Beached at 4 am

Yash Daiv
Yash Daiv
Jul 20, 2017 · 5 min read
Full moon hovers over Goa’s Candolim Beach (Clicked on May 12)

On a particularly breezy day in May, I stepped barefoot onto the shore of Candolim Beach, Goa at 4 am. In a drunken stupor, I had realised that this lonely walk at an unearthly hour will seal my vacation — the solo outing that was nothing short of a carnal poem. However, I was surprised to find two girls on the beach sipping beer. My presence was, of course, not very welcoming. They left as soon as I stopped at the edge. In any case, my purpose was served. I was out there, all alone on the shore with an opulent moon hovering in the dark sky that reflected in emerald-blue hues in the cadence below.

Why was I here all alone at this hour? Why was I not scared of the possibility of an untoward incident?

I felt the Karambit in my pocket in its dormant state with its curved blade folded inside the handle. Despite being ready to defend myself if at all someone tried to rob me, I have been lacking this “assuring” aplomb about life in general. I felt beached, stranded with my own problems on stranger tides in the middle of the night, just like the way all of us are in life.

You are lonely at 4 am, watching re-runs of films or sports. You are beached.

You relate to a book to the extent that you are moved to tears. You are beached.

You listen to a song and remember special someone. You are beached.

You lost a special someone, even a darling pet. You are beached.

You do not visit a particular cafe you frequented with your partner because it brings memories you do not want to deal with. You are beached.

In these moments of isolation and frustration, we forget to ask for help. It exists just around the corner and can appear in any form — friends, an acquaintance, a lover, a stranger, a pet, a therapist or even an orphan kid who is learning to do wonders with limited sources. The latter instance is probably the greatest example of how a person draws help from within.

This must have been 15 years ago during secondary school. Our headmistress use to yank us out for orphanage visits in Kolhapur, where we were supposed to learn kindness and strength, and more importantly, we had to learn to give without expectations. Of course, we were brats, privileged in every single way, enough to just treat the orphanage visit as a momentary lesson. I remember, we would even have difficulties giving away our worn our cricket kits, used crayons and blankets. Now, that I realised, how much of these regular donations had been contributing to their bare necessities and scant entertainment in those years.

It was on one of these trips that I saw this boy, a little older than me, glued to the spinning wheel, on which he was carving a pot to life. He was gazing at the vessel with strong concentration. This determination moved something in me. I realised that while this boy was being productive, I was only looking forward to the new episode of Pokemon followed by Beyblade (fanatic entertainment that had corrupted our minds).

And this guy here?

He was busy imbibing an art form that he had learned at a simple 5-day workshop organised at the orphanage. When I asked him how does he manage to get the material, since I see nobody else bulking it up from him, he told me that he walks 5 kilometres for the clay. The wheel and kiln were given to him by a man who sculpts Ganpati idols. For months, pottery had carved a niche in life, glazed with passion and baked in unsolicited happiness.

Now that I look back, he was helping himself squeeze the most of his situation.

We learn this ‘squeezing out’ part very half-heatedly during our growing up years. Spoiled by choice and conditioned with fulfilling tantrums, we never learn to build anything from simplicity or simple conditions. That holds right for our mental health as well. Some of us have been nurtured like raja betas and rani betis, trained to whine at every material or mental failure and consequently leaving no scope for self-introspection.

In this pampering, nobody trains us for the real life and when the picture unfolds, we get beached without rescue approaching the shore anytime soon.

During that particular dawn in Goa, I realised that we have to draw assuring power, the kind of energy that makes us feel alright or even safe from self. As on the drunken night I touched the folded carve knife in my pocket, I was assured I could at least aid myself, if not stall a possible untoward situation completely.

Why couldn’t I do the same for all that was bothering me? Achieve this fascinating confidence of my self-defence with my kind of thin physic?

The answer wasn’t very far. Firstly, I would not have taken a solo vacation if I did not have the power to be away from issues — ruined relationship and friendships — just to clear my mind space. Secondly, I had supremely got along with strangers at bars — I had not lost the will to make friends. Thirdly, I was by myself — there was some dignity left within me to understand that I needed a break for my mental and physical well-being.

That was it. I was assured and could help myself on the most fundamental level. The feeling of being abandoned comes from lack of validation from others and not because our thoughts have left us. Seeking opinions, companionship or even friendship for that matter, before we have helped ourselves, will end up in reliance. The shattering of this independence leads to mammoth sadness.

Maybe, I was a little drunk at the point when I made this self-help resolve. But then, I remembered this lesson and smiled a genuine smile while the moon brightened in the sky, sank down and the dawn broke, drawing some life to the beach.

A perfect solution to the this doubtful feeling is perhaps a solitary, therapeutic trip to Goa (provided you are done boozing like a crazy monkey).

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