It has been a long time since I dipped my feet into the cool morning waters of Chennai's Marina beach despite now living here full-time. So I went at the crack of dawn on a cloudy Saturday morning neither too warm nor too cold. One of those impromptu decisions.
Almost at last minute, I thought to myself, I could probably finish reading Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms at the beach (I know, poor choice of a novel to finish at the beach but I didn't know better at the time).
There's always so much to see at the beach. A few boys and men were sleeping on mats strewn right next to what probably was their own cart shops. The morning breeze swooping in from the sea must be so soothing. One young lad was almost hugging another. Hard to write about this without some (or a lot of) people thinking "gay". The mind also went back to the one time my brother hugged me tight while we were asleep as kids way back in the day; he doesn't do that ever but this one time, in the middle of the night as we lay on a couple of mats on the floor, I moved the chair next to my head and it made the noise chairs make when you push them across the floor, and that spooked and scared him so deeply he turned and hugged me tight, almost choking my neck, and asked very feebly, "What was that?"
There were those that had made the beach their home; and then there were others who came to the beach from posh areas in cars only affluence could afford and I thought what a melting pot equalizer the beach is in some ways. And then in the distance, while Hemingway droned on about Catherine (yes, I said "droned on"), a man in a white veshti and chequered shirt, a naamam on his forehead – and suddenly, I started seeing people's faces and guessing which broad community they could be from. Some obvious, like the one with the naamam. Some less so but placeable to a reasonable degree: like a chettiyaar family. Some impossible to tell. I hoped my face was one of those. Impossible to tell. So, in some more ways, the beach was a melting pot equalizer. It sprayed mist on everyone, wetted everyone's feet just the same.
The beach, like a park, could trigger a heightened sense of loneliness if you weren't careful enough with your thoughts. Lots of couples come here to be happy. Mostly heterosexual ones. I wish the times were such that no one cared about the type of sexuality of the couples being written about. A case rages at the apex court that is trying to decide how the law sees couples of non-heterosexual nature. "I believe they have a cause, but not a case" my ass, respectfully. They have a cause, they have a case and they have a right too is what it is. Anyway, digressions. If you feel lonely, if your thoughts are besotted with the notion of finding (or not finding) that "special someone", it can be hard to take in the views. But it's also a reminder that what you have had so far, this beautiful life, has been a quite good and fortunate. Such privilege of moderate wealth, great upbringing, access to immense knowledge, enriching friendships, literacy and, not to forget, enough self-awareness.
Suddenly, a ghost crab popped out of its hole. I thought it was big. And then another, this time a smaller one. And another. And soon, I realized I was sitting atop a large area of sand peppered with holes all over the place. Smack on top of crab bunkers. Lots of tiny ones going about their day, always wary of the faintest movement their antenna-like eyes could detect. This one tiny thing was shuffling through microscopic sand with its tiny claws and feeding its mouth at intervals. Not half a meter away, out popped another: this one the biggest of them all. It threw out a bunch of sand and paused one brief second before disappearing into its hole. Weekend cleaning, I suspect.
The cloudy day refused to melt away into bright skies so the orange sun couldn't really shine. Far away to the left, the port was damn near invisible because of all the mist. As the day progressed, more of the beach got wrapped in the sea mist and it made the beach cooler. People left, only to be replaced with more new people. One or two cart shops opened. Someone was trying to shoot at the balloons. A Farewell to Arms ended (on the saddest of notes possible). And then, I left.