Finding Nemo

Disclaimer: With this post, comes an end to the "Alive is Awesome" blog series. Also comes the realization that I have ended up writing 8 posts about my bathing, and I wonder how disconcerting that must be, for readers to visualize. Oh please, don't nod your heads so vigorously you… I look quite the Adonis when I have erm stripped to my essentials. Anyway, let’s not bare out such sensitive information here, what I meant to do was thank Cinthol and their creative team for letting us all be part of this experience, they have now given me enough Cinthols to last me for several life times. My bai looks quite shocked to see the pile of soaps and other Cinthol products sitting all over the bathroom shelves, book shelves, kitchen shelves, room shelves. The other goodies, my sister has taken off with, so Cinthol let me know if you want to gift me the Iphone 5, a house, my MBA loan balance amount, and I shall write about my bathing experiences for the next 13 years.  Every day. Post pictures too.

Jokes apart, it’s been a tremendous experience to be part of this campaign. Thank you. 
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“Almost there now”, he said to me. He was quite thin, now that I try to visualize how he looked. Jumping up from my perch, I strode across the length of the ship and stared at the mass of land ahead, just like all sea captains do, puffing out their chests and putting on that nonchalant, conservative glimmer in the eyes.

“Land ahoy”, I muttered to the world in general and marched off importantly, leaving the thin fellow wondering why all tourists were consistently obnoxious. But to be fair to me, it seemed like the right thing to say then.

An hour later, I was moving back into the sea, this time on a smaller dingy boat, the waves flying all around. “Oops”, I blurted. It seemed like the right thing to say then. 

This time around I was wearing a scuba suit.

Earlier in the morning when the sun was yet to come out, we had rushed out of our hotel, and run across the jetty, a fine drizzle helping us hasten to the ticket-office.  “Four tickets, Havelock” Murali panted. A couple of hours’ ship ride from Port Blair, Havelock Island is the pride of discovered Andaman.  Its Radhanagar beach has been voted as Asia’s prettiest, a fact that inspired a surge in google clicks. I haven’t traveled the world, but today Havelock is my favourite place to be in. 

Sharp at 1130 am, we were standing inside the scuba diving school.  The floor was only sand, the dining table an upturned canoe.  “Welcome to Havelock” said Angelo, a wide smile rendering him handsome. As he ushered us to his ‘baby’ – a computer that was so ancient that it seemed to have descended from the middle ages –  and showed us a few diving videos, I realized he was one of those men that you could help but instinctively like.  His eyes twinkled as he made fun of you, he’d laugh warmly if you’d give it back to him and he loved what he did – exploring the sea and showing it to the world. I liked Angelo - our curly haired, dark instructor.

“I am not a great swimmer, you know “, I informed him. “Then we’ll have a little more space on the boat while coming back” pat came the reply.

We rushed into the changing rooms and wore our scuba costumes in excitement. A few moments later, we were all standing outside under the sun in one row wearing, in tight, body-hugging bright yellow-and-black suits, looking like a happy menagerie of exotic African animals.

All diving sessions in Havelock are preceded by a short half-hour training stint in shallower waters in the lagoons.  Once we were there, Angelo taught us the basic communication signs we were to use underwater - how to breathe with our mouths and the oxygen mask.  Finally, we set out for our first real deep sea diving experience in the Indian Ocean. Earlier Angelo had told us how it was absolutely safe inside the water and how marine animals never attacked humans. “What’s that deep scar on your leg?” I screamed over the din of the boat’s motor. “Shark,” he yelled back, helpfully. 

When we were in the middle of the ocean, he stopped the dinghy’s motor and asked us to jump into the water. The blue looked ominous. The fact that there were two trainers, each allotted to a set of two divers did not do much for our confidence.

It is hard to describe how one feels once they are inside the ocean. In the initial moments, all I could do was try to try to focus on my breathing. But soon, the corals appeared out of the darkness, and from their insides, flitted fishes in hundreds, and thousands. Puzzled at this sudden human intrusion, they came out of their homes and inspected us, up and down. Conscious, I put my best angle forward, slicing my hand through water hoping they’d form an honourable impression of me. As it goes, they looked quite disgusted with the effort and left soon, their cute bottoms swaying in the water as they glided away.

Spotting an elephant nose fish, I turned to tell Murali and that’s when I noticed that he was frantically showing the thumbs-up - a sign that he immediately wanted to go to the surface. Our trainer was nowhere in sight. Clumsily, I pushed my way towards my teammate, and pulled him to the surface. “Are you alright,” I gasped as we floated on the water, the water up till my nose. “Oh, I just wanted to burp,” said my friend casually.

If I could, I would have wanted to put a dagger through him right then, but keen observation told me that the sea was pulling me away from the coast. On the surface, I was now finding it hard to pull myself back into a swimming position and though I wasn’t under immediate threat of drowning, with every passing second the coast looked more of a distant speck. It didn’t look very macho, I think, to let that sea play with me such. Then just when I decided that enough was enough and only prayers could now save the day, Angelo emerged from the depths of the sea, just like those heroes do at the exact moment, not a second before.

