A Final Dash (Part III)

Catamaran, bus and then an auto took us to what I can say was the smallest and the most serene village I have ever been to. You can count the number of houses (or huts) on your finger tips. It was a small, winding road which led us to Shree resort. The road was soo narrow, it could not accommodate two vehicles side by side. The houses looked much like those in my native place. Huts, with a very soothing earthen look and feel. They had a front porch, with trees all around.

Shree resort wasn't really a resort. It was a bungalow owned by a couple which they converted into a resort of sorts by furnishing each room like a hotel room. They were funnily done. The walls of the rooms were coloured in bright colours and the rooms were named after these colours. Green room, Blue room, Orange room :) We went for the orange room, coz it was the most spacious. We hurriedly dumped our bags in the room, freshened up, wore slippers, sparing the shoes the plight of being wet for the rest of the week and left the room.

"The beach is rocky. Mind your footing." cautioned a board outside the room. It contained 10 other precautions that it urged us to take. With that in mind, we went up to the terrace. We could see the beach from there. It was calling me. I guess I was not the only one impatient to meet the ocean. It was calling out to us too. It was getting louder. Without wasting anymore time, fearing we would miss the sunset, we rushed down.

I hate coffee and tea. And that day I hated other coffee and tea drinkers too. All the others in the gang sat down at the nearest and only hotel in kihim to have a cup of tea. TEA??? When you are a few feet away from the beautiful beach, with the sun threatening to disappear? I was getting restless. I raised my apprehension before others, telling them we would miss the sunset. After a loooooong wait, we were up again.

I felt the sand beneath my feet; slightly wet, little coarse. Few more steps and I felt the water. WOW!!! It was the most beautiful feeling. The ocean seemed happy to see us....So happy it wanted to share that happiness with me by splashing water all over us. It was dancing around in joy, singing a happy song, making everyone there wet, soaked in joy.
The sun began to set faster and faster by the second. Slowly the day turned into night. The moon came out. Most of the people there went back to their rooms. We sat there on the beach, staring at nothing. It was pitch dark. The only company which we had was the beach, which continued singing its song and the moon, royally standing there in the sky, it seemed like the king of the night sky.

The ocean teased the moon with its song. The moon flashed light at it praising its beauty. The ocean blushed; its waves shimmered in the moon light. It hummed a pleasant song and splashed its waves all over the beach happily. What a romantic couple, never leaving each others side, playing all through the night, with the little stars watching them in awe!! But this night would have come to an end, giving way to the day ahead and they should part ways; but only with the promise to see each other again the next night.

We sat there singing songs as loudly as possible, trying to be louder than the ocean, but in vain. Time seemed to have stopped. I felt blissful, with no worries what so ever. It was the feeling of pure happiness. It was when our stomachs started grumbling in hunger that we were brought back to the real world. Oh! We were so hungry after all the traveling and playing around on the beach.

We came back to the resort, had dinner and went up to the terrace. By now all the stars had come on to the skyline. There were so many of them, they seemed to be fighting for space. I have never seen such a wonderfully start studded skyline since kalpakkam. This was a clear indication of how pollution free, untouched and natural this place was. It was just like what god created; original and untampered.

As I gazed the sky and got lost in it, I saw sriram, saurabh and nandu discussing some strange head shake that they had come up with. My guess is it was some kind of acknowledgement for the most 'silly and smart' PJs or TJs they come up with. They had gone crazy or should I say craziER? I showed off the miniscule amount of constellation knowledge that I had. Slowly people started dozing off. Nandu slept off in no time. I had other plans.

I looked at the most extraordinary sky, with all its jewels for as long as I could. It was a spectacle to watch. Well the sky was showing off its assets too!! The pristine beauty of the sky could make any model or actress look ordinary. God has created such wonders for us to explore and relish; and what have we done to them!! In mumbai, you can never see more than a dozen stars in the sky at night. All you can see is the pink sky(because of the SO2 emissions), polluted by all sort of pollutants. That day I realized what mumbaikars were missing each day of their lives.

It was 12 in the night. Saurabh suddenly gets up, goes down and brings a music system and starts fiddling with the wires, trying to fix the FM radio. These hardware people cannot go too long without getting their hands on something. Well, the enormous silence of the night was broken with a song of HIMESH!!! After tuning all possible channels, we settled to some old melodies of kishore da and lata mangeshkar. I used to think saurabh was a man of few (wise) words. But that day he was determined to prove me wrong. Boy! Once he gets going, it is difficult to stop him. We spoke for more than an hour about a wide range of topics, none of which I remember now :-) Then I felt tired, forced saurabh to switch the radio off and sleep. I gazed at the night sky for some more time, and slowly dozing off into the dream world.