A Thing of Beauty…

I got a chance to explore the beaches of Mumbai and Goa last week. After 12 years, I saw the seas. They all were beautiful, serene. But Calangute beach, Goa had something special in it. I just can not explain what.

 

I was walking with my group to reach the beach. We walked from Baga to Calangute. All tired and exhausted, I saw the sparkling sun upon the white roaring waves. I stopped there and watched waves coming towards me for several minutes. It was such a feast to my eyes! Not that I had not seen sea or waves earlier, I had just returned from Baga. But those waves… They were different. So different that they held my gaze. So mystique that they reminded me of someone I love. So divine that they made my heart laugh. So peaceful that they brought me a persistent smile. I could not take my eyes off them. I wanted to run to the sea and touch the bubbling waters. But I simply could not move. My eyes wanted to capture every moment of the dancing sea. I kept looking at it like forever.

My happiness was boundless. I was content. But the sea had planned more. It washed my feet. I was literally moved the first time I felt the cold saline water of calangute on my body. Like a magnet, I was pulled to play with the never ending sea. I don’t remember what I thought after that. I was so busy playing with the waves that I forgot who I am, why I was there and what I was doing. I simply played with waves with a blank mind. Tiny, huge, strong, weak waves! And, I knew I was witnessing the most beautiful thing on earth. Then, in my blank mind, Keats sketched some beautiful lines from his poem Endymion:

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness…”

The Butterfly

Pale street lights smirked at her as she walked down the heavily congested traffic on that wide road. Bikers sped past her between those screaming big cars. Night was quickly crawling in. She was dryly immersed in frustration. She blinked and walked endlessly. All she could see was apparitions of the noise on that road and bokeh of lights coming and going. She allowed herself to dissolve into the surroundings; into the dusk to color the approaching night. But, the night had planned something else.

Round a bench near the wide road, she sat to close her eyes. Then, she visualized, Cosmic rays of colored lights flirting with each other in a galaxy of zillions of twinkling stars in a no-human space. Aura of life sans air; one butterfly hovered. It was a beautiful greenish-blue butterfly. With enormous wings of freest winds. The dust of blueness showered down every time it fluttered its wings. A very rare delight to human vision. It had wide green circular eyes. They twinkled whenever it laughed. And, then came its long slender torso. Striped blue dipped in green with black horizontal lines all over the breast. Beautiful Butterfly!

Merchants of soul came along, gathered the dust, touched it, saw it and went away. It fluttered more and more people came to gather the blue rare dust. And, went away. It saw people coming and going, and laughed at them. For the butterfly knew, it was just the dust. Packets of worthless particles colored in blue! The butterfly happily gave away the worthless dust of the conflicting wings of freest winds. Laughing and fluttering each day.

But a billow of swine broke into the hurricane of cosmic rays one dismayed day. They killed the beautiful butterfly. Stabbed her in her slender body many many times, to death. To death, it laughed again. It laughed so hard that her visualization dissolved slowly into reality. Slowly.

Then, she opened her eyes and some salty water got poured out. Slowly, the scene cleared in front of her. The same bench, wide road, noisy traffic, apparition of an unknown crowd, pale street lamps and she. She stood up and walked back to her place.

Divine Dark

 

A little balcony of breeze,

sings a sonorous swing of silence,

the monotony dives into a divine darkness!

Away O’moon!  O’ dear stars;

Let the dark soak me today.