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EXPERIENCE

Black Marigolds in Steinbeck's country

JANARDHAN ROYE

John Steinbeck's tragicomic classic Cannery Row comes alive during a visit to Monterey Bay.

Photo: Janardhan Roye

Captain Bullwacker's Restaurant: Was this Dora's Bear Flag Restaurant?

"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, `whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches', by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, `Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men', and he would have meant the same thing."

NOBEL laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck's introduction to Cannery Row (1945) is on a metal plaque at San Carlos Beach Park, Monterey Bay, California. As I read it, a chilly September wind swept the waterfront street.

This was once the bustling hub of the West Coast's fishing industry. The Fisherman's Wharf facing me was dreadfully deserted. Empty boats bobbed in the harbour. In the distance seals barked and above sea gulls complained. The scene was vastly different in the 1930-40s when sardine-laden boats pulled in to cheerful welcome and the beach seethed with much noisy activity.

Richly textured

The richly textured Cannery Row captures such moods and feelings of the people who inhabit `the sardine canneries, vacant lots, flophouses, and honky-tonks of Monterey' during the Great Depression. The book's leading character, the highly-respected marine biologist Doc combines `quiet stoicism and compassion' towards those in need.

Cannery Row ends with a hauntingly beautiful and exquisite love poem from first century Kashmir, "Black Marigolds", translated from the Sanskrit Chauraspanchasika. It tells of a poet's love for a princess. When discovered, he is confined to prison from where he writes the poem. Steinbeck wrote the tragicomic classic using real people and places as fodder.

From MacAbee Beach, I turned to Cannery Row where there were once fourteen canneries. My ambling brought me to #653 Cannery Row, Captain Bullwacker's Restaurant. Was this where Dora had her Bear Flag Restaurant — the cathouse back in 1929? Though the "Bear Flag Building" and "1929" signs are there, the bordello is really further down at #799 where Mackeral Jack's is located. I passed #835, the Wing Chong Market, and reached #851, La Ida' Café — now Kalisa's Coffee house. Near there a window had a large portrait of Edward Flanders Robb Rickettes — `Doc'.

Rickettes had worked the Great Tide Pool of the West Coast. His book Between Pacific Tides (1939), resulted in promoting modern marine biology. Steinbeck, who was born in nearby Salinas, met him in a dentist's waiting room. They shared a common interest in marine biology and became close friends.

The previous morning we had driven from San Francisco, passing Silicon Valley to get to Monterey Bay. Butterflies, black-plumed cormorants and pelicans soaring above the shoreline and cool, pine grove and misty bluffs met the eye at this pristine seaside haven.

In the distance, at a beach known as Lover's Point, there were wet-suited surfers. We were returning after a round at the windy Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Links. There are breathtaking vistas at every hole and the Point Pinos Lighthouse, on the 16th, is the oldest continuously operating beacon on the West Coast.

Berwick Park is on the three-mile stretch of Ocean View Boulevard. The waterfront has rocky promontories, cliff-hugging trees and a jagged shoreline. On the Monterey Peninsula Trail, roller-bladers, joggers, bikers and double-bicycles alike populate the curving, paved path.

Array of marine life

Monterey Bay is renowned for its mind-boggling array of protected marine life including spectacular fluorescent organisms. Seabirds, seals, bottlenose dolphins and porpoises can be seen. Otters come up to the craggy shores with fish or a crustacean to crack open on the rocks. And each year a variety of sea lions and whales pass through on their annual migration.

The Bay's blue expanse teems with an `unsurpassed explosion of life': 26 species of marine mammals, 94 species of seabirds, 345 species of fish, four species of turtles, 31 types of invertebrates, and 450 species of large marine algae.

During the Pleistocene epoch, giant bison, sabre tooth tigers and mammoths roamed the peninsula. The Monterey Cypress tree, a relic of that period, still exists today. The unfriendly environment created by modern man now threatens the California condor, which survived the Ice Age.

The Museum of Natural History is renowned for its fascinating exhibits of rare and unusual marine and bird life. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is the showplace for creatures of the 5,300-acre Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. It holds 3,00,000 marine plants and animals, and three-story high giant kelp forests are its top attractions.

The original inhabitants of Monterey Peninsula, the Ohlone Indians, who lived in the area between 12,000 and 2,000 B.C., were the earliest observers of the cold, deep-ocean water that brought bottom-dwelling creatures and vegetation up to the surface. European contacts brought not just disease but also a brutality that literally decimated these gentle people.

In the late 1800s, Cantonese Chinese fishermen set up a village on the shores of Monterey. Most of the catch was dried for markets in San Francisco and China. When railroads became available, they sent large quantities of fresh fish to San Francisco. These industrious fisher folk used gill nets and efficient fishing techniques, and became the first to commercialise the fishing industry.

The fishing village, now the Hopkins Marine Station, became the second largest Chinese settlement on the West Coast. This settlement dispersed after a 1906 fire and when the growing sardine canning industry moved out.

The tiny, blue-collar town of Monterey Bay today has evolved into an exciting up market tourist and holiday destination. People throng the Fisherman Wharf, art galleries, wax museum, wine tasting rooms, factory outlets, and so on. There are great hotels and quaint inns and gourmet restaurants offering a broad range of cuisine including tandoori/Indian. Scores of anglers and boat owners hang out here. Commercial boats provide deep-sea fishing and underwater excursions along the coast.

Amid all these pleasure activities, Steinbeck and Rickettes' pursuits and holistic ecologist ideas have blossomed into centres of world-class marine biology research and eco-studies.

As we left Monterey and hit the highway, in my mind's eye I could see the two friends, sitting on a sultry day on the shore, drinking chilled beer and dissecting Black Marigold and its appropriateness and relevance to Cannery Row.

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