Where The Stars Meet The Sea

My interpretation of the memorable ferry ride in pencil

We decided to leave Koh Tao on an impulse. Can’t quite advocate unplanned ventures or adventures but more than often have gone that way! Undeniably, it has failed me a few times. Nonetheless, the apparent escapist in me said, that planning and then failing is more defeating than not planning and failing! Or better still an unexpected result, win or fail is perhaps more gratifying than an expected one. Well, philosophies aside, we elected to head south.

Sunset at Koh Tao. Koh (Island) Tao (Turtle) Turtle Island is a beautiful island in the Chumphon Archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand. It is much known for its Scuba diving resorts. Though small it is a nice getaway for 4-5 days with serene beaches, a colorful local market,  and decent eateries. 

A few many knocks on the doors of half a dozen travel agencies finally got us two last-minute tickets for the night ferry to Surat Thani. The ferry was a complete chock-a-block! 8 in the night the little port seemed alive with festive exuberance. There were few Thai natives and a swarm of enthusiastic young Western tourists. Most of them were in their early twenties, I presumed. I could hear the excitement and eager introductions going around. ‘Hiya! I am John from the UK..oh kool I am Monica from Switzerland. A German couple… A group of students from France. Wow! The world had just come to a small South Asian port at this hour of the night.

Our big bags were stowed away in the cargo section with number slips handed out and then we boarded in a queue (I make a particular mention of this pleasant word because it's such a rarity in my part of the world, unfortunately!). On the basis of first come first serve, some got the cabins with beds and I muttered in my mind ‘Jeez what a miss!’ only to realize in the next hour, that it was a miss worth well.  The next in the queue were given mattresses and pillows and the final last-minute-ers including us got coir mats and the invaluable instruction to find ourselves a place (if we can) to safely rest our butts!

We were on the topmost deck. It was clean though crammed with people, drinking, laughing, and merrymaking; seemed like a partying cruise. Scampering through the crowd and dodging the carefree passengers sitting on the deck floor with beer bottles in their hands, we finally managed to get ourselves to a strip of vacant space exactly in front of the engine room. 

What lay before us was the last railing protectively separating us from the endless starry sky and the endless gurgling sea - almost inviting us to dive into that seeming limitlessness. I wasn’t sure if the gooseflesh bespoke the chill breeze brushing against the skin or the hypnotic panorama in front of my eyes. We spread the mat, leaned against the backpacks, and wrapped the stole around. The chill had started to pinch. Yes! it wasn’t a dream.

Countless stars had irradiated the clear January sky. The sea was calm, the air bore the moist seaweed smell, and often times I could hear the waves splash against the ferry walls. Before long I was in a trance. For the next many hours, while time stood still, I sat reminiscing and reflecting on all the myriad moments gone past in the last many years. Maybe this is how close one can get to peace. A quarry we pursue so relentlessly to actually chase it away most often.

Suddenly, the ship's haunting horn blasted through the dead silence of the night interrupting my introspection. I could see distant lights moving….another ferry….carrying another traveler from another distant land to another distant destination.. who might be wondering quite like me, 'Perhaps this is where the stars meet the sky!'

Machu Pichu, Tibetan Lamas And Parapsychology

I was alone and frustrated with the projection data when I heard this strange sound. My heart skipped a beat. Honestly, I am not the bravest of souls, and I don't feel a wee bit embarrassed to accept that I believe in certain things that science doesn't acknowledge. I often tell myself, that anything and everything that happens has logical reasoning. When one fails to explain an occurrence, either it didn't happen or one missed a detail, or worst still it's the mind playing games! Most of the time this explanation helps me. Other times my friends get a call at the oddest hours precisely after midnight:) or when I am walking towards the empty parking lot at 8 pm in the deserted downtown. Sometimes, I wonder what am I more scared of !?! The predator or the phantom! Well, there's no end to fears.

