Sagar — The Ocean
Neha Simlai - India

Sagar. The Ocean. The personification of love, serenity. The tears of Gaia. Peace is a thin film over its surface, a film of oil that catches the slanting rays of the sun and paints rainbow hues on itself. And the rainbow film swells and glides, caressed by multitudinous fingers from below the water surface — the sedate, torpid movements of a woman under the expert hands of her lover. A million tiny ripples on the surface. The skin pockmarked by stabbing wind, it carves small depressions and floats on the surface a fleeting moment, only to traipse along again, in a futile attempt to make a full trip along the unending plane of the rolling sea.

And the Ocean rushes to the shore to lick at it with a thousand tongues. Foaming at the mouth with exertion, goaded by the wind to taste the wet sand again (and again and again). The silica ground to talcum powder softness by the relentless loving of His hands, sometimes tender, sometimes callous, the grit tumbles over itself impishly. The slush of sand and water coats my hesitant feet in a thin grainy layer. The water swirls around my ankles and washes a fistful of earth from underneath my feet. I sway in slight euphoria. Only He is capable of this, this teasing, this show of might. "Look what I could do to you, but I don't."

And then it conjoins with the wind in playful abandon. Waves — the Wind and the Sea. In the hollow of a mighty wave that rears its head in majesty, one can see the hand of the Creator, the Sculptor who carves and chisels the Universe. Does He stand on the shoreline somewhere, to lift a wave, peeling it off the Ocean and with a careless twist of His wrist, hurling it across till it crashes down on the shore again, swirling in small pits in the sand, washing castles away, and looping around ankles?

Each wave rears, with white surf filigree, white horses neighing and galloping across the water to bring it homeward, to drench the earth again. And they confabulate amongst each other at the end of the journey. Frothy white bubbles. Flying manes and restless hoofing. And the Ocean washes them back again, into its warmth to rejuvenate their tired bodies, meanwhile dispatching another herd to sate the reckless voracity of wanton Earth. Again and again and again.

What of the anger? Violent eddies and whirlpools that threaten to drown the cockleshells of arrogant civilizations, it raises a thousand hands in rage, thrashing them on the surface, churning the water, drowning in itself in fast, spinning vortices. The callousness of destruction matching the tenderness of love.

Sagar. The Ocean

It stretches in a vast expanse of undulating blue-green and where it meets the horizon, I imagine it is the edge of a giant waterfall. The curve is where the water spills over in thick white curtains; roaring and gurgling as it touches the bed of the Universe. And do they bathe there — at the base of the cascade — glorious, otherworldly creatures? What treasures does it hide, the Ocean, beyond the Edge? Even the most bewitching and enchanting fabrication of fancies would pay little justice to the indescribable, inconceivable splendor and glory that might unfold there. And if one be taken to the very edge, where the unending span of turquoise merges seamlessly with cerulean horizon, would one's soul be sufficiently prepared to embrace and imbibe its staggering magnificence? Would the heart not be impeded in its rhythmic pulsing, by that brazen opulence? Would the spirit endure the mortifying terror and ecstasy that such sights would bring upon itself? Because beyond ecstasy, there lies terror. The peaks of joy can't help but vault down to the abyss of horror. Ask the Lotus Eaters.

*Sagar means Ocean in Hindi.