A jog on the beach

An early morning jog is healthy, the beach accentuates it and company removes the monotony. The sun had not yet risen and I and Tejaswi were treading upon the surf with our bare feet. It was one of those rare occasions when you could find crabs, urchins, gulls and all of nature’s bounty except the curse, human beings.

Apparantly, Tejaswi did not have a wink of sleep; not the least bit due to euphoria but due to his distorted love life. In his words, “What wrong did I do you ! My life was so peaceful, serene and beautiful. Like a holy temple, like this morning sea, like a bouquet of roses. Why did you have to spoil it? Like an atheist defiling a temple, like the tourists dumping trash in the sea.., like a mad elephant trampling upon roses.”  I laughed shamelessly and appreciated the beautiful similes. His tale of misery showed no signs of conclusion when we heard a spine chilling cry alongwith  the regular barks of stray dogs. We stood rooted at our place.

“Places of natural beauty are said to be inhabited by yakSas, perhaps it was a yakSha or could it be the wail of some intermediary spirit at the nearby cemetery.”  My mind raced through all possibilities when another of those unnerving sounds echoed through the morning mist. We looked around but could find nothing except a few screw pine trees nearby and a mound at a distance. After a momentary pause the wail which now seemed to be impregnated with agony came once again. It seemed to be coming from the mound. We stood still with our T shirts drenched in sweat. The morning rays had started to stream down the horizon. Another of the heart wrenching cry and we moved forward to find out the source. A few reluctant paces forward and we could see the mound turning into a large turtle, being pestered by a pack of dogs. We strode along the way when the large turtle gave another shrill cry.

Seeing a turtle early in the morning on the Vizag beach was not new for us. We had seen numerous small turtles at numerous occasions. Anyone can see the tens of six feet high carcasses in various stages of disintegration, scattered around on the beach at any time of the day all round the year. But this was the first time when we had seen a live six feet high turtle wailing on the beach. We went near, the turtle was perhaps one of those endangered olive Riddley turtles which come to the coast of North Andhra and Orissa every year to lay eggs. Whatever it was, we could see its body crisscrossed with nylon ropes, carmine coloured liquid oozing out of the thick skin at numerous places. It was obvious, the turtle was caught in one of the fishing nets and managed to escape and land at the beach, but the poor creature’s agonies were long from gone.

We did not know what to do, the barking dogs added to our confusion. Fed up of the commotion we drove the dogs out of the site. We had jogged a long way and were at the wild stretch between Sagar Nagar and Gitam college , where except a thick casurina groove nothing else exists, to reach the road one had to climb a 20 feet high rocky cliff. Either side we had to go about 3 to 3 kilo metres to find another human being. Tejaswi’ s bike was parked at Tenneti park, which was about 2 km from our current location and our cell phones were at home. Tejaswi volunteered to go back to his bike and get help while I stood guard to the Turtle. He sprinted, I had never seen him sprint on track leave alone on sand, but that day he did.

The turtle wailed once again. I could see its source of agony. It’s body was brutally cut, blood was oozing out anywhere and everywhere, the nylon thread bore through its gaping wounds. The poor creature was experiencing perhaps a combination of the most tortuous punishments described in the hells of Garuda Purana while it was alive. I could not stand witness anymore to the ghastly scene. I ran around the place at the foot of the rocky cliff I found a dark, broken bottle one of the sides was covered with a label with a large “5000” written upon Red background. I broke it, armed with a sharp shard I returned back to the turtle. I held upon one of the nylon thread which had dug almost an inch into the flipper of the whining turtle. A few minutes of gentle coercion and the thread gave way. I peeled the thread off the turtle’s wound as gently as I could, the turtle gave a horrendous ringing cry.  Unperturbed I held another thread and repeated my act, the turtle continued wailing each time more pitiful than the previous.

