Sunday, June 1, 2014

The Other World


The speedboat had finally reached a truce with the high waves of the Na'Pali. The revving of the engine having reduced to a drowning gurgle. The vessel now bobbed like a drunken log having submitted itself to the beauty of the surreal ambiance. Like a siren the undulating waves of the turquoise sea beckoned even as the tall cliffs forewarned of the immeasurable forces of nature at play.

I put on my swimming goggles and pulled the rubber extension that covered my nose, rendering it vestigial hereonward. I clamped the wind-pipe between my clenching jaws. Yes, I was afraid. Not so much of drowning as of the sheer sense of emptiness of floating over a world of unknown. The word 'abysmal' suddenly seemed fathomable. I remembered that summer day in Bally when I was thrown into the pool and asked to swim. Just as I was clumsily managing to keep myself afloat, a water-snake floated by. It must have been as scared as I was and a clumsy swimmer too. For we kept floating at the same pace and stared at each other with the same horrified stare. I screamed for the both of us till my trainer put an end to the ordeal. I was a boy then and a man now. I realised that like a parasitic orchid my fear of water had blossomed all these years instead of withering. And it had chosen to return in this heaven-like place in the Pacific to confront me.

I could feel the tautness in my toes trapped inside the rubber fins as I climbed down the ladder into the bluish green mass of liquid magic. Involuntarily my legs started to move and my hands pawed into the water to stay afloat. Far away in the background the cliffs of the Na'Pali began to sway as if in trance. Cradled in their midst was the beautiful Kalalau valley. Basking in the tropical sun its verdant pastures seemed as vibrant as the pristine countenance of a new born in a cradle; Its fluorescent green grass reminded me of Tom Jones', "Green Green Grass of Home". The ocean perhaps did not take kindly to my appreciation of the beautiful shore; For it sent a high wave that drowned me momentarily and sent the salty water through the wind-pipe straight into my respiratory system. The brutal strike lashed me back to reality as the salt tears from the spasmodic coughing drowned in the punishing waves. "It was time to explore another world", I told myself. The one that lay beneath the glistening silver of the surface.

As I put my head down below the surface a sea of blurry endless bluish-green met my eyes. The captain had said that the sea bed lay fifty-feet below. It might as well have been five-hundred for the sight of it remained elusive. Through the corner of my eyes I could see the white anchor-rope stretching from the bottom of the boat and vanishing into the dark deep end. Its disappearance only serving as a measure of the bottomless depth. I could clearly see the black fins I was wearing although they seemed to belong to someone else. The trail of bubbles they left with each flap glistened on their way up to the surface. There was no sound of splashing to give a tangible feel to my efforts. Only the straining force in my sheens and the streamlined caress of moving water along my body to assure that there was no magical hand in keeping me afloat. Yes, and the constant deafening sound of ones own breathing and the lub-dub of the heart fusing to add a strange percussion to the awe-inspiring visual.

My fins kept flapping thrusting me further away from the psychological comfort of the boat. The inside corners of the goggles were beginning to fog. "I must not breathe through my nose", I reminded myself. Through the foggy lens I looked around. Straight ahead stood a massive length of darkness. Slowly it stretched till it engulfed my entire field of vision. I felt trapped in the center of some aquatic amphitheater unable to see the rows and the faces of the audience due to the encompassing darkness. I panicked. My mouth must have gaped a little wider for a gush of salt water re-entered my trachea. My head jerked out of the water and I strained for some air. Through the water-dripping lens I could see the Na-Pali cliffs now looking grotesque in form through the foggy lens. Mustering the shards of courage I dove back into the water. The darkness was now strangely more prominent in the sunlight. I was now moving towards it.

Slowly the darkness began to reveal itself, much like the dark night slowly reveals its stars to the patient sky-watcher. I do not know if the revelation alleviated my fears. Perhaps the wonder of the spectacle just overpowered my bourgeois trepidation of ignorance. The darkness was a formation of massive underwater reefs that slept like somnolent giants on the turquoise seabed. Over them spread innumerable corals a mixture in beauty of tropical flower and the eeriness of a human brain. As the sun shone on their face the brilliant colours leapt out like a hundred birds of paradise let loose from a magician's black cloak. Through the deep crevices between the reefs appeared a school of yellow striped fish. They momentarily stared at my strange presence before turning an angle in unison and disappearing altogether. I turned around to catch sight of them only to be distracted by a Hawaiian sea turtle brushing ever so close. It lazily sauntered back to the depths like a UFO saucer. The kaleidoscope kept changing as natures forces kept playing with my hapless mind. The sun, the clouds, the cliffs, the soaring Albatross, the Pacific, the grandeur of its surface and the wonder beneath; All playing to the perfect crescendo to evince out of my inexpressive self a sigh of wonder. Yes a sigh, to die for. I had long stopped the flapping of my fins. Like a drunken log I floated in the undulating waters for what seemed an eternity.

My return to the boat was nothing more than an ordinary struggle. A case of tired limbs and overspent excitement. I saw the anchored rope on the way. This time it did not scare me. I had seen the beauty of the depth. The captain hauled me up and stripped me off my fins promptly relegating me from my amphibious self to a land mortal again. I looked up one last time at the western coastline of the island. By now the cliffs had netted a low hanging cloud which now trapped was growing in size and wrath. The grumbling had begun and soon the dance of nature would begin. The darkness of the seabed now reached the heaven above. Our tiny boat seemed tinier as the waves rose and fell around it. The captain sped for the coast. As the boat's belly rammed over the waves the bile in my body mixed with the salt water I had earlier gulped and threatened to spurt out. I suppressed the urge by concentrating on the 'good, wide, beautiful, wonderful world' around. The thunder bellowed, the lightning cracked and the horizontal rain came down like water-darts. In many ways they had a chastising effect in reminding one that the Na'Pali was a place for the Gods and mortals had no business being there.

I returned the man I was having seen only a little more of our wondrous planet.

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