Tuesday 5 October 2021

The Sea and I

Agatti, Lakshadweep


N Ikka points at the stars ahead. There are three big ones vertically aligned. He says we need to head in the stars’ direction. The sky is inky black, thousands of stars strewn across its vastness. The boat jumps along with the waves as we hold on to the plank we are sitting on. The excitement of being on a fishing boat at night dies down eventually and wonder replaces it. Our whispered conversation ebbs, and F and I just sit there in silence.

The faintest of light appears in the eastern sky, and slowly one by one the stars acknowledge the presence of the approaching sun and begin to recede. In the semi-darkness, much before dawn, F nudges me and points to the back of the boat. Under a still bright crescent moon with a shining star above it sat a fisherman on his mat facing west, deep in prayer. Around us is the silence of the vast ocean.  

__________________________

The sun is high in the sky and beating down unrelenting. The sea is indigo blue. I wonder how the fishermen can see through the dazzle of the noon sun. I am wearing my sunglasses, yet squinting through it. But their gaze is fixed scanning the surface of the sea for signs of tuna shoals around. There seems to be none, as we keep going further out into the sea. The live bait fishing early morning was full of excitement for me. It was routine work for the 11 fishermen on the boat. Though they are not, I feel tired and doze off under the shade near the bait fish tank. MK wakes me up with one word – Dolphins.

In one-tenth of a second, I am at the bow of the boat peering down at the blue water. There, just next to our boat, on both sides, are about twenty or thirty dolphins swimming along. So close, I could have touched them if my arms were a little longer. Sharp and sleek bodies moving as fast as the boat. Suddenly, they all move away together. Just as I am thinking that the show is over, they return jumping and frolicking. I want to jump in, touch them, feel them, swim with them, say a big thank you for being with us humans for so long. A few minutes later, they disappear leaving me wondering if it was all real or just magic.

__________________________

It’s my last day on the island. I am standing at the edge of the eastern jetty, the deepest blue sea spread ahead of me. There’s something different about the current today. Or so I feel. Small eddies form below the jetty and I can see a shoal of a deepest blue fish. There’s a stillness in the air, a rise in humidity. A sign that a thunderstorm and rains are approaching. I stand there under the afternoon sun in awareness of the ocean that is breathing, ebbing and flowing, in a beautiful dance with the moon. This is where life started, billions of years ago - in the womb of the Earth. I had lived for 12 years in a coastal city, but it is here that I experience her magnanimity and strength. I turn back, forever changed.  


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