A Wave Watching Tour

When Friday evening arrived in all its underwhelming glory, Nila collected her laptop, coffee flask, and other sundry belongings scattered on her work desk. As she was about to get into her car, the phone rang.   

“Girl, whatcha doin'?” Daphne’s perpetually perky voice greeted her from the other end.

“Just getting out of work,” Nila said, morosely.  

“Beth is so flaky!” Daphne complained in her cheerful tone. 

Nila couldn't remember who Beth was. Maybe Daphne’s sister-in-law?

Daphne continued, “Beth and I were supposed to go whale watching tomorrow morning. We booked tickets in advance. But she bailed out on me just now! This guy she likes invited her to the movies!” Daphne paused to catch her breath and added,“I was thinking, you and I should go whale watching tomorrow. Whadya say?” 

Nila sighed in response.

“Do you have any other plans for tomorrow?” Daphne asked, sensing her hesitancy.

Nila was planning to sleep in late and lounge in her pjs in front of the tv all day with Nyx by her side. There was a docu series on unsolved murders that she might watch. But Daphne wouldn’t consider it to be a plan fit for a weekend. So Nila didn’t answer her question.

“Where’s this tour?” Nila asked, instead.

“San Francisco. The tour begins at Pier 39. Whales are usually spotted off of Farallon Islands.” Without waiting for an answer, Daphne continued, “I’ll pick you up at 7 in the morning.” 

The next morning, when Nila was getting ready to leave, Nyx meowed and looked at her mournfully. 

“I don’t want to go either,” Nila whined, scratching behind the cat’s soft ears. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.” Nyx rubbed against her legs. 

“I would have said no if it were anybody else,” Nila explained to Nyx. Daphne had been patient with Nila’s penchant for reclusiveness and her dour attitude towards life. Plus, Daphne was the only one in Nila’s life who never in the past three years ever asked Nila to move on after Adam died in a surfing accident: brain hemorrhage due to fatal head trauma, as the death report so succinctly said. 

“This is my way of saying thanks to Daph,” Nila said. Nyx seemed to agree and walked away to sit on her perch overlooking the window.

Daphne showed up impeccably dressed as always in a crochet peplum top under a stylish windbreaker with a drawstring waist. 

“You’re looking gorgeous,” Nila said earnestly.

“You too,” Daphne returned the compliment. But Nila thought she didn’t sound convincing.

 

 The highway was drafty, and by the time they reached the pier, the wind was howling. They were greeted by the news that the tour company had canceled the expedition due to inclement weather conditions. The woman at the reception said they had called Beth’s number and left a message. 

Nila decided to loaf around in the gift shop for a few minutes, while Daphne chatted with the other miffed customers. 

“Nila, meet me at the dock when you are done shopping,” Daphne called out to her, sprinting out the door.    

After staring at the I-heart-SF mugs for some time, Nila walked towards the pier. Daphne waved at her from the dock. She was talking to a young guy tanned bronze by the sun and the sea. 

“Nila, meet Hugo. Hugo, my dear friend, Nila,” introduced Daphne excitedly. “Hugo has agreed to take us to the edge of the outer sea in his sailboat. He swears we are bound to come across some mommy humpback whales and babies because this is the season!” 

“It’s so generous of you, Hugo,” Daphne continued, lightly bouncing up and down clapping her hands. Her high pitched voice was shaking from the cold wind and anticipation.

Nila laughed nervously, “It's not safe, Daph. Our trip is canceled because of bad weather.” 

“Hugo, is it safe to go?” Daphne paused for a moment and answered her own question. “Hugo wouldn’t take us if it’s not safe. Would you, Hugo?” she drew her left shoulder towards her cheek coquettishly. 

“It’s safe, if we turn around in half an hour.” Hugo said valiantly, pushing his chestnut brown hair back.

‘Married with kids or not, Daphne could still cast that spell on men,’ Nila smiled to herself.

Nila could stay back and let Daphne go on the boat ride with Hugo. But the gray sea was tempting with fog shrouding the outer edges. 

