The Last Wave

Book excerpt: The definitive book on the Andaman IslandsEver the aimless drifter, Harish finds the anchor his life needs in a chance encounter with members of the ancient - and threatened - Jarawa community: the 'original people' of the Andaman Islands and its tropical rainforests. As he observes the slow but sure destruction of everything the Jarawa need for their survival, Harish is moved by a need to understand, to do something. His unlikely friend and partner on this quest is Uncle Pame, a seventy-year-old Karen boatman whose father was brought to the islands from Burma by the British in the 1920s. The islands also bring him to Seema, a 'local born' - a descendant of the convicts who were lodged in the infamous Cellular jail of Port Blair.As many things seem to fall in place and parallel journeys converge, an unknown contender appears: the giant tsunami of December 2004. The Last Wave is a story of lost loves, but also of a culture, a community, an ecology poised on the sharp edge of time and history.