The tide had already begun to turn when Appukuttan woke. The air inside his shack smelled of damp coir mats and faint kerosene, a scent that seemed to cling to him no matter how many times he scrubbed the floor. Beyond the thin wooden walls, the backwaters murmured - unhurried but constant, like an old friend still speaking after you have stopped listening. He could hear the ferry before he saw it - that familiar cough of a diesel engine catching, then settling into its slow, stubborn rhythm. He turned his face away from the sound.
It had been twenty-five years since he last guided a boat across these waters, since that squall had swallowed his only son, Ramesh, in a single, merciless wave. Twenty-five years since he had dared to touch a ferry’s wheel. His hands, once strong enough to wrestle a boat through a monsoon, were now speckled with age spots, the fingers curling stiffly in the morning chill. He lived now on a small pension and whatever fish he could barter from neighbours, though neither seemed enough to fill the hollow that loss had left behind.
The shack stood just a few feet from the jetty, close enough for the salt wind to rattle its shutters at night and slip in to cool the dark, lonely hours. A blackened kettle sat on the single kerosene stove, but he made no move to light it. The thought of tea tasted alone did not stir him. Instead, he stepped outside, his bare feet pressing into the damp, packed earth, each step bringing a faint ache to his knees.
Across the water, the lighthouse beam blinked its last in the pale morning light. Fishermen’s voices rose from the shore, calling to one another in that singsong cadence the sea had taught them. The smell of frying plantains drifted faintly on the breeze. Somewhere down the narrow road, the small teashop run by Chandran would already be open.
Chandran’s teashop was nothing more than a hut with a sagging tarpaulin roof, its bamboo poles darkened by years of rain and smoke. But it smelled of cardamom and wood fire, and the air inside was always thick with chatter and laughter - gossip travelling faster than the tide. Appukuttan had not sat there in years; he had preferred to keep his distance from the world, and the world had learned to pass by without knocking. Yet, that morning, some quiet pull in his chest guided his feet towards it. When he reached the hut, he found Chandran bent over the stove, pouring steaming tea from one steel tumbler to another in long, graceful arcs, the liquid catching the morning light like strands of amber silk.
“Ah, Appu, I thought you had forgotten the way here,” Chandran said, looking up with a grin that showed betel-stained teeth. His voice carried the warmth of old familiarity, the kind that could thaw years of silence. “Sit, sit. I’ll give you the first glass.”
Appukuttan eased himself down onto the wooden bench, nodding to the fishermen who had already gathered around the low tables. Their talk flowed over him like river water - about the size of the morning’s catch, the price of coconuts at the market, and the fever that had struck Govindan, the regular ferry boatman.
“The whole village will be stuck if no one takes the ferry today,” one man muttered, half-serious.
“Send word to the mainland,” another teased. “Maybe the Chief Minister will come row us himself.”
Laughter rippled through the smoky hut, but Chandran’s eyes lingered on Appukuttan. “There is someone here,” he said, his tone sharpening just enough to cut through the banter, “who knows that ferry better than anyone alive.”
Appukuttan gave a small shake of his head, a motion meant to dismiss the thought. But inside, something shifted - like the faint stirring of a tide long held back. The seed was planted, and he could already feel its roots pushing through the silt of his heart.
By mid-morning, the village head, a wiry man named Krishnan, appeared at Appukuttan’s shack. His forehead shone with sweat, and his breath came fast, as if he had walked there with the urgency of a man carrying bad news.
“Appu, you have to help us,” Krishnan said without preamble. “Govindan cannot stand, let alone steer. The schoolchildren need to be taken across. It is only for today.”
Appukuttan was still sitting outside on his low wooden stool, mending a frayed fishing net more out of habit than need. He stared at the coir strands between his fingers, pretending to untangle them while his mind scrambled for a polite refusal. Before he could speak, a small shadow moved from behind Krishnan. A boy, barefoot, his knees dusty, clutched a faded blue schoolbag so tightly it seemed to be holding him upright. He couldn’t have been more than eight.
