Today i brought my son to show him where we lived some eleven years ago, on the golden shores of the ocean now choking with tourism, umbrellas and barely clothed humanity. We lived quietly in a modest hut, far from the cacophony of man and machine, with the rush of cresting waves sounding beneath our skins. The ocean gave us all we needed, we never slept hungry. You were a baby then, i told him as we walked toward the waves, now foaming and dying down.
Eleven years ago, i remember it like it was yesterday: The radio cracking to life and shouting us to vacate our houses, chaos and confusion everywhere, a mighty wave is coming, pack your essentials and evacuate IMMEDIATELY. Our little village spilling its humanity everywhere, people shouting, babies crying, us running. But your amma. She had gone to buy the day's vegetables. I could not leave without her, but you were just two, a baby. I remember how i ran to the market with you in my arms, shouting her name. But an officer held me and threw me in a jeep, took me away, he said she would be in one of these jeeps. I believed him, we drove off. But I never found her.
Today as this soft water tickles our bare feet, i look at the mighty ocean, its waves much smaller than i remember. These waves are now cresting before me and dying at my feet, the same waves that drowned my wife away. In my head i can see her laughing, the chime of her bangles, her deep blue eyes. "Your amma deserved a water grave, she was as beautiful as the sea" i tell my son, catching a glimpse of his mother's blue blink back at me. I pat his back, "ab chalo, andhera ho gaya". But we did not, watching the waves ascend and fall, back and forth, one after another. I wonder why we could not leave.