Saturday, January 20, 2007

Sita at Alibaug

In a city, far from my dreamland and farther from my homeland, it happened as if I am re-living a few adorable moments of my past.
Today, being the first weekend, after joining TCS-Trivandrum, we - me and most of unknown people from my batch, left the TCS Hostel for Kanya Kumari(KK) , the southern most point of main-land India.
Around a year back, we – me and all of my friends from MCSA batch, had gone to a memorable trip to a place called Alibaug, Maharastra.
And around four years back, we – me and all of my friends ( Ravi and Srideo missed it ) from BCA batch, had gone to an equally memorable trip to Sitamani, Allahabad, UP.

We were at the sea side in KK by 5:30 AM to welcome the sun. At around 6:30 the shy sun arrived from behind the clouds, red- faced (may be it was afraid of the welcome crowd). After sometime we went to board a Ferry to Vivekanand Smarak.

From here, it seems, I boarded a roller-coaster, which moved from one moment to another and from there to yet another moment in fractions of seconds, making the world around me a Nostalgia park.
At around the same time a year ago, we were running around the Gateway of India, in the midst of thousands of pigeons, to board a Ferry to Alibaug. Standing on a side of the ferry, I just hoped, from somewhere, a whole lot of seagulls will appear chasing our ferry. But none did. I hoped, from somewhere, my only Girlfriend in MCSA will appear and call out “Hi Motu!” But she didn’t. I wondered if at all we can play the game of cricket again. And I knew we cannot. Neither can I eat those strange sandwiches again. Not even we can play that game of Dumb-charades.

When running from one temple to another, it felt like we were running from one hut to another in Sitamani.There’s a point where you can actually sea the Arabian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean meet. Standing at that point, I could feel the same aroma which I felt when we went to Sangam in Allahabad. And I just hoped if we could be together all over again.

The breeze at the smarak was so strong that you can get carried way if you are standing loosely at the side of the rocks. And from me, it swept way all the hopes. Probably I was a little loose, emotionally.

KanyaKumari, to me, means Sita from Sitamani statue-ed at Alibaug beach,with a Monalisa smile. And I could figure out hope in that enigmatic smile too.

HOPE is a big thing. It makes life easy. After all this missing-those-days moments, what Hope gave me was a smile on my face and a sense of satisfaction that I have some amazing friends. I know life does move on but memories do not. And they should not as they generate the strength for life to move on.

And I hope, just hope, someday, I will move from this city of anonymous existence to my dreamland, to the people I love most……And to an existence which speaks of my identity.