Sea the Change

This piece is an outcome of my struggle to comprehend the times inhabit. They are based on encounters in a fishing village near Pondicherry Puducherry), where fishermen friends helped/are helping me navigate new waters. The ever-changing sea led me to these explorations. There is urgency in the air. Else, all will be still

- Ravi Agarwal

The Water Lily, Drooping

The sea-a constant landscape. A universal space, unchanging, steady on the horizon. A basis of life on the planet. Meditative. The unending breaking of waves on the shore, or the soft lapping of waters away from it, suggest deeper reflections. The unfathomable and inaccessible depths hide unsolved mysteries locked within, possibly since the beginning of time itself. Fluid grounds.

The view from the long stone groyne, jutting more than 30 m into the sea, facing the pre-dawn sky as it lightens up, the endless horizon and the unknown cosmos appear as ideas in themselves. The twilight stars link the universe to the earth. It lies somewhere outside the edge of the stone jetty, boundless, fear-filled, and without beginning or end. It is a time for superstition, and wonderment. The time scale is galactic, and mortality a mere meaningless blip.

Behind, on the shoreline, the row of fishermen's houses affords no time for such introspection. Life is material and harsh in its everydayness. Until recently, this is where the fishermen lived. Now, many have sold the beach-facing houses to outsiders. The view of the sea is stunning, especially on a good day. Huts have been transformed into nice whitewashed homes, pretty and reflective of a good life. The surfers are testimony to that. The village now stretches behind this row, where the fishermen still live. Ancient Tamil Sangam poetry identified landscapes with views of nature. Akam and Puram—interior and exterior. In Akam, the sea—Neithal—denoted the pain of waiting and pining for the loved one. ‘Nature’ was internalised. The separation was there, but incomplete. Fade in—fade out.

In contemporary times, nature must be acted upon. Now it is a ‘view’, or an ‘adventure’, or a ‘resource’. Without this operative relationship, we are lost. Not the fishermen though. For them, the sea is the lived life.