Wondrous waves: Smile for a sea of pleasant reasons
The sea manifests exuberance of life in all its facets, bringing about a sense of vitality and bliss. To spend hours in silence, beholding the extensive expanse of turquoise waters was my idea of heaven when I visited the Rameshwaram Jyotirlinga in Tamil Nadu.
The sprawling spread and magnanimous magnitude of the sea had hypnotic attributes, cocooning me momentarily from mundane trials. Reading between the lines of the countless waves coming to life in automated succession, cresting high before breaking on the shore, apparently mirrored the life of each one of us born as an infant, rising to our youth and eventually dropping dead to lose our existence forever.
The spectacle exhibited a perfect setting to let my imagination venture into fanciful domain, where my mind felt like being swept out to sea by a wave gently curling into an arched form. I wistfully wished to put on a snorkel and replace my slippers with flippers to dive headlong into deep waters to marvel at the underwater marine life besides exploring unspoilt offshore coral reefs.
At another moment, my inventive subliminal senses magically modified my arms into wings to fly over the glittering canvas of water to relish the breathtaking views of fjords, highlands, take a refreshing break under a cove before navigating my way through a maze of icebergs with no clear end in sight but a set of whales breaching in the distance with a swarm of seagulls playfully circling overhead.
Not without reason has the sea been inspiring scientists and spiritual seekers in their respective outer and inner quests. For pen-pushers, it’s been an ideal muse to quench their creative thirst or unlock the writer’s block. Time and again, even song writers have fallen prey to its enchanting enigma, penning a gamut of human emotions.
Accustomed to raucous honking, my eardrums had a whale of a time listening to the rhythm of waves smashing into haphazard piles of boulders along the coastline, creating instant foams of white spumes from ashes of the dying waves. Watching the gradually changing grade of the sky melting into the sea with silhouettes of ships in the horizon during sunset was my favourite surreal landscape.
Having had therapeutic benefits for both body and mind, walking barefoot across the damp golden sands stretched miles upon miles appeared to my rose-tinted eyes more like a splendid carpet rolled out by Mother Nature.
Sheltered from public gaze, the soft sandbank prompted me to improvise a nib out of the tip of my toe to chalk out the name of an ex-lover only to see it wash away with an ebbing wave. The impression of the pair of my footprints trailing my path was reminiscent of a memorable time spent in my own company on a journey of introspection.
The consummation of my journey happened with a visit to former President APJ Abdul Kalam’s home, where among his impressively displayed memorabilia, my gaze caught a plain thought of our Bharat Ratna: I love the sea. It was indeed worthy of eliciting a smile for a sea of pleasant reasons.
NOT WITHOUT REASON HAS THE SEA BEEN INSPIRING SCIENTISTS AND SPIRITUAL SEEKERS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE OUTER AND INNER QUESTS