A Walk To Remember

(People who know me well and are aware of my obsession with the movie having the same title, please don't stop reading! this is not a review ... In fact, it has no connection whatsoever with the movie!)

I look up and down the beach. The sand seems to stretch on both sides till as far as I can see. Near the entrance to the beach, a band is performing with a dj rocking the huge crowd collected there with foot-tapping hindi and bhangra numbers. A little away, football and volleyball matches are going on with a crowd of spectators cheering the players to "go for it!" I turn away from the crowd and look at the sea. The brilliant orange glare from the setting sun hits my eyes and i close them shut, only to open it immediately. "What the heck!" I mutter to myself and stare at the ball of fire. I want to look at the sun "in the eye". I close my eyes after sometime and stare for a while at the burning coals formed in the dark coolness of my eyelids. I look back at the dancing and playing crowd and contemplate. Everyone seems to be having a good time. I wonder whether I should go and join them and dance to the tune of "khalbali eh khalbali". I decide against it. I just dont feel like going there.I start walking up the beach. The sand stretches out ahead of me and I keep walking. Taking a step a second... strolling more so. Something near my foot gleams in the sun. I bend down and pick up a broken seashell. I admire the pretty pattern on the fragile piece of calcium in my hand and look down again. Another shell is lying near this one. An unbroken piece of a different color. With a different pattern on it. I pick it up too. And the next. And the next. For almost three years, I have been visiting this beach almost every week, and I have never observed the shells strewn everyone. Soon my hands are filled with shells of all sizes, shapes, textures and colors. Big ones, little ones, pure white, off-white, brown, orange, bluish... I flop down on the sand and put the heap of shells down. I pick up a particularly beautiful one. White blending into green blending into blue and then a brilliant peacock blue. I just stare at the intricate pattern and brilliant colors and sigh. With admiration. What beauty. I put my new found treasures into my pocket, stand up and start walking again, my mind still full of admiration for the delicate beauty in my pocket. Whatever man may achieve, he'll never be able to recreate Nature, her beauty, her splendor, her sophistication. I keep walking. My mind goes blank for sometime, void of all thought. Then suddenly, there is a rush of thoughts, all kinds of thoughts. Funny isn't it?! For a moment, I just cant think of anything and the next moment, torrents of thoughts are just flooding my mind. I guess it is just that man is so used to being with people all around him all the time, that when he is alone, even for a few seconds, he doesn't know what to do for a moment. I just push aside all these thoughts and look ahead. I want to be there in this moment, not think about something which has already taken place or is going to happen soon. I stare at a set of footprints going all the way up the beach. I remember H.W Longfellow's immortal words:

"Lives of great men remind us,
That we can make our lives sublime;
And departing, leave behind us,
Footprints in the sands of time."

I smile to myself as I look at the track the foot prints have made. I start walking along it. I reach a point where the waves have almost washed out the footprints. Faint imprints are all i can see on the glassy, wet sand. "Footprints in the sands of time eh?" I smile again. Our existence is so ephemeral. The "ephemera" or the fire-fly may get a few hours to live and we, a few decades, but in the grand order of things, both amount to just a moment. Just a moment. We are so insignificant, so unimportant. Standing on the cool wet surface, I stare at the sea. White capped green waves come rushing towards me. And they recede, merging into the next one which is rushing towards the shore and mitigating its ferocity. I stare at the sky. The sun is all set to take the final dip into the molten gold sea. The blue sky is streaked with orange, yellow, red, pink and gold. The usually white clouds are puffs of orange scattered in the sky. The liquid gold near the horizon bobs up and down, as if enticing the sun to take the plunge earlier than he intends to. And the sun goes deeper and deeper into the water till he finally is no longer visible. The sky starts darkening. Black starts percolating into all the brilliant hues darkening them with each passing second. Another day is over. And so much beauty surrounds the death of another day. I turn and start walking back. I stare at my footprints and wonder. How long will they remain there. Maybe till the next huge wave comes along and almost wipes them out. Then, a couple more of huge ones and they will all be washed out. I trek back to the point where I started. The bhangra music gets louder. Now the entire area has been lit up and I can see people dancing in the distance. I see my friend waving from the distance and beckoning to me. I wave back and sigh. I have no choice but to get back there. I turn back and give the darkened sand and sea one last glance and start traipsing back towards all the din. My quiet speculative time is over. Well, i guess there's nothing so remarkable about this particular walk, but it is still so remerkable. Nothing spectacular or anything, but still so spectacular. Nothing great, but still something so wonderful.
"Where were u all this while?" my friend asks as soon as I am within talking distance. "We've been having so much fun here, dancing! you missed all of it!"
"I was just walking along the beach" I say.
"That u could've on done any other day na? There will be no music here tomorrow. Too bad u missed it... It's almost over!" my friend says.
"No da... i haven't missed anything!" I smile and turn away. My friend is wrong. I haven't missed anything. Not even the music and the dancing. The thundering waves rushing to kiss the shore is beautiful music to my ears. As for dance, can there be anything as graceful as the eagles swirling and riding on the wind or anything more attractive and enticing than the ripples bobbing up and down dancing to the tune of celestial music which falls on our ears too, but that which we choose to ignore?! I've just had the time of my life there, I've had a walk to remember!

