The sands must be still carrying our footsteps, the clouds still heavy with our thoughts. The waves must have gone crazy searching for us, the rains still hoping to hear our laughs...
Why not? That's how we were at the virgin beach, Mandarmoni ... walking, laughing, sometimes lost in thoughts and at other times gone absolutely crazy....
The 4 hrs drive from Kolkata, through great highways, and the narrow broken road of Mandarmoni, could not dampen our spirits. Nor could our absolutely packed in condition in the Tavera, which was carrying 10 of us. However, wondered later, why 4 of us always packed ourselves in the middle row, even before picking up the rest of our friends, when there were many empty seats around ... and it never occurred to anybody! Not even to Aritra, who had to bear much grudges of Shoma and me for fidgeting in his small space allowed to him! The only excuse can be the level of our craziness.
Though we all had been waiting since 6 o'clock in the morning, at different places of the city (again donno why, the car would have taken some time to travel from one place to the other), and though the car was 1 hour late at the first point, yet none of us seemed tired or sleepy. No, we did not play songs in the car during the first few hours. My home-burned CD wasn't in the format that would play there. We rather opted for a chat with breaks provided by Angshuman's some very good and very bad singing.
All contributed to the fun of the journey. We were also occasionally cautioned by him of bathing in the sea at Mandarmoni for in the rainy season (when we went) it was of full of jellyfish that emits a poison 'stricnine' (though later he admitted he was wrong with name of the poison, but certainly not with the poison fact).
At Mandarmoni, our fun knew no bounds. Neither did our craziness. Apart from bathing, what delighted us were striking poses while our friend ‘stricnine’ struggled among the waves to capture shots (for he wasn’t bathing after all). And our falling from the pose at the strike of the waves, when we heard our great pose wasn’t yet captured… But thanks, to him, for all the great moments that he has captured to preserve it in our memorabilia…
Afternoon was the time to let the sea take its toll on our senses. Just to enjoy the sight of the sea and the feel of the breeze… the sound of the sea as if synchronized with the silence of humanity there…
It is so silent that the night would scare you of ghosts if a slight effort had been made to build up an ambience…Likewise, Shoma and me were made the victims. We all gathered in our room at night to share our experiences of ghost stories…And a few of them did it. We, who were never scared of ghosts before, were scared like hell! Each and everything scared us, be it Abhishek’s peeping through the window, or Upal da’s sudden springing up in the climax of his story; though Aritra’s coming with a mouthful of paste foam or Prabal’s thronging out his hand through the window went flop. And after a lot of planning about how to spend the entire night, we kept the entire group awake till 3 am.
Our morning started at 6 am (though Anupam was too angry to be woken up so early after being kept awake till 3 last night). Bright sun greeted us at the beach and then there were no regrets. We heard that there is a river at the far end of the beach. We had started towards it last evening…but a photographic freak of my photographer friends (after all there were 8 cameras with the 10 of us), made our mission late, and then with the rains pouring in it wasn’t completed. So we were determined to reach there the next morning. After a long drive over the beach and it was a superb one, we stopped where the last tyre marks could be seen. A long leisurely walk through the beach, aspersed with red-crabs and shells, could never have been more beautiful. We walked so long that when we looked back to check our car, nothing could be seen but the horizon.
Some water from the ocean came meandering in to the beach. And stepping on the cool water bare-feet was a blissful feeling that perhaps no city spa could give. After walking for a few more miles, we reached the heaven we had set out for. The beach had ended, there was a beautiful narrow river flowing into the sea, the green trees a bit far away on the other side, making the horizon seem much nearer. The soft kiss of the sunlight only on the trees far away made them appear greener. We sat under the shade of the clouds, by the edge of the river and perceived with an unquenchable thirst the aesthetic beauty of the scene.
After touching the lonely horizon, after walking through the salty beach, after dreaming and singing our heart’s desire, after dancing to its rhythm, it was finally time to retrace our steps.
And so we left that world, with all its sublimity untouched, but carrying with us a cavalcade of memories, that a slight touch of it gifted us.
