Schizophrenic Sid: Quicksand

“Wow, look. Baby waves!” exclaimed Sandesh inside Schizophrenic Siddharth’s head.

“Sandesh, please don’t say things like that. It embarrasses me sometimes!” said Siddharth.

“Well, I can’t help it, can I? I’m excited to see the ocean. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it quite this way, you know. Have you ever seen waves this small?”

“Yes, Sandesh, I have. It’s the most natural thing ever; happens every time there’s a low tide. Didn’t you study anything in school?”

“You obviously don’t remember my school days, do you, Sid?” asked Sandesh with a chuckle.

The waves were unnaturally small that day, owing to, as Siddharth said, the low tide at the time. Strangely, Siddharth was happy to see the low tide – at that moment, he was looking for some calm, and the little waves that gently pushed the salty water and the rough sand smoothly between his toes was what he wanted more than anything else.

“This beach is different, isn’t it?” said Sandesh, as they stood in the receding sunlight, while the sun shone in bits and pieces behind the blue-grey clouds that hung annoyingly in the sky. Siddharth was looking at the sunset, having missed it many times during his stay in the city, and although this was the best sunset he had witnessed yet, he wished the clouds would disappear.

“Yeah, this beach is a lot different; less people, less glamour, less make up, and so much more honest serenity, and clear water, and clean, pure mud beneath your feet. I didn’t know something like this existed in this city at all!”

“Neither did I” said Sandesh.

The sun was hanging just a little above the ocean, and the orange rays bounced off the calm water. The little waves brought the reflected ball of light to life, and the light danced with the waves, the daily dance of light and water.

The faint lights from a ship on the horizon could be seen, from a great distance. Perhaps a merchant ship, or a tanker of some sort, thought Sandesh. It was nice to see the ship from such a distance, knowing that it wasn’t arrogantly nearer at the moment. Sandesh was glad to see that at least on this particular beach, human arrogance had not prevailed, and they hadn’t tried to control the soft mud where the feet sank freely and merrily, or the constantly shifting sand beneath the clear water that made standing at one spot tough for too long.

Sandesh had seen, through Sid’s own eyes, the marvels that were hailed as epitomes of human intelligence and ingenuity; the bridges that jutted out into the open ocean, strictly ferrying only one species from one part of the city to another. It was human arrogance that wanted to control all things around them, and was naïve enough to believe that they can do so as well.

“And yet,” said Sid, “in spite of all the safety measures that we put here to make the beach a little safer from the daily dance of the ocean, and the sun, and the moon, the truth is that we can never make much of a difference. No matter how many ships we sail, no matter how many bridges we build, the ocean will never comply with us the way it does to the moon. Humans will always be insignificant in front of that daily tidal dance of the sea and the moon. Meanwhile, arrogant humans as we are, we will toy with the ridiculous idea of coercing the ocean to behave, to act civilised, to flow where we want to, and when we want to – and all the while, the ocean dances on, and laughs at us, and sweeps us off our feet, drowning away our insignificance into inexistence.”

“Boy, we must be crazy!” said Sandesh. “How can we believe all of that? Do we really think that we are the sole reason the universe exists?”

“Is there a reason why the universe exists in the first place?”

“Well, there has to be a reason. Everything happens for a reason.”

“What if that’s an elaborate fabrication stemmed from human arrogance as well? To think about it, about the enormity of the universe, and to see it in the mind from a really far off place, the universe would be nothing more than a humongous dust ball.”

They watched as the tide slowly washed ashore, surrounding parts of the beach, drowning the dents and pockets that were made on the beach first. Soon, where the beach had been there an hour ago, a few sandy islands dotted the sea. The sun had set a long time ago, and the twilight was shifting steadily towards darker night. The footsteps in the sand had all been washed away, while the ocean still danced on, oblivious to the people still around watching her.

“Do you think we can walk through the water there, on to the other side? It doesn’t look that deep; looks wade-able,” said Sandesh with an adventurous grin on his face.

“I’ve heard that people drown here, get pulled under the water. I’ve heard that they get washed up ashore, on the other side of the city, on another beach,” said Siddharth, thinking rationally. As he looked on, a little dog came running towards the water and went splashing through. The water was swirling around her ankles, but she didn’t stop. Step by step, she waded through the water, and soon the water came up to her belly. She stopped and looked around good humouredly at Siddharth and Sandesh, knowing that her instincts were right about the water. She trod on ahead, oblivious to the human rational way of thinking, trusting her instincts so forcefully that her instincts alone seemed to push her through, out of the ocean, and on to the other side. A quick strong shake of the coat, and she happily ran along the smooth beach, which the water hadn’t claimed yet, but where no man was instinctive enough to walk on.

The smell of frying eggs wafted through the air, and they wanted to grab a quick bite before heading back home. Before they turned their backs to the ocean, however, Sandesh stopped and looked at the dog, still running free and wild on the beach.

“Lucky bitch,” he said, as the oncoming darkness swallowed her last few bounds, and the gentle waves washed away her soft footprints on the sand.

This is based entirely on an evening spent at Aksa Beach, Mumbai; also, it's inspired directly from the wonderful rendition of the same evening by Ice Maiden, something that can be found here. I hope I've done justice to everything that the beach stands for, in the literal, physical and the abstract sense.