“My Amma says you were the best there ever was,” the boy said, his voice soft but steady, as if repeating a truth he had been told many times.
The words pierced through Appukuttan’s armour like sunlight finding a crack in a shutter. For a moment, he saw Ramesh’s face - the same quick brightness in the eyes, the same unruly hair that danced with the wind as the ferry cut through the water. He could almost hear the boy’s laughter echoing over the backwaters, feel the tug of the wheel in his younger hands, the salt spray on his
lips. His throat tightened. He had carried the weight of that day for twenty-five years, convinced he had no right to touch a ferry again. Yet here was this child, looking at him not as a man broken by loss, but as someone who still had something to give. Against the pull of his fears, against the heaviness of the years, Appukuttan found himself nodding. The motion was small, almost reluctant, but in Krishnan’s face it lit up like a flare.
“Good,” Krishnan said, clapping him on the shoulder with the relief of a man who had just solved the village’s most urgent problem. “The ferry is waiting at the jetty. I’ll tell the children.”
As they walked towards the water, Appukuttan felt the ground beneath his bare feet change - the dry dust of the lane giving way to the damp, familiar earth of the jetty. The smell of the tide was sharper here, mingled with the creak of ropes and the impatient slap of water against the hull. Each sound tugged at old memories, some sweet, some that still had the power to gut him. The ferry loomed ahead, paint peeling, rope fenders worn thin. But to Appukuttan’s eyes, it still had the stubborn grace of the vessel he once commanded. He paused at the edge of the gangplank, his hand hovering in the air before it found the railing. The metal was cool beneath his fingers, and for a moment, he simply stood there, letting the hum of the water seep back into his bones. As Appukuttan walked towards the jetty, memory rose unbidden, as if the very air over the backwaters had carried it to him.
Ramesh at twelve - scrawny but quick, his ribs showing beneath the thin cotton shirt - balancing barefoot on the ferry’s edge as though the boards were an extension of his own body. His toes curled just enough to grip the damp wood, his knees loose, swaying with the vessel’s every subtle shift.
“Hold the tiller firm, mon (son),” Appukuttan had said, standing just behind him. “The water speaks before it moves. Watch the ripples, see how they bend? That means a current shift.”
Ramesh had turned his head just enough to flash a grin, hair plastered to his forehead by the salt spray. His eyes danced with mischief and something brighter - ambition, perhaps, or that fierce joy that came from mastering a skill before one’s time.
“I’ll be faster than you one day, Acha (father),” he’d said, the challenge in his tone softened by the laughter already bubbling up in his chest.
Appukuttan had laughed then, a deep, unguarded sound, and ruffled the boy’s hair. And perhaps he would have been faster - more daring, more skilled - if the river had not claimed him. The memory was as sharp as the morning light on the water, and for a moment Appukuttan faltered mid-step. The jetty stretched before him, the same damp planks where Ramesh had once run barefoot, where his laughter had once echoed. Now the boards groaned under his own slower, heavier tread, as if the years themselves weighed on them.
The ferry lay waiting, her hull weathered, her paint dulled by sun and salt. A rope tethered her to the post, swaying gently in time with the tide’s breath. The creak of her timbers was not unlike the sigh of an old friend who had waited too long. Appukuttan’s hand reached for the railing almost by instinct, fingers curling around the metal. It was cold and faintly slick with dew, the touch stirring muscle memory in his palms - the same calluses that had once been shaped by years of steering through storms and swells. He stepped aboard. The deck shifted under his weight, and the old familiar rhythm rose through his soles into his spine. Somewhere deep in his chest, the tide he had kept at bay for twenty-five years began, ever so slightly, to turn.
