Life bustles through the narrow lanes and the pavements where women sit hunched over the basket full of fish. Flies swarm around the dead fish: the rotten ones lay in the corners in heaps. The stench permeates in the salty breeze of sea air; the clutter and the noisy bargain of sellers/buyers engulf the roaring sound of waves that crash the shore intermittently. The foreshore contains layers of soil, black and brown; perhaps, the remnants of shifting oceans that touch the coast at different points. One who lives closer to the sea can see the changes in the rhythmic shifting, the surging tides pulling itself to an abyss and throwing droplets of frothy water towards the sky. It feels as if the sea and sky are in constant connection, where words fail to express their deep longing for each other.
The boatmen anchor their boats and fasten the long net on the poles. It prepares them for another day of fishing and plodding through the water currents. Singing folk songs, they plow the oars downward, cutting the water and moving forward into the depths of the deep blue sea.
Like a painting on canvas, the boats float in the water while the orange globe sits behind on the horizon, and the pelican birds fly in circles in search of the prey. The day ends, the shore crabs retreat into the holes, and the lighthouse signals arrivals and departures, flashing light beams across the watery surface.
The undulated ripples shine in shades of black, sometimes grey. The boats reach the coast and push to their harbored spots, tired of routing and scrubbing the ocean bed- a testimony of the hardships of the courageous fisherman who plays with dangerous brine.
In the rainy season, the clouds rumble, and the downpour makes the ocean restless, evoking memories of thousands of years stored in the serene water. The sea changes form, churns, and spills the venom, swallowing the barren pieces of land. The villages near the sea always fall victim to the angst and the bursting anger; untraced, the hamlets lose their identity. The ocean engulfs the pain, the poverty, the strain, the chaotic life of fishermen, their dreams, and their mundane, unimportant wishes. The waters stand still in silence, eroding the lives of innocent people; does it find fault in their fate or seek revenge begrudgingly for intrusion? The silence is pregnant with words no one wishes to hear. The Psunami rips the earth apart, pulling lives into a vicious, ugly dungeon from where no one has ever walked out alive.
The tides surge, throwing droplets of frothy water toward the sky and connecting with the waterside through the ripples that hit and wet the shore. It laps the sorrow of moments cherished, moments spent, and moments lost. The sands forgive the sins of the ocean and merge again.
The Momma Clan 
Leave a comment