A Lovebird’s Call from Chilika

A story of when I first understood the meaning of love.

I first heard of Chilika lake when I was in school. It was one of the most interesting lakes I had read about in our geography classes. Till today, I do not know exactly what fascinated me the most about this lake. Was it the fact that it was the largest saltwater lake of Asia, or that it was the first wetland in India to be brought under the Ramsar Convention, or the fact that it is a home to the playful dolphins of the Indian ocean and a seasonal abode to the migratory birds flying in from the remotest corners of the continent. Whatever it was, it kept pulling me towards the lake through all these years, and I knew that someday I had to make a visit.

I landed in Bhubaneswar one late July, there to meet my boyfriend who had come home for the summer after being away for two years studying in the United States. We had started dating during the last month of our last semester in college before our different career choices moved us to different cities after graduation. One month is too short a time to get to know someone, and even if you stay in touch with someone through Hangouts, Whatsapp or Skype, the things you learn about them in person are the ones that you can never learn otherwise.

I was in love with the person I had been chatting with for the past two years, but when it was the time to meet him in person, my heart still leapt with a feeling of nervousness as though I was going to meet a stranger. Will I be able to open up with him in person as much as I am able to in chat? Will he find my quirky, lazy habits just as adorable as he finds my words in chat? I didn’t have a definitive answer but trusting my instincts, I took that long flight to Bhubaneswar. This was the first time I was taking such a big step on my own — traveling from one part of India to another, just to spend the weekend with someone I hardly knew.

I met him outside the airport. Bhubaneswar welcomed me with a very light shower of rain, while my boyfriend greeted me with a tight hug. The airport in Bhubaneswar is located very close to the main city, so we decided to take a walk. Bhubaneswar is quite a walkable city, with wide roads, clear footpaths and very little traffic. There is lush green vegetation on both sides of the roads, which had turned a shade darker during the monsoons. On the way we stopped for lunch at the famous Dalema restaurant near the Odisha secretariat, and indulged ourselves in an exhilarating meal of traditional Odia fish curry and rice.

As we walked through musty roads under an umbrella, he showed me all of his favourite places in the city. That empty plot close to his house where he used to play cricket with his friends, that marketplace where he had chased his high school crush, that ground where he got his driving lessons, and those old caves close to his school where many of his friends used to come to start or end their love stories. In each of these places I discovered a new side of him. The playful side, the romantic side, the curious side, and the emotional side. That day, I got familiar with the person he used to be before I had met him. This was that part of him that I could have never known otherwise, despite all those years of online chatting. A part of him that could only be revealed through a walk around his hometown.

As I said before, I had always wanted to go to Chilika lake, so now when I was so close to my dream destination, I knew I had to go. People did warn me that monsoons are not a good time to go to the lake as there won’t be any migratory birds around and most of the islands would be submerged, but still I couldn’t resist myself from going there. We took a bus from Bhubaneswar to Barkul and reached the Wetland Research and Training Center at night, where the cook had prepared a delicious dinner of crab curry and chapatti for us. In the morning, we hired a motorboat to sail over the lake. The boatman took us to a temple built on top of one of the largest islands of the lake. It was very early in the morning and the temple was still preparing itself for visitors, so we sat on the edge of a rock, hand in hand, dipping our feet in the water, and reminiscing all those crazy conversations we used to have in our chats about the things we would do when we finally meet.

It was only after I reached my home in Delhi that I read the story of the girl behind the temple. She was a newly-wedded bride, named Jai, going to her husband’s village across the Chilika lake along with her father and a boatman. But on the way her boat got caught in a cyclone, drowning her, while her father and the boatman survived. It is said that the goddess of the lake, also worshipped as Maa Kali, embraced her and Jai became an excerpt of Goddess Kali. Today, the locals pray to her in the hope that she would protect them from the furious storms and currents in the lake. They had built that temple, Kalijai, dedicated to her.

Today, when I read the story, I felt what a semblance I had with Jai. She was also sailing across the Chilika lake in the hopes to meet her lover, the way I had flown over a hundred miles to meet mine. I wonder how nervous she must have felt during the journey, what inhibitions, hopes and desires she must have had about meeting her husband. While she herself met a tragic accident, she doesn’t stop from helping other lovers meet over this majestic lake. Whether it is the migratory birds that fly halfway across the world to find their partners here or young people like me doing the same, she helps them all. She is like a lovebird calling out to all the lovers around the world to come to Chilika and forget their fears and embrace their love. I didn’t know that, unknowingly, my boyfriend and I would also listen to her call and take her blessings with us. When we reached the airport the next day, and time had come for us to say goodbye to each other again, he took my hand and said to me that I was more than just a girlfriend to him.

This story was originally written in July 2016.