I visited a Psychic once! One of the many impulsive things that I have done in the 28 years of my existence! it started on a curious note and ended with goosebumps. The psychic seemed to have seen through me. Later I tried to reason it. Did I hear what I wanted to hear? Did I interpret her words as I wanted to interpret them? or did I hear her say things that I subconsciously thought about? Maybe this may be that! There might be a hundred ways to analyze my experience. In fact, I was so shaken that night and so desperate to convince myself that it was silly and superstitious, that I requested two of my friends to visit her. I had to prove that parapsychology is no science. It's just a hypnotic game! Unfortunately, things have happened since as she had predicted, I have been a student of science but sometimes science fails to provide answers. Sometimes I have to question things I have been taught or learned to believe!

Let me now digress to something entirely different -The Tibetan Lamas! Ma once read a Bangla detective story about a mystery in a Tibetan Monastery. I was intrigued by the details about the 200-year-old lama and all the mystical powers that he had. The fact that this 200-year-old man would die and be reborn in a distant land and his followers would begin a quest to find his successor thrilled me. I used to wonder what if it wasn't fiction. What if unknown to the scientific world in some corner of the universe such things happened. From the little that I know, eastern/oriental religions do talk about reincarnation and the transmigration of the soul from the body that you leave on dying to the body you are born into again. Complex but yes, Hindu and Buddhist texts talk about it. Occidental religions, I guess have not professed a lot about rebirths. Hmmm! haven't we heard our grandma say, "Do a bad deed today, and you will be born as a rat in ur next birth" Good karma is the road to nirvana, the end of the rebirth cycle? Interesting stuff, isn't it?

Talk about Digressing from a topic again!!:))...Machu Picchu...or the "lost world" The amazing Inca ruins in Peru (2430m above sea level) It's breathtakingly beautiful, and someday I hope to set foot on that mystery-shrouded land. It's considered one of the architectural wonders of the world and more so because no one knows why this fortification was built and how it was built! The entire citadel is built of stone, precisely cut, and so accurately placed that even a thin metal piece cannot be squeezed between the joints. There is no use of cementing anywhere. The 13th-century fort is still intact! I have been a student of Architecture and the pyramids, the Temple with the musical pillars., the whispering gallery, and many other such wonders never cease to amaze me.

7 years back I had been to Hampi on a college tour, I stood in that dance courtyard and traveled back 500 years to the court of Krishnadevaraya. There were the court dancers, the musicians, and the amazing musical pillars. Yes, I could faintly hear the swaras (notes) when I knocked on the pillars. It was very faint or maybe it was imagination but the feeling that once upon a time it happened for real gave me goosebumps.

Mysteries come in all forms. Some are fictitious while some are facts and some are mere manifestations of our fears or wishes! The curiosity about the unknown spices up our otherwise mundane lives, whether it's the ghost in the attic, the gypsy astrologer, the Buddhist monk, or the Inca architecture. They have all given us a reason to think that perhaps there might be things beyond logic, and deep down I want to believe that there are no answers. It keeps the mystery alive, it keeps the curiosity to know about it alive.  Isn't there an old saying 'No more a mystery becomes history'

Wrong Numbers And Science

Disclaimer: Resemblance to any person dead or ALIVE is purely coincidental;)

'Mota Bhai' is my next-door neighbor at work. His name is of course a misnomer! Mota (fat in Hindi) bhai is not the least bit "Mota". He happens to be a thin lanky man with an even thinner hairline who loves to talk and loves to eat. His appetite amazes me! His room is stacked with more foodies and goodies than my entire kitchen pantry! Well, he sure is the envy of all those who sort to starvation to shed a few measly pounds! Well "Mota bhai" can eat and eat and eat and still look like that he could eat even more.

A cell buzzed! I try hard to concentrate on the spreadsheet in front of me. I hate the timer in the corner of the computer, it keeps reminding me that I am late. Still stressed at the delay in submitting the finance sheets, I hear "Mota" bhai say, "Kemcho Bhayyaaa (how are you, bro)? No, this is not the Institute of Heart and Kidney Sciences for Home bred Canines and Felines"! 

