c a t c h

For last year's words belong to last year's language/ And next year's words await another voice./ But, as the passage now presents no hindrance/ To the spirit unappeased and peregrine/ Between two worlds become much like each other,/ So I find words I never thought to speak/ In streets I never thought I should revisit/ When I left my body on a distant shore.
T S Eliot, Little Gidding, Four Quartets

Hands over headcloths, we’re ducking fish. It’s utter, glorious pandemonium in one of the most far flung outer reaches of Oman. Under midday sun, little fish are being flung off nets, thrown ten feet into the air and falling down on Toyota pickups, Bedouin fishermen and an unknown coast. Above, thousands of sea birds carpet the desert beach and layered rocks over which crabs scuttle for cover. And while the entire exercise was orchestrated by the Bedu, most of the fishermen were from distant shores: Kerala, Madras, even Bangladesh. As the fish slapped down onto sand, you could hear Arabic, Hindi, Malayalam, Telegu and Bengali above the pitter-patter. Surreal but true.

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