When I splutteringly demanded of his whereabouts, he told me that he was just checking as to how we’d react under duress. I won’t say much about how I felt then, but as we resumed our dive, some of us were cursing while others guffawed. Once inside though, everything changed for everyone, to happiness. Surrealism finds its best example inside an ocean. It is only when you are there that you realize that there is a world, a life that you have never known of and here inside, you cannot help but feel overwhelmed by it. Everywhere around me there were fish in resplendent hues of orange, yellow, purple and a thousand other colours and my heart sang as we walked on the sea bed, putting out our hands gently to just know them, to feel them. Few sports leave you more humbled. If there is an 'Alive is Awesome' moment, it can't be very different from this. 

I stayed that night in Havelock. It was the only time when I lay on the beach for a whole night.  The next evening, as we left the island, we stood at the deck and stared affectionately at the shore for some time. Somewhere in the water, a little clown fish was telling its father, “Ooooo dad, you know I saw humans today! Isn’t that cool?!”
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More from the Series,

7) A Fishy Affair - Part 2
6) A Fishy Affair - Part 1
3) The Merry Adventures of Hector Narayanan

A night adventure with a Croatian backpacker

“It’s just a little ahead”, he tells me before turning again and walking briskly. A stone slips from under his foot and goes hurtling down the cliff. I try to look down but its too dark and all I see are the waves hitting the rocks.

“I have never swum after drinking, you know” I tell him, laughingly. The next moment I am shaking my head. If I hadn’t laughed, maybe he wouldn’t know that I am nervous. He tells me that I look alright to him and we would be fine. We keep walking.

The path is narrow. And hardly used. Goran claims that no one knows about it. I think no one uses it because it is too steep and one false step, and you fall hundred metres down into the sea.

It’s a full moon night, and the sea looks silver from up where we are. I wonder if I should light a smoke but refrain. The mountain is too beautiful. We keep walking, briskly, but every time I look down at the sea, it still looks as far as it did the last time.

I have always loved the sea, ever since I was a child. The waves, the breeze, the boats on the horizon, they all play their part in giving me peace. I think back over the last few years. Of how life changed, of how it wasn’t meant to. If I am here today, because of what happened two years back. If only things had never changed.  Another side teases me saying that I am acting tipsy. Surely two pints can’t make me introspective. Dear Lord, how we have fallen.  Goran coughs, and my reverie is broken.

I have not known Goran for long. In fact, I know him only for three days. We met on the first night I reached Goa.  He is a traveller from Croatia. I like him. He has been on the road alone for over a year now, and I keep asking him about all the doubts I have of travelling alone myself.  To discover ourselves, sounds like a clichéd line, if not corny. Why should we? We speak of it at length. “It is important you know to be able to be happy, all by yourself”, he tells me, smiling. I wonder if I am. Sure I am, at the surface. I like my work, I have a few good friends, I am happy. But am I? The past comes rushing in, just like the waves that dash against the rocks. The answer hits me like a bolt of lightning.

We have reached the bottom. “There, can you see the caves?” he says, pointing at some dark cliff, along the coastline. I nod my head, and make an approximate calculation of the distance in my head. I have always liked maths. “It’s not high tide yet” , he tells me but I already know that.  I have never swum in a cave before, and I am not a great swimmer. Maybe he is, maybe he’s not.  Why I trust him, I do not know. Maybe because he speaks softly, and makes you feel comfortable. Or maybe because I am willing to try anything these days. I don’t care. It cannot be a good thing, to not care.

A strong breeze is blowing and we run across the water, towards the caves. We yell as we run, and we are the only two people for miles around.  I slip and fall in the water, and a wave sprays my face.  As I laugh and wipe the water off my eyes, I see Goran is much ahead. He does not know I fell. And I know if I hadn’t come to Goa alone, I would never have met him, and never would have been running at 2 in the night towards a cave in the sea. I am beginning to get some more answers now. I get up and run. With every step I take, I am leaving the past behind me. Or am I only trying to outrun it? I don’t yell anymore, I just run with my eyes closed, the water flying off the back of my legs.

We have reached the caves now. They look dark and ominous. “We have got about an hour”, Goran tells me, “after that the tide will come in high.” “We’ll cross the length long before” I tell him and go inside. He laughs and joins me.

When we go inside, the water is higher than our waists. I take a deep breath and put my head inside. It is icy cold. I feel it as it flows from my head to my shoulders to my back. I let go. Goran’s strong and he goes ahead,  in neat knife like strokes. I open my eyes and look at the walls of the cave. The water keeps swooshing to the edges, and here inside the sound is magnified. The water is cold but it feels good on the skin, and I am not thinking anymore.

I float for a while on my back, looking at the ceiling. A bat flies a few feet above us, and maybe it likes this new, strange company. 

What has happened, has. It was beautiful then, and tonight is another day. I have been working too hard these two years, it was important to forget. But maybe working so much wasn't. Maybe I needed this holiday to tell me that, maybe I needed this cave to feel free.

