Amphibians by Night
Malcolm Carvalho
Rohit awoke to the clap of thunder. As he turned on his side, he felt his vest cling to his back, the fabric all wet. The mat he was sleeping on swayed from one side to another, like the rafts he had seen on tv. His body drifted towards the edge of the mat. Then he felt the water rise and cover his ankles, soaking his clothes further until he could feel the uncomfortable sogginess in his underpants.
He squirmed in discomfort for a second, then wondered: What if the amphibian stories were true? What if it was his turn today?
The all-too-familiar putrid stench the monsoon brought along overpowered his senses. He blinked to focus his vision and as the hazy shape of the still ceiling fan appeared above him, he felt as if a thin translucent layer covered his eyes.
That was his first clue.
He had heard the urban legends among his older chawl friends – about how people in the chawl morphed into amphibians during the rain. They all found the stories entertaining but eventually dismissed them – they were way too fantastic.
Now, as he lay on his mat all soaked with rainwater, he realised his skin had turned slimy. He ran a finger over his other forearm. All his hair – yes, the sparse hair growth that he had – had disappeared, the skin was smooth. He checked his other arm. It was hairless too.
And everywhere, his skin felt thinner than usual – was he breathing through his skin the way frogs did?
That was his second clue.
Still groggy, he looked around. Rainwater had flooded his tiny one-room house. The water was close to three feet high, and his mat was half submerged, half afloat in the water. He turned to look towards the door. Its iron frame, the bottom half eaten with rust, swung in and out with the ebb and flow of the water rushing in.
His mat tilted a little and he slipped further into the water. For an instant, he didn’t feel disgusted by the black murky water. Instead, he felt like it was his natural home, like any moment now he would begin swimming around as if his house was one small pond.
That was his third clue.
But the feeling disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived. As the water rose, the stench assaulted him again. His stomach churned, and a sour pungent bile rose in his throat. He clung on to the mat and turned so he could vomit into the water. Just then, the mat tilted further, and he slipped off it. Submerged in the water, he flailed his limbs in panic.
Out of nowhere he felt two strong arms hold him around his hips. The arms pushed him up, so his head was now above the surface. He gasped, taking in hurried mouthfuls, and looked around. No one.
He heard a whipping sound from behind, like a huge object hitting the water. That got him thinking again – did the amphibians really exist?
Then out of nowhere, a head surfaced near him.
It was his father. Gills lined both his cheeks; Rohit even detected a hint of a powerful fin sprouting from his legs.
His father put him down on the sole cot in the house. ‘Don’t move until we’re back.’
Then he turned, his hands morphing into fins. He took several huge gulps of the water, and dove into it.
Rohit screwed up his nose and slowly got to his feet. The stench had gotten worse – was it an overflowing stormwater drain or a broken sewage line?
He craned his neck to see outside. His father had just swum beyond the door. His mother waited there, her cheeks bloated like his father’s, her fins more prominent than his.
Something clicked in his head then. His parents were trying to get the flood water out of the house. And here he was, sitting safe and dry on the cot.
He got to his feet and waded out even as he felt gill slits tearing his cheeks. His first instinct was to simply get onto the elevated main road and run to his school. It stood on much higher ground than his home here in Nanibai Chawl, and he’d be safe there. Safe from the flood and this nauseous stench. He could even get his parents to swim to the school.
But just as the thought struck him, a stronger instinct took over. He turned from the door, puffed his face out to stretch the gills, and dove into the corner under his bookshelf. The water level had still not touched the books, thank God! But it was steadily rising, and his parents were too busy trying to keep the deluge from destroying another corner that made up their kitchen.
He opened his jaws wide, took in a mouthful of water, and swam towards the door. His eyes itched with the muddy water. Who knew where it was coming from, but this was not a time to think. As he propelled himself forward with a kick to the floor, he felt his skin become even thinner, and his limbs slowly morphing into fins.
Feeling stronger and lighter, he swam to the elevated road and spewed out the water into the gutter that lined the road. The effort left him drained. He sat on the footpath by the road and looked back in the direction of his house. Scores of people were swimming towards the road, their mouths full of the water they were draining from their homes.
He looked away, stood up and walked down the road, heading away from the chawl. Maybe he would feel better if he could just avoid the sight of the amphibians.
He had walked for a few minutes when he saw a few passersby walking on the other side of the road. People starting their day off early, commuting to work, their offices in places he had only heard occasionally in his parents’ conversations.
Just then, a wave of shame and embarrassment washed over him. What if any of those people saw him? No! No one had to see his gills.
He held his face in his hands. Slowly, he moved his fingers around, frantically searching for the gill slits.
There were none! Instead, his skin was dry and smooth, with just the few tufts of hair on his chin. What had happened? Maybe, as his skin dried, the gills had disappeared too.
But what of his parents? And what of the other people in the chawl? They were all still swimming through their homes and gullies, trying to get the water out. He could not just stay here while they fought the flood.
He turned towards the chawl. This time, as he walked back, his gills reappeared. He did not care if the people on the other side of the road saw his gills.
When he got back to the gutter, the chawl residents were still emptying their mouths, and the water level was lower than before. How was it in his house? He dived into the water and swam towards his house.
The water level kept receding as he swam further, and by the time he saw his home, he was wading in ankle-deep water.
When he entered the house, the floor had dried except for a muddy splotch near the door. His father was mopping the floor, and his mother was putting in place the utensils knocked about by the floodwater.
Their fins had morphed back into arms and legs. Their cheeks had lost their gills. Only then did he realise he could move his fingers freely. He too had gotten back to normal human form.
‘Where had you disappeared?’ his mother asked, flashing her usual teasing smile. ‘Hurry up, you’ll get late to school.’
‘But Ma, what if it rains more heavily?’
‘If it does,’ – the gills reappeared on his mother’s cheeks for a fleeting moment and disappeared – ‘we are ready.’
‘Like we’ve been all these years,’ his father said. ‘All these years?’
Then why didn’t they ever talk about it? Turning into an amphibian, why would anyone hide that?
Of course, parents were weird.
When he reached school, his friends complained about last night. ‘We missed Shaktimaan,’ said Amar.
Ah yes, the rain disrupted the tv signal.
‘We had to abandon the cricket match in our building,’ said Farhan. ‘Stayed indoors all evening.’
‘Same,’ said Prateek. ‘But it was okay. I played chess with my brother. Beat him twice.’
‘Last night,’ Rohit began hesitantly, ‘I turned into an amphibian.’
Prateek laughed. ‘Like a frog?’
The others joined in the laughter.
‘Our friend, the frog prince,’ said Farhan.
Louder laughs now.
‘It’s not like that,’ Rohit said. ‘It rained so heavily last night that—’
That the water flooded my home. Not just my home, my whole neighbourhood. How could he tell them that whenever the skies poured down on them, all the adults in the chawl drained out the murky water from their house, using their mouths as siphons?
‘It rained so heavily,’ he continued, ‘we made up our own water games.’
And right then, he understood why his parents had never talked about their amphibian life.
This was their superpower, yes. But they had to live with it. They had no choice.
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