The Sea, The Sea !

The view from my balcony

The Beach

“The sea! The sea! The open sea!, The blue , the fresh, the ever free!” – Bryan W. Procter

I came to Gopalpur on a new assignment this summer. A small, sleepy town, it is situated in southern Odisha, on the Bay of Bengal. A town of white-washed churches, fishermen and the sea.

Three years at Joda had taken a lot out of me. I was starting to get weary of the long working hours and the 24-hour work schedules. Thus when the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t stop myself and came hopping down to this beach town.

Even before I had arrived here, I had made up my mind that come what may I would live near the sea. Thus I let go of a city just 10 miles away, to live at a smaller, quieter place near the sea. What is the mall and the supermarket in comparison to the vast, blue sea??

In fact I have always been drawn to water. I had choose to stay in a lodge by a water body any day over that in a five-star hilly resort. And living in a apartment overlooking the ocean just beats everything else. I get to appreciate nature here. I go for jogs and walks on the beach. I get to eat the freshest sea catch and drink the sweetest coconut water. I meet the local fishing folk and get an opportunity to experience their lifestyles. But most importantly, I get to live a life I had always wanted to live- beautiful, bright, and sparkling – like the sea.   

Its an ideal retreat for a writer. You can sit in your balcony writing a book all day long drinking  cups of tea, while the tides rise and ebb. I had obviously love to write a lot more. But then I have a manufacturing plant to start, and its not a supposed to be cakewalk. The sea keeps you mesmerized though. It changes its colour - one moment it is a very dark blue with white crests, then a light green after which a lucid grey. At times, it is a glassy green in the front, and a dark blue-grey at the back. It makes you feel happy and forget all your worries. It also makes you dreamy and optimistic about life. You must see the bay on a full moon night, its ravishing. And all this for no cost at all because it returns everything it takes – I had lost my towel to the sea the other day I had gone for a swim; a local fisherman found it on the beach a day later and brought it back for me.