The bat circles around, and so do I, trying to keep our movements synchronous. When it leaves, I turn and go about my own path. I am not trying to outrun anything anymore, I am letting go. I smile, for I don’t feel the water flying off my legs anymore. Swimming here in this cave I am aware of all my senses, aware of myself, aware of the world around me.

Some time that night, I came out of the cave and saw Goran waiting. “Did you like that?” he asks enthusiastically. I smile at him and nod my head.

An Andamanese Affair

I look at him, that massive fellow about whom I have only read so far, and have always wanted to meet. When he’s finally in front of me, all I can do is smile. He looks past me in an absolutely unconcerned manner. He is used to attention, and he’ll happily do without it. “We finally meet, Rajan” I say, hopefully in as less a dramatic manner as possible.

He does not reply.

The history of Andamans has always fascinated me. One night while reading about the islands, I come across the story of its elephants.  ‘The swimming elephants of Andaman’ is the title of the article. Curious, I delve right into it.

The islands have a lot of timber, and in the 70s, the Indian government wanted to procure some of it. But there were no easy ways to transport the timber between the many islands. Soon, elephants were sent over from the Indian mainland, and once trained, they swam between the islands, the timber sitting dry on their backs. Soon came the 90s and an order from the Indian government to stop cutting timber altogether.  The temples of the South are quick to demand the elephants be brought to them. And they are, where they will spend the rest of their lives doing hard work and be meaninglessly dressed up during festivals.

It is during the same time that Rajan is at Havelock Island. The owners from a popular resort, Barefoot, like him and do not want him to be ferried across to the temples. So, they ask his mahout to set him free. The man wants money, tells them that they can have Rajan if they pay for him.

‘How does one set a price for an elephant, any living thing,’ I wonder.

The people at Barefoot do not want to give up. Painstakingly, they write letters to every single person who has, ever, stayed at their resort and ask them to make any kind of contribution, little or big, anything that they can for it would help Rajan. There is an overwhelming response. As it goes, there are nice people all over the world, and money pours in, and Barefoot is able to buy off Rajan.

The article ends by saying that, all that Rajan does these days is roam about Havelock, yawn a lot and eat ‘like an elephant’.  Sometimes, he goes swimming in the sea with people. It is as much of a ‘happily-lived-after’ conclusion as possible.

A year after I read the article, I stand in front of this famous, venerable elephant. I pat his trunk, thinking that delightful display of affection might just make him warm upto me. He raises his trunk and rests it momentarily on my head. Is he trying to bless me? Does he think he’s God? Clearly, all this adulation has gone to his head!  We must stop calling these fellows ‘venerable’, I muse.

We move towards the sea, two girls, me, the mahout and Rajan.  The girls are from Switzerland and they look terribly excited, just to see him. Who am I kidding, I am as excited as they are.

We step into the water, and oddly, it feels cold. Odd, because the sun is beating down mercilessly on this hot October day. But it renders several colours to the sea, and I can see seven different shades of blue and green. I have never seen the ocean as beautiful as that in the Andaman Islands. Rajan waits on the sand, looking right at us as we plunge into the water. Maybe he is judging us, checking if his partners for the day can swim half as well as he can. The mahout does not hurry him, we have already paid the money. What was once a noble motive by Barefoot has now become glaringly commercial.

We play in the water, the two Swiss girls and I. They can’t speak a lot of English so we just laugh a lot. But we are all waiting for Rajan.

And then he comes, putting that first giant foot into the water, as if to part it just like Moses once did. Soon, he’s fully entered into the water. He looks beautiful.

I strike the water furiously, I want to stay ahead of him, see if he can beat me in a race. I look back once, and almost gasp as I see a huge elephant looming over me. He’s catching up fast. I go underwater, and it is as beautiful a sight as it is strange. Watching those giant legs inside water , it is almost as if they were rubber.  It is the most surreal thing ever. I go close and wonder how much more I can. In a moment of weakness, I decide that it is all okay and I go touch his body lightly. He moves on, gracefully. I have stopped swimming now, I just hold on to him and let him guide me wherever he wants to. I have let go of all my fears. He moves on, gracefully.

It is an unexplainable feeling. Here I am, holding onto a beast that can kill me with one sudden movement of his leg. But I feel absolutely secure. I am not even sure if he can feel my miniscule weight tugging on to him, but I feel that he is taking each step carefully, making sure I do not get hurt.  One false movement and I could perhaps die. But the truth is, I have never felt as alive.

It is an unexplainable feeling. This feeling of suddenly being aware of every single sense of yours, and letting go of it, all at once.  It is as if we are the only two beings livng, and everything else, for that moment is inanimate. The truth is, this sudden realization of feeling Alive is awesome. Some day you must try this adventure bathing experience, for there is nothing like it.

Half an hour later, we are all sunning ourselves on the beach. The girls are polite and ask me if I would like to join them for lunch, and I agree.  I drape myself in a towel and we walk up to Rajan. The girls gurgle some sweet nothings to him. I look past them, at the sea, and beyond it. 

There is no sign of the mainland.