What I wrote after visit to Kovalam Beach in December 2002
I went to the beach one day. Clear skies coupled with a warm weather. I strolled to the water, wanting to feel the lapping of the waves on my feet and pulling of the sand under me as it goes back to where it came from. My heart still gives me a jump, every time that happens. It feels like the ground is giving away and I am going to be buried in pit of sand and water. I ran my eyes around the beach, looking at people laughing and splashing about in the water, or just content in having a nap beneath a parasol. Varied people, same place... looking for the same thing... to reprieve from the daily humdrum of life. Not having the inclination or the company to exercise the first option, I settled for the second.
I selected a quiet place for myself beneath one of the palms and stretched myself to full length in the sand. My skin felt the sand beneath me, grainy and warm, as my thoughts started to drift. Life was being pretty tough and a lot of events in the recent past had left me with sour feelings. I had to deal with a lot of hurt, anger, sadness and self-pity in varying proportions. While I was dwelling such in my thoughts, I caught sight of a couple walking along the length of the shore. The man seemed quite grumpy, and kept mumbling to himself all the time. He would take one hard look at the sky, as if he were blaming someone in his mind’s eye, and then look back down and mumble again. He hardly looked in any other direction. The woman was far from being in a gray mood. She was looking around in the sand, shuffling it with her feet. Sometimes, she would stoop to pick up something, a shell I guess, and pocket it. She would take a look at the man to see if he was tagging along, and then go back to looking around for more to add to her collection. I smiled to myself. Quite a company they were to each other! Something about the woman made me feel happy.
It felt like things happening to us weren’t that bad after all. At least not bad enough to make us stop looking around to derive simple pleasures in life, like collecting seashells. For a moment it looked like our entire lives spent, was just like a day spent on the beach. Waves of events and happenings keep hitting our shores all the time. While some bring in filth, some bring in seashells. Its left to us as to what we choose to pick from the shores after the waves have departed. We can either grumble and mumble about the matter left behind, or we can go about collecting seashells, and then wait for the next wave to bring in some more. For there is not a shore where there is no waste being brought in, nor is there a shore without seashells. I just got up and started walking along the beach, looking for seashells.
