Hmm..

I really did not what to name this one..I was just thinking about home and I realised suddenly that I was purring softly Hmm. So translated it to the title.

One thing that can never be beat by anything else is the beach. Living on the edge would not mean anything else. We live right by the brink of the sea. A walk of 10 minutes , 1 minute as the crow flies. Thats all. We had all along our lives right from my great grand father's sojourn at chennai which later drove us in droves to Chennai imagined it to be placid creature uncapable of anything other than mildly lapping at the shores.

The december 2004 Tsunami proved us wrong. If I had been in America then, I would have panicked like mad. Calls placed frantically, running around trying to located friends and relatives. But I was in India and in Triplicane when diaster struck. The first throes were people totally disoriented. It was something really unimaginable. They had mapped out the sea. They fished. They salted. They lived. They existed by her shores. She was their Goddess. Merciful and bountiful, She fed them, clothed and made them human. But suddenly she released Her wrath at those She had loved dearly. Mistrust grew. They Her trust no longer.

What happened that day was utterly unimaginable. The sea. My sea. The long hours I had spent on her shores building castles, playing frisbees, bajji, manga, playing catch with the waves..

The moment we knew there was a tsunami, a morbid curiosity arose in us to see the extended shoreline. Knowing not what nature had in store, we rushed to the spot. Man!! I can never ever describe the scene. The shore actually extended to somewhere till Vivekanadar Illam. Dead and despairing on one side. The fisher folk altogether almost erased from the shores.

That day shall remain evergreen in my mind.

As a child, all I thought of the sea was She was of the beautiful blue I loved. She threw bubbles at me, for me to catch and delighted young and old alike. Long walks, confidences with my father( I took an eraser from balaji today, I stole an appam from the plate before offering it to Ummachi. Will God punish me for biting Vinod? My math marks..Boo Hoo.).

As I grew older, She conjured up images of visions and shores far off. I pictured myself walking to Orissa just by walking along the shores. Patha Yatra. I pictured setting sail on a big ship to Singapore. All books I read spoke of treasures under the sea. I literally used to believe that there were galleons ad galleons of Spanish gold buried for me to find. I became a marine off shore explorer. Attired in the heavy robes and cast into the depths in a bathyscape. Found gold mines and diamonds and jewels under the sea.

Older I became, when my thoughts took a more mature turn. I would picture Vivekanandar returning from America and prostating on the Indian soil. Of thousands of speeches that had been heard here before Independance.

Still I grew when I realised that before Her I was puny. As puny as the smallest microbe to the biggest whale. She could capture me and hold me in ferrets for as long as She deems to. The necessary and sufficient(I had a math quiz this morning!!) condition to disprove the hypothesis that Man reigns supreme in this world. There is no God. Yes. But there is the sea.

Man. His immense ego as The Creation.

All brought to dust that one morning when at last I learnt that she could and would kill. My love for the sea is now more poignant. I cry when I feel Her. Her cruelty that day that forever separated me from Her. That She like the whimsical man and his supreme ego showed the world what She could do. Showed my world.

The thin line that had separated my friends from danger that day. They were to play a match on the beach that morning. So many other unfortunte kids. Girls collecting sea shells. Beggars who have nowhere else to go. All those She embraced.

The last time I went to the beach was on that day. I left India bound for America. No. Not by my childhood dreams. I flew. This time when I returned to Madras, I felt the need for inner peace. My quiet insecurities made insignificant by the sound of wind, the salt laced air. All that reminds me that in all corners of the Universe, things obviously far far bigger than whether I got A in System Optimization were going on.

As I stood gazing to the far shores..I cried as Legolas did.

In land shall no longer your heart rest..If the cry of the gulls you heard.

The sea. The sea.

I own the dead man's chest now.