The shifting Sundarban

Namita Kayal was born near Satjelia, an island in the Sundarban in West Bengal, to a family who worked as farmers. Born in a Muslim para (neighbourhood), Namita says she was not allowed to continue her studies after the fourth grade, and married very early. She was just twelve years old when she moved to her in-law's house in Satjelia, a few kilometres away from her family house. Her husband frequently went into the forest with his brother to fish. Several years went by. One afternoon while she was cooking, Namita was suddenly informed about her husband's death due to a tiger attack. At the time, she was only 19 and already had two children – a son and a daughter.  Her brother-in-law, who was fishing with her husband at the time, also lost his life in the attack. Namita's sister-in-law Anita now lives with her granddaughter, Sampriti Kayal, in the Sundarban.

Sampriti's parents are construction workers in Tamil Nadu, having moved there soon after cyclone Aila occurred in May 2009, as there was no work available in the region. Cyclone Aila devastated West Bengal, leading to flooding, heavy crop loss and damaged houses, with at least 191 people losing their lives and hundreds of thousands rendered homeless. Just when they were planning to move back to the Sundarban to start a small business, the region was hit by another massive storm – cyclone Amphan, in May 2020. The couple had to invest the money they had saved for their business to reconstruct their homes, which were flattened by the storm. The Kayals' story highlights the precarity of families living in the Sundarban, with increasingly frequent storms impacting their lives in unforeseen ways.