Prologue:
They say, never argue with idiots, because they’ll first bring you down to their level of intellect and then defeat you with sheer experience!!! You lose!
The day had been tiring, to say the least. In the last 6 hours I had already developed a err..a rather intimate relationship with the toilet. It was similar to the one that the loose motion had developed with my sphincter muscles. It was when the count of the number of tiles on the bathroom walls tallied with that of the previous visit, that I finally insisted on staying back while the rest of my folks took a tour of the northern fringes of one of the most beautifully exotic places that there can be, Goa.
The rest of the morning was busy but boring. By half past four I had had a bland lunch, completed the local bulletin, watched a documentary, taken a nap and more importantly the now-so-important muscles had started holding again. So I WAS prepared to spend the evening sitting inside watching television, in a place such as Goa…..
By the time I had put on some clothes, popped in another pill, called my folks and vacated the apartment it was quarter to five!!!
Luckily the apartment that housed us was only half a km from the nearest beach, Miramar. In another ten minutes I had left the pavement and entered the beach premises. About a km of soft sand now separated me from the waters. The first thing that struck me that night was the fact that there were a lot more people around than I had seen on my previous visits. I continued walking in my lazy stupor; killing the distance one step at a time….
Every beach looks its best at dusk…. And Miramar didn't disappoint.
The light breeze got stronger with ever step and the light thinned by a fraction every second second. Unlike the other overtly overcrowded beaches in Goa, the perennially near-empty Miramar somehow always held its own to me. This is one of the reasons why I rate it my all time favourite. Finally, I chose my spot some five or six meters from the water and settled down.
The beach calms me down, every time…..it sooths the frayed nerves and always gives me some new ideas to ponder over and take back home... every one of them……I had to take out the ice-cream before it melted on its own, before I was gone too far to remember. I felt like a spoilt child …..
A lone trawler (perhaps returning after the day’s work) was all that looked solid in the never ending stretch ahead.
Just ahead of me were a young couple trying to break the ice between their child and the sea. By the look of it I could judge that neither had met the other before. There was fear on the child’s face but the little waves remained patient and enduring. As the little man struggled to keep dry even as the father tried to immerse its little legs in the little waves, one such little wave touched my feet …..as if to wake me up from the trance. The waters had advanced while I had been lost.
When the trawler finally cut the setting Sun’s path I could feel goose bumps intercepting my insanity. Unadulterated emotions are exceptionally evanescent!
By the time my gaze strayed back to the nuclear unit, the child was on his own now. It now stood like a Colossus, proudly resting the little hands on the little waist, the little waves flowing peacefully under the little legs as the proud parents stood at an arms length, beaming. The ice-cream stick was now completely dry; I buried it in the sand.
I found myself staring at nothing in the distant nothingness….. this was the second time it happened today …. Whenever this happens, it’s a signal that the job is done and my time is up…. time to go.
I got back on my feet; my trousers were now wet at the back, the sand would remain adhered to it for a while. The walk back would be longer.
When I turned my head to look back, one last time, I couldn’t locate the trawler. It was gone, so were most of the people on the beach.
Epilogue:
“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. I’d be hoping that …….” ( The Shawshank Redemption )
