Month: September 2020

We were a group of seven prabationery officers,on training to banking institutes at Pune and Bombay( now Mumbai ). Pune was fine but at Bombay, we were attached to a State level bank of Maharashtra for practical banking operations and had to make our own accommodation.All of us put up in a single room in a Gujrati Hotel very near to Victoria Terminus( now Chatrapati Shivaji terminus). It was comfortable though, each of us had the good fortune of having our own bed. The room was big enough, breakfast included with the rent.

So this colleague of us, a very brilliant alumni of Guwahati University with record marks in mathematics in his Msc, which remained unbroken, last time I checked, had this habit of getting up very early in the morning and would regularly go out after morning chores. There were many many second hand book stalls all along the foot path near VT. He would everyday pick up one or two books and read through day and night, ie whenever he had the time after daily training schedule and would return the book next day for another set. The routine continued throughout our training period of three months. He was least interested in exploring Bombay metropolis, which all the rest of us indulged in!But the above narrative is only a passing remark, the real story follows thus….

It was the month of March. Holi was round the corner. One of my college day friend was doing his PhD at Bombay IIT situated at Powai. During my sojourn at Bombay, I was in frequent touch with him and had visited him at IIT several times. He came up with this idea of spending Holi at a beach in Madh Island, about 30 km away from mainland Bombay. Me, my friend and another one trouped to Madh Island by Ferry and camped at Aksa beach. Since we planned an overnight stay at the beach itself, we arranged our arrival in the afternoon.

The beach was vast and very clean. The sun was touching the horizon, about to set. The late afternoon sunlight, dancing with orange reflections on the rushing waves, the deep thunderous roar of the ocean, all together made one feel how negligibly tiny and insignificant one’s existence was. Though it was late afternoon, there were many people, both bikini clad foreigners as well as locals, children and some with full holi colors, enjoying all along the beach. There were many stalls with assortment of drinks, exotic food, reclining comfort chairs under colorful canopies strewn in front of each stall. The beckon was irresistible. Each of us collected our handful of drinks and array of tongue watering extravaganza and settled comfortably at a comparatively lonely spot at some distance. My friend was thoughtful enough to bring along some music. By the way, this was a time when there was no mobile or internet around. It was already getting dark; the seagulls were flying away towards the sea to God knows what destination. The beach was slowly becoming empty of visitors, except some crowding around a few stalls.

Night fell, thunderous roar was getting more and more pronounced, rhythmic splash of the rushing waves breaking along the beach grew louder and louder. Wet sand mass below us dragged towards the sea with each breaking wave. The sky was awash with starry light, the moon resplendent in its soft glory. A hidden poet, long dormant in my guts tried to awaken , ” drag me to the moon, to catch a star and seize its brilliance as I am swept up in amorphous sandy dust”.

The sandy beach was our bed, moonlit twinkling starry sky was our roof, roaring howling endless sea was our companion. It was a surreal night. Never before felt so close to mother nature as on that night. We did not have any real sleep that night, the whole experience being an unusual and rare one.

Dawn! orange disc slowly peeked up over the waves, thin rays glistened over the sparkling undulations of the ocean, Screeching gulls flew at some distance catching fish from the briny deep. With a calm rhythm, the tide foamed up and the waves pounded endlessly on the shell laden beach. There was a beautiful contrast between the blueness of the water and the whiteness of the sand. A cool breeze blew gently which added to the serenity of an early morning walk along the shore. The beauty of the early morning dawn was just spellbinding! As someone said, ” there is a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they are absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them”! ” O, Sunlight, the most precious gold to be found on earth”.

It was low tide early in the morning. The sea appeared far away. We walked a considerable distance down the sandy beach for some fun and frolic in the cool morning salty waters of the gently splashing waves. Unaware of time, we continued enjoying with gay abandon. Suddenly our attention was drawn towards the shore where some people were frantically waving towards us signalling us to come back! They appeared to shout loudly but their voices were drowned completely by the thunder of the sea. Looking around us we realized that we were in waist deep water and the sea level was sharply rising. We could see our belongings which we left safely on dry sand were floating in the middle of the rising sea water.With anxiety and apprehension, we tried to rush towards the shore, but the more we tried to move towards the shore, more we were pushed backwards instead. My other two friends somehow managed to swim with the rising waves and almost reached the shore, but I was in deep sea and did not know swimming!! Now I became frantic. The sea level was almost chest deep, none of my frantic efforts were working………..

As luck would have it, a big wave came crashing along, lifted me up in its cradle and in no time threw me violently as it crashed onto the shore with a loud splash!! A virulent barrage of abuses awaited me from those calling us frantically from the shore, ” tairna nehi ata kya! pani borhne wala hai pata nehi kya tumhe!etc etc”. I listened abjectly with face down!

A bit of fundas on oceanic tides…………..

Most coastal areas with some exceptions experience two high tides and two low tides every lunar day. A lunar day is 24 hours and 50 minutes unlike a solar day. A lunar day is the time it takes for a specific site on the earth to rotate from an exact point under the moon to the same point under the moon. A lunar day is 50 minutes longer than a solar day because the moon revolves around the earth in the same direction that the earth is rotating on its axis. Therefore, it takes the earth an extra 50 minutes to “catch up” to the moon. Because the earth rotates through two tidal “bulges” every lunar day, coastal areas experience two high and two low tides every 24 hours and 50 minutes. High tides occur 12 hours and 25 minutes apart. It takes six hours and 12.5 minutes for the water at the shore to go from high to low, and from low to high.

Some references::

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides05_lunarday.html

https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attraction_Review-g304554-d321427-Reviews-Madh_Island-Mu