Hugo led them down the dock. His boat was small with a sail that had merry stripes of yellow and red. Hugo situated himself in the cockpit, and there was room for 4 more people. He gave them life jackets and quick instructions to avoid tipping over the edge of the boat. 

“What do they eat, these humpback whales?” Daphne asked, as Hugo steered the vessel out of the dock. “Definitely not humans, right Hugo?”  

“Planktons,” Hugo said lovingly to Daphne. Nila could never have imagined the word to carry so much love.

“Ummm…”  said Daphne, looking impressed. 

The sailboat gathered speed, and it navigated the mildly rough seas noisily. Nila looked over her shoulder in a full spinal twist. The receding dock was behind a thin veil of fog.

The boat bumped jaggedly over the small waves. Nila groaned. “I feel nauseous,” she said weakly.

“You are seasick. Keep your eyes on the horizon. You’ll feel better,” Hugo suggested kindly. But Nila ignored him and covered her face with her hands.

A few more minutes later, he reduced the speed and then finally turned off the engine. The boat bobbed, as waves sloshed on its hull. 

Nila looked at the great canvas of the sea in front of her. It didn’t just look like a great expanse of water filled in a big cavity on the face of the Earth. The sea was a mighty presence. An emotionless, detached cognizant presence. Heaving. Watching.

‘Ocean is infinity on Earth!’ Nila observed. Her mind was humbled beyond measure. The humility soon became fear. ‘This is how death looks like,’ her mind whispered. Fear cleared her head, and she forgot she was extremely nauseous a moment back. 

“Time to turn around,” Nila checked her watch and said.

“Just one more moment,” Hugo whispered under his breath, as the boat was propelled by the gusty winds a little further into the sea. "Let me get the sails down," he said, getting up.

As Nila surveyed the immenseness of the ocean with unease, she remembered a story her grandmother once told her--about a wise boy-sage born with eight deformities.  In the story, the boy explained to the king of the land: “Let the waves of the universe rise and fall as they will. You have nothing to gain or lose. You are the ocean.” 

Quietly, Nila witnessed the dance of the waves--rising, falling, rising, falling. Rising again, gasping to hold on to its impermanent yet chronic self-identity as a wave, helplessly giving into the oneness of the ocean, and finally knowing a kind of timeless peace free of bounds. The tidal waves, and baby waves, and ocean swells were only on the surface. "Deep down," Nila said to herself, "there's only the indivisible oneness of infinite waters."

    Maybe that's what Adam was trying to tell her when he said, "Surfers are beings, and the sea is the beingness."

    "Are you a surfer or a Sufi?" Nila used to make fun of him.

    "I want to be a Sufi surfer," Adam would say, tucking a wanton curl of hair behind Nila's ear.

   

Hugo’s voice woke Nila from her reverie. “There…” he pointed at a distance. Nila and Daphne turned their heads in a synchronized movement to look at a rippleless flat circle of water a few yards away from them. He started the engine and turned the rudder towards the glassy spot on the sea. 

“That’s called a footprint,” Hugo yelled over the engine noise, “A whale has deep dived. It will resurface within 4 minutes, not too far from the footprint.”

As the boat neared the glassy spot, Hugo turned the engine off again. They waited in breathless suspense. Three minutes crept away. A fountain, and a huge humpback leapt out from the gray waters and pirouetted against the foggy horizon. Its giant tail flipped as the rest of the whale disappeared underwater. A small tail flipped next to it--the baby! They gasped in unison. 

Hugo turned the boat around and headed in high speed towards the dock.

“It was so… surreal. Thank you.” Nila shook Hugo’s hands at the pier.

Daphne hugged him like one would an old friend. 

“You guys should come back when it’s sunny. No two whale expeditions are the same,” Hugo said, smiling shyly. 

On their drive back home, Daphne breathlessly talked about how amazing the sight of the breaching whales was. Then she too fell quiet. Nestled in that calm comfortable silence, Nila was--for the first time in her life--no longer scared of the immensity of emptiness.

