The Young Girl And The Sea

Kokila with author Stefan Teplan by the seaside,

both looking down and laughing how their legs

and feet got wet and dirty.

“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” These are the famous first lines of Hemingway’s great story “The Old Man And The Sea” and it was this story that immediately came to my mind when I first met Kokila. Though she is not an old man but a young girl. Though she does not go fishing but still attends school. Yet, these are merely differences on the external level. Inside she appeared to me – in her devotion to and her traumatic experience with the sea, in her maturity and, you could even say, wisdom – as a soul-mate of the old man, although she is only a twelve-year-old.

Maybe the first lines of a story on Kokila should be put like this: She was a young girl who went alone to the shore at the Indian Bay of Bengal most every day and she had gone 4020 days now without any derogation of her love for the sea. In spite of all attempts. In spite of all the whacking she got for permanently violating her parents’ prohibitions. Kokila was in love with the sea. She worshipped the sea. She talked to the sea. She wrote poems at the sea. And, of course, about the sea.

Yet, all of a sudden, her love turned into hate. That was not because her father struck her. The sea itself struck. On Black Sunday, December 26th in the year of 2004 – India’s Hiroshima – the tsunami washed everything away. It washed away the house in which Kokila had lived with her parents, her sister, two brothers and grand-mother. The family could escape on a roof. But her grand-mother died in the waves. That was Kokila’s biggest loss. Her best friend died as well. That was the second biggest loss. The third biggest loss was the loss of all the poems Kokila had written ever since the age of eight. They would have filled a book.

And then there was the loss of her love. “How I loved you, my dear ocean” she was mourning disappointedly. “But now I hate you. I hate you so much.”

These words were part of her fist poem written after the tsunami. A love poem. A hate poem. A love-hate poem. However, her feelings of hate did not last for long. Just like Hemingway’s old man, who suffered the greatest defeat and disappointment of his life on and by his beloved sea, Kokila was beaten but not defeated. Even the tsunami didn’t succeed in what her parents didn’t succeed in: extinguish or at least diminish her love for the sea.

It was quite another love that caused this twist of feelings. Caritas – which literally means “charitable love” – and other NGOs came to support the people beaten by the tsunami. “We immediately got relief, rice and other food and blankets and everything we needed”, Kokila tells me. “I was amazed. Strangers we had never known before helped us as if we were brothers and sisters. And they gave us even more than we needed. Those who survived the disaster are better off now than before.”

More than 400 people were killed in the area where Kokila lives, the city of Tarangambadi and the villages close by. Some 40 miles away it was even worse: More than 6000 people were killed in the area of Nagapattinam. Thousands lost their houses and livelihood. Kokila learned about these figures. She, however, also learned some other figures, the figures of charitable love: 3500 houses are being rebuilt by Caritas and TMSSS (the social service organisation of the diocese of Thanjavur). More than 400 fishermen’s families were given new boats and nets. 2400 shopkeepers, who had lost everything with the tsunami, were given support to restart their business. 5400 school going children and 26 villages were given study and play materials. More than 500 new cycles were distributed. Kokila wrote in her note-book: “So many people whom I had never seen before or even dreamt about helped us to rebuild our lives.” And, in continuing her first after-tsunami-poem, came to the conclusion: “For this I thank you, tsunami! Now I am not angry with you. I love you, my dear ocean!”

Kokila happened not to be yet considered as a Caritas-beneficiary of bikes when I came to see her. My friend Sareen, who visited her a week earlier to prepare my encounter with her, told me she would like to have a bike. So I caught up on that when I came to Tarangambadi. “Now I don’t have to walk to school such a long way any longer”, she says overjoyed.

She thanks me with the greatest gift she can give: “I will write a poem for you. But I am not able to write on demand. I have to be in the mood”, she tells me as we walk – this time with kind permission of her parents – along the beach where she had been a thousand times before. It’s obvious how she is happy with the sea again, wading, constantly smiling, through the waves with the water up to the height of her knees.

When she’s talking my amazement keeps growing. I have interviewed many of the greatest writers of modern world literature, but never have I felt that bewildered about the philosophy and insights of a person that young. It seems as if the pain Kokila experienced made her as mature as a grown-up or maybe even more. She philosophizes about death and the values of life, about pain and burdens in a way that, again and again, I have to look into her face to make sure I am really talking to a young girl and not to an old man. If there is something about Hemingway’s remark that big pain makes big poets, Kokila is the living proof.

I ask her, as we keep strolling along the seaside, to sit in a boat moored at the sandy shore with her note-book and pen and pretend to write – just for a photograph. But Kokila does not pretend. Suddenly she is “in the mood”. As I, after my shots, indicate we could continue our walk, she clearly indicates she does not want to be disturbed. Some twenty minutes pass. It is the strangest “interview” I ever made. Just sit there and remain silent. And watch my interviewee remaining silent. I stare out to the ocean. The ocean which is Kokila’s life. “Thanks to the sea”, she writes. “Now I am very happy.” And she hands me the poem: “This one’s my gift for you.”
It was her talented grandmother who incited Kokila’s genius by telling her long stories and reciting poems for hours. The sea took her grandmother away. Now Kokila, as a story-teller at least, proves to be her real heir.

Copyright words and photography: Stefan Teplan
First published by Caritas internationalis, Rome 2005


Coming up are some poems by Kokila, translated by Stefan Teplan:

BURDENS
When there’s no rain
That is a burden for the land
When there is no water
That is a burden for a flower
When there is no love
That is a burden for a relationship
When there is no money
Life is a burden
When there is no wave
Ocean itself is a burden
When there is no education
Ignorance is a burden

MY DEAR OCEAN
(Kokila’s first poem after the tsunami, written on Dec. 28th, 2004; translated by her school-teacher)

If feelings can be words

I will be able to tell you

My dear ocean

How much I loved you!

How many times I came to play with you

Even without getting permission.

I cried for the beatings I got.

You made me alone to cry that day.

But today you made thousands of people cry

Taking away their houses, household articles, kith and kin

You have deserted us!

You, the sustainer of our lives, have taken away our lives.

So I hate you!

I hate you so much!

Yet, I want to thank you, tsunami!

You know why?

You brought so many people to take part in my life.

So many people whom I had never seen before or even dreamt about

Helped us to rebuild our lives.

For this I thank you, tsunami!

Now I am not angry with you.
I love you, my dear ocean!

DEAR SEA

(this is the poem which Kokila wrote as a gift for Stefan Teplan)

Dear Sea!
How are you?
My greeting to you!
You have taken many lives
And that is your fury
Remember how many times
I came to see you
Without my parents’ knowledge
And I got caught
And I was being beaten
For going alone
On that day
I was the only one
The only one who got beaten
The only one crying
But today
You have got the tears of so many people
And I am one of them, too
In those days they called you rough
Sometimes compared you to a volcano
Today they call you a tsunami
But let it be
Because people are very happy these days
Do you know why?
People are noticing us
Who did not notice us in those days
Tsunami came
And people saw it on TV
And felt as if they were affected
And they cried as if they were affected
And they gave us things we had lost
Sometimes more than we had before
They helped us to get over
Over the trauma
Of tsunami


THANKS TO THE SEA

Thanks to the sea
Do you know why?
Because we have got so many new friends
All that happened because of nature’s fury
What can the sea do about that?
When Jesus tells it happens, it happens
If Jesus wants the sea to boil, it boils
Once I was angry with the sea
Now I’m angry no longer

Copyright: all words, translations and photography by Stefan Teplan