Yesterday evening, I decided, after rudely being awakened from a deep sound sleep that I should go to the beach and do some ship sighting. The eternal “Wisdom” shone upon me and I dragged my feet into the car. My sister, who graciously volunteered to drive us there, got into “Race car” Driving mode and I slumped in the backseat and slowly, from vertical sitting posture, I reached the horizontal sleeping posture within 30 seconds!!! My self-conscious sister who was unaware of this, kept wondering why random people, on bikes or in rickshaws were gawking like idiots ! She later realized they were at me. (Surprisingly, neither was she shocked at the fact nor was she amused. What can I say…we’re a family of freaks )
The car was parked and we began walking to the Beach front. We saw traffic havaldars hauling away scores of people, towing away expensive cars, doing their day to day mundane chores. As we approached the open beach, our eyes searched for the “Wisdom”. (For those of you who don’t know what “Wisdom” is, I can say, YOU LIVE UNDER A ROCK !!! Google “Abandoned-Nigerian-ship-Wisdom-reaches-Mumbai-shores-shortly-after-endangering-Bandra-Worli-Sea-Link.” Well that sort of summarizes everything on Google) So we searched far and beyond and finally it caught our sight.
I was content looking at it from far away but mum wanted to get closer. So we walked and walked. As we got closer to the ship, the density of the crowd got thicker with each step. We couldn’t help but notice, three men who were frolicking in the sand half naked. A few steps further, a woman, who was running a small tattoo joint. The customer was in agony as we could see but at least he was getting a tattoo to flaunt. His best friend who had courageously stepped to “be there with him” was holding up a tower of the 6 batteries which were required to run her tattoo machine !! Hilarious I tell you. One move and…PHAT !! She would throw a handful of sand in his face “thik se pakdo na !!”
A few centimeters away (I dare not say feet), was a family of four, who were enjoying home made sandwiches, which they, for some unknown reason, wanted to assemble at the beach. Neatly stacked in six different boxes were pieces of cucumber, tomatoes, onions, potatoes slices of bread and butter. We kicked some sand in their sandwich while walking across. They didn’t seem to notice or bother. It was a Sand-wich alright !!
With frequent grunts, and “ughhhh-arrghh-bang-pow-‘Go to hell you pervert’…..”moments, we reached the end of the line. We finally reached good ground free of people and the smell of sweat. We just stood there and stared at the size of the vessel. It was huge. Occasionally my mom, very excited to see it, clicked a few pictures to preserve the memory, as my sister and I debated how we could make way to the ship and go into it if our lives depended on it and then we just had a moment of epiphany….something we didn’t dare to share with each other,
On this round trip excursion of the beach, we had braved sand throwing children, risked walking over people’s picnics, stepping on an occasional hand/foot, risked being run over by an emergency services vehicle, ditched the candy floss vendors, avoid being groped, pushed a drunk man into the sea (May his soul float in peace), walked over another sea of plastic bags/garlands/coconuts, knocked down a candy floss vendor’s machinery… and we couldn’t help but think “ITS JUST A STUPID SHIP “
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