Saarang... a flash of colors!

I was sitting on my bed, with great difficulty actually, fidgeting, waiting for the message which would tell me i could leave my room and head for the bus stop. Two of my friends Varun and Shashank and I were leaving to Chennai at four to attend the cultural fest of IITM - Saarang! and the train was at 4 from Mangalore. and it was already two thirty! with just one and a half hours left for that train, i couldn't take it any more! i sent Varun a message.. "Wru da?" the message read.. and got a prompt reply a minute later.. " leaving in ten min da.. will tell u when to leave".. grrr! trust guys to leave their packing to the very last minute!! here i was all packed since the previous night and these guys had left their packing to the nth moment!! i had been in this state for ten minutes waiting for a message from Varun and he says ten min more! I had even attended math class till two pm (which incidentally, Varun had bunked to get done with his packing!) to keep my excitement in control! Well, i couldn't take it any longer.. i donned my cap, bade farewell to my dear roomie Ro and was off... i reached the bus stop on NH 17 just outside the campus and waited.. and waited.. and waited! after what seemed like eternity, i spotted the duo coming towards the bus stop... finally! it was 2:50 p.m.. well, with the wonderful condition of NH 17, we would be cutting it very fine indeed, i thought! we clambered onto the next express bus that stopped and finally, we were off!!

I was levitating (pun intended.. my buoyant, bubbling spirits and also that the road's condition was well... hope u got the point!). well, after a dusty, bumpy ride we were at the bus stop closest to the station... 3:30 p.m.. phew! i heaved a sigh of relief! we started trekking down the road that would take us to the station when Varun said, "let's eat something! i'm hungry.. skipped lunch!". The "WHAT??!! u crazy??!! we're late!!" that had formed in my mouth changed into "WH..okay!". well, it was Varun who wanted to eat, and seeing him even the most heartless person wouldn't say no when he said he wanted to eat! "Guys!!" i thought and crossed the road to SKY bakers where the duo with me ordered black forest cake(which Shashank still maintains it wasn't!) and some tender coconut drink (which looked like milk with transparent jelly floating in it and tasted pretty weird), while i loitered around admiring a log shaped chocolate cake! we then set off to the station and boarded the chennai express scheduled to leave in ten minutes! i almost choked with excitement for it had been a long time since i had travelled by train!

cooo.... chuk buk, chuk buk, chuk buk!
chuk buk, chuk buk, chuk buk!!

the train was finally off and i could've screamed with joy! u must be thinking i am nuts to get hyper over one train journey, but no! Believe me, travelling by train is really a HUGE treat, especially for someone like me who travels by bed-bug infested "deluxe" buses to and from bangalore every time i go home for the hols just because there's no train from bangalore to mangalore! we had the whole coupe to ourselves! yippee! well, after some arbit talking about this and that, Shashank dug into his bag for his camera (gulp!), and started photographing the beautiful scenes outside.. we had just crossed the border into Kerala and well, whoever has coined the phrase "God's own country" hasn't done it without a reason! the beauty outside was breathtaking! the lush green fields, the still blue waters with just one boat right in the middle with the fishing net cast, the endless groves of coconut trees... beautiful! Shashank then turned his attention inside (gulp!) and i stared, scared stiff at the lethal instrument in his hand.. his camera! well, i'm very photophobic (or photograph-phobic.. whatever u wish to call it) cos i think i'm the most unphotogenic person ever, and when those two realized that, well, i was flailing my hands all around me and turning my face away from the camera but still got caught! well,i guess i'll just skip the finer details!

As the train puffed on, Varun fished out a pack of cards and beamed. i smiled back and said, "Well, you'll have to teach me how to play first... i haven't played before.."
Varun stopped shuffling the cards and stared at me.... "Hmmm... ok" was all he could manage to say, while Shashank gasped "Why ya? you've never played cards before eh?" i shook my head. "Why? u think it's gambling eh?" he said and laughed... I just kept mum and listened attentively while they introduced me to the exciting world of cards.. just 52+2 cards and a hundred million games using them! wow!! Before long, i had mastered a couple of games and actually went on to win the second game of bluff (well, it ain't difficult for a quick learner and a natural liar like me!! he he!!).
Well, nothing much about the rest of the journey that day...it just went by pretty uneventfully while we munched biscuits and discussed a wide range of topics including who's going out with whom, room mates back in the hostel, some e-business thingy someone in our year was successfully running and raking in lakhs and verbally abusing aishwarya rai for her jodi with ab's baby!Varun didn't spare arindham chaudhary too, for god knows what reason and cursed himself for having bought a business magazine of his before boarding the train! finally some people entered our coupe, a family actually, and the dear papa was reeking of alcohol! yuck!! the three of us just looked at each other and agreed that the upper berths were the best places for us now. We clambered onto them, bade each other a "good night and sweet dreams!" i just went over the day in my head and smiled to myself.. it had been a great day and better days were still to come... my smile grew wider... :) then, lying on the upper berth of a train, i shut my eyes ready to board the train that would take me to the land of dreams! :)