Hmmm IHKSHBCF! goshhhhh!!! Is that for real??

Mota Bhai continues, "Bhaayaa (bro) this is not IHKSHBCF! You see my phone number is xxx-800-8666, maybe you meant to dial Yxx-800-8666, blah blah blah...." For the next 1 hour, he kept explaining, to the unsuspecting caller why he accidentally dialed the wrong number, and that there is a science behind people dialing wrong numbers! He went on to suggest, that, probably he has a case of early-stage dementia which results from the overuse of electronic gadgets, mobiles particularly! 

Seriously??!!

Curiosity took the better of me, and I walked into his cabin. Mota bhai was devouring a double burger, and explaining the address of a shrink to the caller before hanging up with a satisfied smirk on his face. I didn't have to ask him anything. He instinctively responded to my question mark face! 

"Just pranked a pranker, You think I am dumb enough to believe IHKSHBCF exists!"

PS: Names changed to protect privacy

BEEP

The silence of the still, starless, full moon night was occasionally interrupted by her deep snores and the eerie staccato calls of random nightjars. The 14-hour surgery had exhausted her physically and emotionally. Her patient had coded during the closing.  Walking out of the hospital, she had asked herself for the nth time, ‘Did I try enough?’ Each death on her operating table had left a heavy weight on her. She always blamed herself.

***

A vigorous push reluctantly awakened her from her near-unconscious state.  She could barely open her eyes. Being a surgeon had its advantages, she knew which medication worked best. So deep was her sleep that she was almost lifted up from the bed. The radium clock displayed 3:30 a.m. on its green dial. The living room appeared lit. As she shifted her languid gaze towards the bedroom door that opened into the living-dining lounge she noticed a shadow move. ‘Must be the birds’, she wondered. ‘Did I forget to switch off the light? Or is it the moonlight scattering in through the window?’ Before she could pull her thoughts together about the events post-dinner and pre-bed, her friend nudged her again.

‘What?’ Irked, she asked trying not to sound rude.

 

‘Do you think he is Maya?’ her friend replied in a spooky whisper alluding to a third person’s presence. ‘Who is Maya? And why the hell are you whispering?’ Annoyed, she asked in an indeliberate hushed tone. ‘Why am I whispering?’ The realization sent shivers down her spine. Maya didn’t picture well in her imagination at that odd hour. Unconsciously, she whispered back in the same ghostly tone again, “You are scaring me.’

‘Am petrified.’

‘Of what?’

‘Can't you see?'

‘See what? Did you switch on the living room light? When did you come to my room?’

‘No! I didn’t! I think the Maya did!’

Maya, the Indian word  for delusion  was a recent discovery  after a short trip to the Himalayas  a  month  back.  The connotations  could  even be interpreted as paranormal.  The thought made her uncomfortable. Both friends were sitting on the bed in a daze when the phone beeped. ‘A message? Now? May be an emergency at the hospital, she reflected when a draft of a chill breeze brushed her skin sending fresh shivers through her body. She turned towards the window. It was shut. ‘How did the breeze….' 

Her friend interrupted her trance with a maffle, ‘Check the message.’

It was from him. She hadn’t met him in years. Almost a decade to be precise but he often sent her an email or a message describing in detail his many travel stories and adventurous escapades. She was told he was a travel journalist though there were times she questioned that information. Many a time they quarreled about his disappearing on her. He traveled to faraway lands yet he never took the time to meet her even once. Why? Why did he always ignore the mention of a meeting? His indifference had distanced her from him. She started keeping herself busy with work. With the many passing years, he became a distant memory that didn’t hurt anymore. Her thoughts trailed off to the last conversation they had when he was in her city ten years back. She had waited for him at the restaurant for four hours but he didn’t turn up.  He sent an apology bouquet a day after with a note that he would make up for it. She had been unusually calm that day. She had removed the engagement ring, kept it in a box, and stowed it deep inside a locker. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She didn’t.

‘What did he write?’ her friend nudged. She turned her attention toward the message.

