Age Claims All Of Us, People And Places Alike

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

To beach or not to beach myself on the shores of memories... is not the question.

And I am not here to reclaim the tiny footprints I left behind on the white powdery sand a lifetime ago, when I toddled and pranced about, chasing
the waves.

Nor am I here to retrieve that message in a kerosene bottle sent in an act of innocence to the world's most beautiful girl.

I am not here to summon a tsunami of feel-good nostalgia about how Amma, anchored forever in a little fishing village by her Ceylon-based husband, instilled Ulyssean thoughts in her little son and sent him“roaming with a hungry heart”.

I am not here to count the fisherwomen we chased in the mangroves, as the prime generation in the 70s. This is not the time to sigh,“Those were the days.”

What's at stake is not just the unleaded memories of a bygone generation, but a way of being that must be preserved for the wellbeing of the planet.

The beach is much deeper and vaster than this ocean of reflections. I am no self-styled phenomenologist; the atmosphere got under my skin from exposure to collective emotion - from how an entire fishing village felt the sea, the waves, the shore, the wind, the briny air, the sand, the boat, the net, the seagull - all the elements that shaped our community.

The beach was one of us.

She had a heart and soul, and she beamed emotions into the atmosphere. We felt her sobs when a fisherman was hacked to death in political violence, when a child starved, when the sea returned empty nets, and when an asphalt road was carved through her chest.

Wearing wide bamboo hats and mooring their legs in shiny shingles, our fishermen once communed with the soul of the beach before setting out to sea.

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Meanwhile, the beach often displayed mood swings and heightened emotion. No one dared play with her feelings for fear of her fury. When she was downcast, we left her alone - boats beached, nets folded. When she was in high spirits, we flew kites to celebrate.

Today, as I revisit my birthplace, the atmosphere is not what it used to be. The beach has lost her soul.

Today, as I revisit my birthplace, the atmosphere is not what it used to be. The beach has lost her soul

She no longer offers a place to sit and reflect, she is no longer a sanctuary to dream in. Her horizon is no longer where one looks to witness the infinite expanse of water and sand to realise the limits - the littleness - of humanity.

Now, the beach is just a place to soak up sun, frolic in the surf, and swim with the waves. We never did that back in the day. We read books, grazed cattle, and mended nets. We flew kites that painted the skies; today, they fly drones that chase the seagulls away.

The cawing of crows and chatter of mynas have been drowned out by blaring Punjabi pop from a beach now marketed as Love Shore (Snehatheeram).

The humble tea shops of yesteryear, where fishermen once sat sipping tea with rotis and butter-slathered buns, are gone - replaced by fast-food stalls and Chinese takeout.

Turn of the earth

Cars and bikes now compete for parking, while hundreds of stray dogs jostle with tourists from distant lands. Once, we tiptoed in reverence across this sand, aware that our fathers and grandfathers lay buried beneath it. Today, tourists leave behind trash and chaos, turning this sacred place into an unlivable hell.

The humble huts of our youth have been replaced by homestays and resorts owned by foreigners and superstars. The beach property I once called home - sold long ago to a German - now houses a resort charging INR42,000 (Dh1,755) a night. The beach has become a platform for profit.

As a native of this little fishing hamlet - where I once read William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and Ernest Hemingway to the wind and waves while the Karuthammas walked past with headloads of fish - I claim the right to demand the return of my once-pristine beach.

I don't care for my little footprints.

But I do want the beach with its meaningful emptiness returned to whom she truly belongs.

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