The ferry waited, squat and patient at the jetty, her once-bright blue paint now dulled and flaking in scales. The smell of old rope- salt-worn and frayed - mingled with the faint tang of engine oil rising from the deck. To anyone else, it might have been a smell of neglect, but to Appukuttan it was the scent of his youth, of mornings that began before the sun, of years when his hands had been steady and his heart unburdened. He stepped aboard, feeling the familiar give of the planks underfoot. The boat shifted slightly, as though recognising its old master. Appukuttan’s gaze lingered on the wheel. His hands trembled as they reached for it - not from weakness alone, but from the weight of what it represented. Yet the moment his palms closed over the worn wood, the years seemed to fold back. Muscle memory slid in, quiet and sure, smoothing the tremor from his fingers.
The children clambered aboard, their voices bright and unselfconscious, the slap of their bare feet on the planks like small drums. Some pressed their faces to the railing, eager to watch the water slide by; others jostled each other for space near the bow. Their chatter swirled around him, a cheerful chaos that made the silence of his shack feel even emptier by comparison. Overhead, clouds were beginning to gather in slow, heavy drifts, though no one on deck seemed to notice. The air held the faint metallic scent that came before rain, but it was still warm, still bright enough for the children to squint against the glare on the water. Krishnan untied the rope, and with a quiet nod, they pushed off. The ferry eased away from the jetty, her hull cutting into the backwaters with a sound like a sigh. The ripples fanned out behind them in widening arcs, disturbed only by the flashes of silver where small fish broke the surface.
Appukuttan’s grip on the wheel tightened - not in fear, but in focus. He could feel the tug of the current through his palms, a subtle, living force that spoke in the same language it always had. It was like hearing the voice of an old friend after decades apart - familiar yet changed, carrying both comfort and a quiet ache. He steered, adjusting gently, the boat answering him with obedient shifts. Each movement of the wheel was a conversation with the water, and for the first time in decades, Appukuttan found himself listening.
Halfway across, the wind shifted without warning, a sudden, sharp breath that made the ropes strain and the canopy snap. The first drops of rain struck the deck like thrown pebbles, cold against skin, then came harder, driven sideways so that they stung the children’s faces. The sky, moments
ago a dull grey, seemed to collapse into darkness, thick clouds racing overhead. Thunder cracked, loud and close, like a whip tearing the air in two. The ferry pitched, the deck tilting enough for the children to clutch at railings and one another. Their earlier laughter dissolved into startled cries, voices high and thin against the roar of the wind.
And in that instant, the past surged up from the depths like something alive. He was no longer here, no longer steering this ferry - he was back in that squall, the one that had taken Ramesh. He could hear the splinter of wood as the old vessel shuddered under the force of the storm, could see his boy’s face pale with cold, his hair plastered flat by spray. The sound of Ramesh’s voice lost in the wind, swallowed by the water, clamped around his heart like an iron band. The icy pull of the backwater came next, that merciless weight dragging everything down. Fear rooted him to the spot, his muscles locked, and his hands frozen on the wheel. The ferry shuddered beneath him, vulnerable to the current’s whim.
Then, cutting through the wind and rain, a high, trembling voice broke in.
“Acha, please!”
It was not Ramesh’s voice. But in that raw moment, it could have been.
Something inside him gave way - not breaking, but releasing, like a knot pulled loose after years of tightening. His breath came hard, fast, but no longer shallow with panic. He tightened his grip on the wheel. The timbers groaned as he leaned his weight into the turn, every muscle remembering what to do even if his mind was still catching up. He read the waves the way he once read the water in Ramesh’s lessons - watching their curl, their break, their deceptive pull. The bow swung into the wind. He eased the throttle, feeling the engine’s resistance, then cut across the current toward the lee of the shore where the mangroves hunched low, their roots ready to shelter them from the worst of the gusts.
The rain hammered down, but he no longer flinched at it. The ferry responded like an old friend recognising the sure hands that had once guided her through storms. Behind him, the children clung to the benches, their cries fading to a tense silence as the boat steadied, slice by slice, through the churning grey. The ferry scraped against the jetty with a long, low groan, the hull shuddering as it kissed the damp planks. Even before the ropes were secured, hands reached out - villagers rushing forward to lift the children one by one, guiding their small, cold fingers onto the safety of the dock.