The Anklet in the Attic

“Is there an anklet up in the attic room?” Maya asked her aunt. 

Ammayi who was serving dinner stood transfixed, her hands poised midair with a scoop of rice on the steel ladle. “How do you know about the anklet?” she asked, her voice shaky. 

“What anklet?” Shambhu asked. 

Ammayi smiled nervously and sat down.

“What anklet?” Shambhu repeated, this time a little displeased and incensed that a secret was kept from him by his own mother about some anklet in the attic of a house that he grew up! And his cousin Maya, the upstart visiting from England, knew about it.

 “It’s an old story. And a long one,” Ammayi said looking at her son and niece. 

Leaning back comfortably on the chair, Maya said dramatically, “Perfect. Young’s the night. If you could tell us an old long story, we couldn’t ask for anything more. 

Ammayi sighed deeply and said, “I was 8 when it happened. One morning, my father set off to a Bala Bhadra temple--the shrine of the little goddess. The temple, deep in the forests of the Western Ghats, is opened just once every year on the day of Bharani in the summer. And the tribal deity would be taken on a palanquin by the forest dwellers. And my father wanted to say his prayers when the deity was taken out of her stony abode. The belief was that if you prayed at that auspicious hour, then the prayer would be answered by the goddess.” 

“What did he want to pray for?” Maya asked, engrossed in the story. 

Ammayi’s eyes were tinged with a forgotten sadness. After a moment or two, she replied, “My little brother was very sick at that time.” 

The children had heard of Kelu, who died when he was 5. 

“Did grandfather get there on time?”Shambhu’s voice still carried a tinge of betrayal. 

Ammayi smiled at Shambhu that reminded Maya of a beautiful crescent moon peeping from behind rainclouds that had just emptied themselves. 

Ammayi shook her head. “This pilgrimage, he was told, had to be undertaken on foot. So he left weeks before the palanquin festival and after a few days of walk and rest reached a village at the foot of Western Ghats at night. There were no inns to spend the night. So he tried to sleep on the verandah of a local tavern. But the place was too noisy, and he couldn’t sleep a wink. At night, the tavern owner gave him precise directions to the temple: once he reaches the fork near a well, he was to take the unpaved path that went around a rock shaped like an elephant’s back." 

Ammayi continued, "Before daybreak, my father set out to the temple. The mountain path was narrow and said to be frequented by leopards and bears. With the goddess’s name on his lips, he started his climb up. It was still dark. The stainless steel flashlight made a small circle of brightness on the dry leaves and vines and creepers on the mossy path. Outside the circle, darkness reigned. 

“My father thought he heard the soft sounds of bells on an anklet muffled by a heavily embroidered skirt.  He was relieved that there were others on the mountain path, not just him. The sun came up and in a few hours shone mercilessly on him. Father, exhausted from hunger and lack of sleep, lost his way. When he finally found the elephant-back rock, the sun was setting behind the hills. Birds were raucously flying to their nests.

"Night had fallen as he finally reached the temple grounds; crickets were chirping away. The temple premises were deserted. There were wild jasmine and hibiscus flowers on the floor that might have fallen off from the offerings of the devotees. The goddesses' stony abode was empty. Hours ago, the deity was taken out on a palanquin and the small procession of people had gone down the other side of the hill. 

"Dejected, father sat down in front of the temple. It was a small natural cave with an intricately carved granite façade, imposing in its artistic finesse. Guarding the carved wooden door to the sanctum were statuettes of warriors with huge bosoms and bison heads with fangs. 

"My father spread his cotton shawl near the temple awning ready to spend the night. “Once again, he heard the bells of the anklet. He looked around and could see no one. Then, a hand as cool and fragrant as sandalwood touched his shoulder lightly. He turned around to see a little girl of 5 or 6 years. She was dark, her skin a shimmering granite hue. She had a small shapely nose and an exquisite mouth. But her eyes were her most beautiful feature. They were at once delightful and fearful to look into. He felt like they were gorgeous gorges that he would fall into if he kept staring into them. She wore a short traditional top of expensive silk and a heavily embroidered skirt. The girl wore no jewelry, other than a pair of anklets on her feet and a pendant of double tiger nails strung on a black thread around her neck. 