After five minutes one of the flippers was free. Perhaps the turtle felt it. Perhaps it was happy, Perhaps it was relieved, perhaps it was thankful, or perhaps it was sarcastic that a man was trying to help it out of agony induced by “Man”, perhaps it was afraid that in the guise of helping I was trying to inflict some greater harm upon it, or perhaps it was just too sore from its ordeal that it twitched the now freed flipper.

I continued my exercise. After about half an hour, when the tail, head and two flippers were freed, Tejasvi returned with a man in his forties. The man was in a white lungi and had a satchel. There was a third person in a guard’s uniform, he was surely 60 years old if not more. The man in lungi prodded under the shell of the turtle where perhaps the neck was. He looked at his watch. It reminded me of our family doctor checking my pulse with the sole difference being he checks at my wrist. The uniformed man, who looked confused, pulled out a large kukri from his waist and joined me in cutting the net.

The turtle had stopped wailing, perhaps it was exhausted, or perhaps it was aware of the imperative. The lungi clad man after his mysterious activities, which made him look more and more like my family doctor performing tests, took out a few lotions and applied to the wounds of the turtle. He sighed and told to us, “It’s about to return to the elements”.

I was shocked. I never knew the compassion that I, humans in general, have for fellow creatures. Humans have always challenged death, and I was no exception. I franticly started cutting the ropes with the shard, it pierced me. I was not going to die but the turtle was. The small cut inflicted by the shard was unbearable for me. The turtle had born the agony of nylon ropes digging into its hide perhaps the entire night or even longer. The injury caused to me was due to a shard created by me, for my use, out of a human made bottle which in some form I have always used. But the turtle was injured by nylon ropes which it had never created, which it could never use and which was out of a fishing net which none of the turtle species could have made or used in any form. It was injured purely due to humans and by humans.

It was perhaps the shame or perhaps the guilt of being a human that I continued breaking the ropes. I was working upon the fourth flipper, my grey T-shirt and white capry were carmine,my heart was pounding and ears ringing with the words of the man in Lungi. I was frantically working upon a blue nylon rope while the large, heavy, bluish green, triangular flipper lay on my lap; The turtle let out a loud shrill wail and fell silent.

The flipper lost its weight, somehow I was no longer feeling the weight of the flipper on my thigh. I looked at the Lungi clad man, his face was as composed as it had always been. I then looked at the turtle. It no longer resembled a turtle but seemed to be a mound in the shape of a turtle. Blood was still oozing out of the gaping wounds, Nylon was still digging into the hide, The shell was still majestic but The flippers no longer twitched, Its wrinkled neck no longer had the rhythmic movements, Its eyes no longer had the sorrow, infact they were devoid of any feeling. 

I was confused, I had never seen a living being die so closely. I tried to brainwash myself and continued to remove the nets but was of no use. Death no longer remained the joke that it used to be, it now became the fine thread of hope that could take life out of agony and throw life into the dungeons of apathy. The uniformed man and the lungi clad man came next to me.

The uniformed man said, “Don’t feel bad. Think of it as a fish that you could not eat.”

I felt the storm of anger and guilt turning into a hurricane in my heart.

Tejaswi whispered, ”He is a Brahmin.”

The lungi clad man said, “don’t be upset boy! death is a part of life. Be happy that now the creature is liberated off all its agonies…………………………………”

I never heard beyond this for my mind was now questioning the very source of this agony of the innocent creature.

The corporates, the governments and even lay men may show near zero impact on environment. But Zero is not a natural number it is an arithematic unit which can be achieved through numerous ways of arithematic appropriation at the cost of life.

Humans are those dervishes who could never snap out of the ecstasy of “Development” which in reality is destroying the well developed, infinitely precious life.

A thousand thoughts swirled in my mind, Tejasvi whispered a silent “Come” . I could not see the Lungi clad man nor the uniformed man perhaps both of them had left long ago.

The walk till Tenneti Park was unusually silent. He took the bike out of the parking lot and we reached home. My aunt was aghast seeing us covered in blood. I headed to the bathroom while he spoke to my aunt.

* The words from Indian languages with the exception of proper nouns are spelled according to the Harvard Kyoto convention for romanisation.