Some children were crying, tears mingling with the rain on their cheeks. Others stood silent and wide-eyed, clutching their soaked schoolbags as if the weight inside might anchor them to solid ground. A few glanced back at the ferry, at the man at the wheel, their expressions a mixture of
relief and something harder to name - trust, perhaps, or the dawning awareness of what had just been avoided
Appukuttan stepped off last. His feet met the slick jetty with a soft thud, his knees briefly uncertain beneath him. His shirt clung heavily to his back, rainwater streaming from the edge of his dhoti. His heart still thudded in his chest, not in panic now, but in the deep, steady beat of exertion. No one spoke of heroics. The air was too heavy for that, thick with the metallic scent of wet earth and the relentless drumming of rain on the tin roofs that lined the shore. Conversations stayed low, almost reverent, as though raising voices might invite the storm to turn back. Krishnan came up beside him, his expression unreadable for a moment. Then he gave the smallest of nods - not gratitude in words, but a recognition between men who knew the weight of what had just passed.
Somewhere, a mother gathered her child into her arms, pressing her wet cheek to the crown of his head. The sight tugged at Appukuttan’s chest, stirring both pride and a sharp pang of something older, deeper. He turned his gaze to the water instead, watching the rain break the surface into a thousand silver circles. The ferry bobbed gently at her moorings, as if she, too, was catching her breath. By evening, the rain had thinned to a fine mist, drifting like smoke over the backwaters. The clouds were breaking apart, their edges flushed with the faint pink of a reluctant sunset. The air was cooler now, washed clean, carrying with it the mingled scents of wet earth, salt, and the faint sweetness of night-blooming jasmine from a garden somewhere inland.
Appukuttan walked alone along the narrow path to the lighthouse, the wet earth squelching softly beneath his bare feet. With each step, water seeped between his toes, grounding him in the present moment. The rhythmic crash of waves against the rocks ahead grew louder, a sound that had once been a comfort, then a torment, and now… something else entirely. He paused when the path curved toward the sea wall. The lighthouse loomed above him, its white paint streaked with years of storms, its glass lantern just beginning to glow for the night watch. At the base of the wall stood the memorial stone - small, almost humble, but weathered by salt and wind into a kind of quiet permanence. The granite’s surface was rough beneath his fingertips, but the inscription was still clear.
“Ramesh Appukuttan, Beloved Son. Lost to the Waters.”
The chisel marks seemed deeper in the fading light, as if the name had been carved not just into the stone, but into him. He reached into the crook of his arm and brought out a marigold garland - bright orange against the grey evening. He laid it gently at the foot of the stone, the petals beading with droplets from the damp air.
“I forgive you, mon,” he whispered, his voice low but steady. Then, after a pause that felt like the exhale of many years, he added, “And myself.”
For a long moment, he simply stood there, the wind tugging at the ends of his wet shirt, the tide murmuring its eternal syllables. He turned his gaze to the water. The surface, smoothed by the ebbing tide, glimmered faintly in the last of the light. It was calm again, as if the storm earlier that day had been nothing more than a passing mood, a momentary frown before the water’s face returned to serenity.
For the first time in twenty-five years, Appukuttan did not look away. He stood rooted to the stones, watching the ripples shift and reform, and felt somewhere beneath the layers of grief and memory a quiet invitation. The river had taken much from him. But perhaps, in its own way, it had given something back.
As the lighthouse beam swept its first slow arc across the backwaters, Appukuttan turned from the stone and began the walk home. The path was slick, but his steps were sure. Somewhere beyond the bend, the ferry lay moored for the night, her ropes creaking softly in the tide. He knew the village would need a boatman again tomorrow. And though he did not yet say it aloud, the thought no longer filled him with dread.