"The little girl said kindly, ‘you missed the palanquin. You know what that means, don’t you?’ My father shook his head. She continued, ‘Kelu is coming back to my hillock because he has nothing to bind him down there in your world. Why keep him there in misery, when he and I can play here.’  

Father looked at her intrigued. Her words didn’t make much sense to him then. He only looked upon her as a wild child, terrifyingly beautiful. 

"‘You can’t sleep here’ she touched his shoulder again as he was slipping away into a wistful sleep. 

‘I’m too tired to walk downhill,’ my father said. 

The little girl sat down next to him and took one of her anklets  off and tied it around his right wrist. Lowering her voice, she said, ‘There are others here who could harm you. They are waiting for me to leave. But this anklet will protect you. Wear it until you reach the valley.’ 

Dozing off, he dreamt of nightmarish figures of two-legged bisons with fangs and claws. They were dancing on the temple grounds. Earth trembled under their giant hoofs. Sun was rising when he woke up from the nightmare. 

My father went down the hill as fast as he could. He ran until he reached the tavern in the valley. Only then did he notice the anklet jingling quietly around his wrist.” 

Ammayi paused and served the children more rice absentmindedly. “Father brought the anklet home. I overheard him share the story with my mother. I saw them weep quietly sitting at the edge of the bed where Kelu was sleeping peacefully, his skin mottled with blisters.   

"Later that day, my father kept the anklet in a jewelry box in the attic and padlocked the door. At night we heard the anklet jingling...like someone was wearing it and dancing wildly with great abandon. That night Kelu breathed his last." Ammayi said, her eyes distant. 

Shambhu reached over the table and squeezed his mom's hand. 

"Is the anklet still up there in the attic?" he asked, eyeing the attic uncertainly.

Ammayi shook her head. "We opened the attic door after my father passed away and found the empty jewelry box covered in dust and cobwebs." 

"How do you know about the anklet, anyways?" Shambhu turned to Maya.

Maya replied, her voice now a quaking whisper, "Last night, I heard the jingling of the anklet coming from the attic. A little girl came to me in a dream and asked, 'Do you want to come out and play?'"

A Yakshi Encounter

One night, Raju hung out with his friends binge-watching horror movies. Around 1.30 in the morning, just after finishing Omen, the movie, he decided to head home. 

 "Where did you park your bicycle?" Raju's friend asked. 

 Raju had always dreamt of riding a Harley Davidson, or at least a Royal Enfield. But all poor Raju, a second year undergrad student in a sleepy little village in Kerala, South India, could afford on his father's school teacher salary was a run of the mill bicycle. 

 "By the little shack outside your gate…" he said. 

 "The shack…" the friend said. ‘By the pond?’ 

 

"Yeah. Is that a problem?" 

 "First off, it’s not a shack. It’s the dwelling of Maayi" 

He had heard about Maayi. In fact, every child in that village grew up listening to the gruesome story of Maayi, the blood-thirsty Yakshi. Few men could resist the deadly charms of Yakshis--those seductive vampiresses. 

In the spirit of the night, the friend narrated the story, "Maayi, the Yakshi, was once a beautiful young maiden who was convinced by her lover to run away with him. The night they planned to elope, he asked her to bring along all the gold jewelry she had. ‘It’ll help us begin a new life,’ he said. The innocent girl suspected nothing. At night, they ran away and while sleeping in that makeshift shack, the man crushed her head with a big granite rock and ran away with her jewelry." 

"No wonder she turned blood-thirsty," Raju said empathetically. 

