctantly taking what seemed like a very precarious U-turn. God bless the car owner, Udayan thought. 

“They told me this would happen.” 

The heavily accented voice and the ghostly white man that appeared out of thin air beside Udayan made him stagger back a step. 

“Maago,” Udayan cursed under his breath before switching to English. It shouldn’t have been hard. He had been living in Tamil Nadu for the last five years. But it was. He became uncomfortably aware of his own vocabulary which kept supplying him with myriad Bengali words. 

“You scared me,” he said with a large smile which he felt obligated to paste on his face even though the tone of his voice didn’t match the sentence that he was uttering at all. 

“Oh, sorry for that, mate,” the man grinned back as he extended a large hand towards Udayan. Udayan somehow managed to make the handshake as awkward as possible because he wasn’t quite sure how firm his grip should be. He suddenly felt dwarfed in all respects. Also, he had no idea whether he should keep walking or just stop to have this conversation. 

“So, umm… I was… I was going to walk to the bus stand.” 

“Oh, sure thing, man. Let’s go,” the man perked up and started walking immediately. 

Udayan had to run a bit to catch up. “It’s far away. I just don’t have a car. And because of the strike… you know. It’s because of the fuel price hike. That happened because of… sorry, never mind,” he stopped himself from rambling and smiling like a maniac, “You should take that car.” He pointed backwards. 

The man snorted rather inelegantly, “Yes sure, let me make that rookie mistake. I know he was overcharging you. That’s why you didn’t get in.” 

“Yes, but…” Udayan didn’t know exactly which country this man was from but based on his accent, the answer seemed to be either Britain or Australia. Since he only knew the exchange rates for Britain, he decided to go with that. “That’s like… 9 pounds?” 

The man sighed, “Mate, many of my friends have been to India. They told me- when you’re there, think in rupees, not pounds. Or they’ll bleed you dry.” 

“Guess that makes sense,” Udayan shrugged, “So you’re from the UK then?” 

“Born and raised in Devon,” the man smiled back somewhat cockily. 

“Born and raised in Kolkata,” Udayan answered back, feeling intimidated despite trying not to, “So where are you headed from here? Will you explore the city?” 

The man nodded. “Yeah absolutely. But I’m not really here for the cities, you know? My friends hooked me up with something great actually. I’m headed there.” 

“The villages?” Udayan wondered aloud, “You can take the train from Dumdum Station. Or go to Howrah. Lots of trains headed towards the villages. Depends on… which village, you know.” 

“Actually, they said they’ll pick me up from my hotel.” 

“So, you’re doing a guided tour with a travelling agency?” 

“I’m not doing a tour, mate,” the man insisted, “I don’t want to be a tourist here. I want to experience this life.” 

Udayan wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. Or how to offer suggestions. 

“Umm, so they pick you up from your hotel and then… where are you headed?” he was too curious at this point to drop this topic. How indeed did one experience the Indian life? 

The man perked up. “I’m sure you know everything about it. It’s all the rage. The Blue Lagoon.” 

“What?” Udayan found himself no closer to the solution to this mystery than he was before. 

“Oh, maybe you don’t know it by its real name but… there’s this sustainable farm in Goalpara.” 

Udayan had to make the man repeat the last word three times before he got it. 

“I don’t really know where that is,” he admitted. 

“I don’t either, to be honest,” the man shrugged, “But they’ll pick me up. Anyway, you get to actually live on the farm. And I’m not talking about a three day stay like a tourist. You actually participate in the farming process. You sow and you have to remain till the harvest.” 

Udayan laughed, “I thought these farms just let just pluck a few ‘organic vegetables’ in the morning and cooked them for you for lunch.” 

The man shook his head determinedly, “I told you, it’s not like that. This is the real Indian life. You have to sow and they won’t let you go till you reap.” 

Udayan frowned, “What does that mean? ‘They won’t let you go’?” 

“Well, it’s a contract,” the man explained, “You have to submit your passport. And you won’t get it back till your crop blooms.” 

“That’s… odd,” Udayan muttered, “Why would you agree to that? What if you get tired of it? What if you want to do something else?” 

The man smiled, “It’s the real Indian experience, mate. I’m not going to pull any shortcuts here. And yeah, it might cost a fortune but it’s worth the money.” 

Udayan could see the lane opening up to the main road. The driver had been right, there wasn’t a single vehicle in sight. 

“Looks like I have to go to a hotel, after all,” Udayan groaned, “Should have just taken that car. There aren’t any cheap hotels in this airport area.” 

“Man, you can just stay the night at my room,” the man offered helpfully, “The Retreat. Have you heard of it?” He started fumbling around on the phone for the address. 

“I have,” Udayan said. 

The Retreat was the glittering five-star hotel right across the road. 

Udayan’s father used to say a night at The Retreat cost more than his month’s salary. Looking at it now, Udayan wasn’t sure it was far from the truth. 

“Um… I’ll find somewhere else to stay. I cannot really afford… that.” 

The man rolled his eyes, “Seriously, mate? We’re friends. It’s on me, don’t worry about it.” 

Udayan thought for a while and shrugged. As long as it was free, who’d say no to a night in The Retreat? 

As he was in the process of dragging his luggage across the wide main road, a weird little detail about the conversation that they were having struck Udayan. 

“You said ‘till your crop blooms’. We don’t say ‘bloom’ for crops, right?” 

The man looked back at him, rather puzzled.

“You do when the crop is a flower. The Blue Lagoon farms indigo, of course.”