‘I am coming. He has written he is coming to see me,’ she smiled, surprising herself. She had perhaps, been unconsciously waiting for him for years. She could feel her cheeks warm up to an unexpected blush. She was about to reply to the message when she felt a searing pain up her wrist. Her friend had dug her nails into her hands. She was trembling unusually. Confused she tried to ask her what was bothering her when she heard the footsteps. The slow and steady footsteps were closing in from the living room.

‘There’s an intruder,’ her whisper got stuck in her throat.

‘Impossible!’ she tried to reason in her head, ‘If someone broke in before we returned from the hospital, where was he hiding?’ It was a small 2 bedroom minimalist apartment with bare basics. There was no visibly obvious place to hide. Both friends spent most of their time at the hospital and returned together. It was unlikely a break-in before their return. ‘Did the intruder break in now?’ The high rise was not easy to access and she clearly remembered locking the front door. She slid her hand under the pillow. The key was still there.

The sound of the footsteps closed in further. Terrified, they watched the shadow enter their room before it abruptly halted at the door. She made an attempt to ask, ‘Who?’ but the word whiffed out soundlessly. She pinched herself, ‘Is it a nightmare?’ Her friend’s ice-cold grip that almost numbed her wrist reminded her again, that this was no nightmare but worse.

She wanted to get up, walk out and confront the intruder but she couldn’t. A strange fear had kept her bound. Helpless, she sat there glued to the bed. Even the shadow stood still as if waiting for permission to enter. Whoever or whatever it was, it was tall.  Very tall. Myriad questions flooded her mind. ‘What is he waiting for?’ ‘Why isn’t he coming forward?’ ‘Why am I scared?’ ‘It’s just a petty thief probably.’ She could hear her heartbeat. She could hear her friend’s heavy breathing. She could hear a dog whine somewhere far on the street.’ ‘Why is it freezing cold inside? Did someone turn down the thermostat?’ random haphazard thoughts were echoing in her mind. Her phone beeped again. She wanted to read the message but fear had her paralyzed.

Next instant, all of a sudden she gathered her perturbed self, stood up, and stammered in an incoherent whisper, ‘Come on! Whoever that you are, do what you came to do.’ ‘Just do it.’ ‘Show up!’

The intruder stepped forward. She let out a loud piercing hysteric scream. Unbeknownst to her, her friend had passed out a while back.

***

When she opened her eyes, she was at the hospital, in the patient’s gown. She was on the drip and the nurse was staring at her curiously.

 

‘What happened to me?’ She asked. She could feel a throbbing pain in her head.

 

‘By God's grace, Doctor, you’ve opened your eyes. We almost gave up. You have been unconscious for the last 48 hours.’

‘How did I reach here?’

‘Your fiancé brought you in.'

‘Is he around? I want to speak to him?’

‘He left an hour back. He said he would return around 5:00.’

‘Where is Anya?’

‘She is on drips too. She has been strange ever since she regained her consciousness. She kept mumbling about a shadow. She was ……’

‘Shadow’ brought back the memory of the other night. She choked.

‘Doctor, are you fine?’

‘Yes, I am. Please, send someone to get my phone from the apartment.’

‘Oh yes. Your fiancé left it here.’

The nurse handed her the phone. That night’s last message was still unread. She clicked on it.

 

‘I was too late. Forgive me. Won't you?

 

The face of the intruder flashed in front of her. It was the patient. The patient she had failed to save. The man’s face and body were burnt beyond recognition. He was one of the fifteen brought from the crash site. None had survived. They were army secret service officers on a mission. They were now a part of classified files locked up in some secret chamber. No one would ever know who they were, why they were, and where they finally rested. 

 

Tears gushed down her weary eyes. Tears she had refused to shed for years. She didn’t want to be brave anymore. There was a beep on the phone.

‘Kate, I didn’t want to leave without meeting you but you were too frightened to. Shall meet you on the other side someday. Till then remember our times... Sean.’

He watched her one last time, then disappeared into the unknown forever.