The friend continued, "Maayi wandered the deserted streets at night looking for lone male wayfarers who would fall for her the way she fell for her man. And men who fell for her did not survive to tell the tale. One day, a young man came by, and Maayi approached him. He was, no doubt, moved by her beauty but not intoxicated like the other less fortunate ones. Maayi invited him to spend the night at the shack, which she had magically transformed into a mansion. At first the young man refused. But Maayi convinced him to stay as there were no inns nearby. He agreed to spend the night. They feasted on delicacies. But the young man refused to drink the alcohol that she served in tall crystal glasses." 

"Alcohol...very bad," Raju said, all judgy. 

“At night, as she led him to his sleeping quarters, she suggested he leave his knapsack by the door. He refused, ‘I read the scriptures before I go to bed.’ Saying that he took out the Holy book written on dried palm leaves. She leapt back in revulsion and horror. ‘I knew it…’ the young man said, shaking a finger at her. ‘I knew you were a yakshi.’ 

The friend went on, “Chanting the scriptures, the young man beckoned her to sit on a mat. Mesmerized by the scriptures, she sat there swaying to his recital of the Lord’s words that promised the ultimate, infinite, pure bliss that lies beyond the senses, mind, and ego. He beseeched her to stay rooted in that spot and meditate on the lines. She relented on one condition, ‘I’ll roam these grounds during the hours between midnight and 3 o'clock and feast on weak men. He implored her to relinquish anger, hatred, and thirst for revenge. ‘Give me some time to work out my latent tendencies…,’ she urged him.” 

 “Does she still roam the grounds during those unholy hours?” Raju asked in a voice laced with forced courage.

“People have seen her,” the friend said. 

 

Tucking his mundu firmly around his waist,  Raju countered in a quivering voice, "I’m not weak." 

His friend just shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Raju.

Raju walked towards the shack with strong strides. As he got closer to the shack, he heard the church clock strike two. He felt scared and breathless but a force egged him on towards his bicycle leaned against the shack. In the faint moonlight, he saw the stainless steel handle bar of the bicycle gleaming. 

The air was still. Crickets were quiet. An eerie silence blanketed the grounds around the shack.  He felt a sudden chill descend on him that made Raju button the top button on his white shirt. As he reached for the bike, he heard the light rustling of leaves and twigs breaking. He jumped on his bike and turned it around to face a tall figure with flowing silvery hair. The figure screamed on his face. Raju wanted to call for help but no voice escaped his lungs. 

He froze for a few seconds, and then a chant of the Goddess Varahi--the commander of the army of bhutas, spirits and ghosts--gurgled to the top of his conscious mind. Suddenly, the willowy figure melted into the ground. He peddled as fast as he could into the night. 

The next morning, Raju’s friends came by to check up on him because they had learned from their neighbors that Yakshi had struck again last night. Raju was still reeling from his close encounter with the vampiress. He didn’t tell them anything because he didn’t have the guts to relive the previous night. 

His friend said, "We are glad that you are okay. The old woman--we call her muthassi--that lives next door to us saw the Yakshi last night. Muthassi is 89 years old, frail-looking but deceptively healthy. She got the time wrong last night and headed out at 2 in the morning to the pond near the shack to take a bath." 

The friend took a deep breath in and out before he delivered the climax of the story, "As the church bell struck 2, the yakshi dressed in all white floated in front of her and darted into the night. She screamed and fainted. It was her son who found her in the morning lying by the shack. She broke her arm and has a fever." 

 Raju sat up straight. He asked, "This muthassi that you speak of, how’s her physical appearance?" 

 "Tall. 5 foot 8. Thin. Willowy. Long white hair that reaches to the back of her knee." 

 That’s when Raju realized that the Maayi he ran into yesterday was the frail old muthassi. 

 "Why do you ask?" His friend wanted to know. 

 "No reason," he said emphatically. Raju was afraid that if she died from fear or fear-induced fever, he would be blamed for it. 

 A few days later, Raju's friend told him that the muthassi had pulled through. "The will to live in her is strong." 

 "Ummm…" Raju said, suppressing a smile that threatened to appear on his lips. Raju learned a lesson that day: sometimes floating Yakshis are just scared Rajus on bicycles.