By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)
MARINE
DRIVE, VIZAG: Dolphin’s Nose
A
light-house appears
-pierces through
the Dolphin’s Nose,
the hill
that’s withstood
years of
surf and sand,
docked
seaward among its
spaced-out
peers
-Gently
curves into the ocean
-Who set
these lines in motion?
On the
earth, on this artsy surface
Light skips
light,
the
creator’s heart, a beat
Did
intruders dare render this work incomplete
and
puncture in this nose-pin,
A Calcutta
candy-stick
-the Bay of
Bengal,
Swirling
gin
by Vizag by
the bay.
The
repeated light
Marked a
place, a time,
a regular evening sight
It came to
be
-to wave
ships off the jagged lee
Does it
prevail
When
storm-winds wail?
Do fish
swim up with prayer and plea,
Radiant?
Who drew
the dolphins on a receding tide?
The
nose-line fades into the old city
The
burgeoning beach-line
-the
behemoth
Develops
its way to a new aerocity.
By V.
Shruti Devi
PAINTING: DOLPHIN'S NOSE BY THE POET, V. SHRUTI DEVI
Marine
Drive, Vizag: Coconut Groves
As the
Dolphin’s Nose and dockyard
diminish in
the rear-view mirror
A look-east
policy
by and
large
(Ingressions,
outcrops, Feng Shui would know the stops)
would be in
order to the right.
To the
left,
Statues and
a litany
of
beach-road draws
A seaward
crane
calls to
sight
transplanted
groves
Trussed-up
coconut palms
Await their
new-found fate.
-to unfurl
and to flourish
(which they
did).
More
appeared in droves:
Symmetrical
coco plazas
-square
feet now dot the shore.
By V.
Shruti Devi
PAINTING: PALM TREE LANDINGS ON VIZAG BEACH, BY THE POET, V. SHRUTI DEVI
MARINE
DRIVE, VIZAG: Lawson’s Bay
Past the
city’s elite
Ramakrishna
Beach
the wheels
roll on
The
juggernaut of development
slaps a
tsunami of a road
across our
lands.
Compensation?
Do clear
that coast, O holy ghost! With solatium.
What a ship
down,
a petition
up
whose
street?
There’s
salt in the air,
a steady
breeze
past Gyan
Vilas,
the
ancestral monument
frieze to
frieze
Time was
An ancestor
meditated
Undisturbed
and
Attained
-was it
Samadhi?
One
registers
one’s mortal
plot
As ships
diminish at sea
and fishing
fleets
present
themselves
picturesquely
A hilly
climb
by Lawson’s
Bay
(a pirate,
legend has it)
Winding
past
dunes and stretches of ocean view,
Pathlets
once led to streaky sand
We’d alight
with picnic gear
Mats and
beach buckets,
Sandwiches
and tea-things
Not a human
soul in sight
but the
family band
casting
footprints on the shore
The
wave-break line,
jumping
waves
gathering
diverse shells galore
Jagged
rocks
miniature
sub-terrains:
pools
amidst crags
Insets of
corals
spied at
sunset
-the tongue
of the sea,
cowrie
shells, nabhi sea buttons,
conch-like
pokey shells,
and what
have we
Not a hint
of human civilization
Not even
from the
fishing
village
that
assails the nostrils
en route
-where
gliding through the
atmosphere
Is a dried
fish inhalation
that’s
bound to sublimate
into
the body, mantra-filled
Oxidized,
Iodized,
I inhabit
these zones
And beyond.
By V.
Shruti Devi
PAINTING: CORAL REEFS ONCE UPON A TIME, BY THE POET, V. SHRUTI DEVI
MARINE
DRIVE, VIZAG: Cyan Meditations
Across the
hills, and over the waves
The
hypnotic buoyancy
of
awareness
dwells
on
impressions
-the
hourglass a phantom:
-no
co-ordinates, no dial, no moon-face
But
granular views
of
suspended animation
-The high
gloss
of the ventral
side of a
giant wave
as a surfer
negotiates
an Old
Spice ad.
How was the
scene envisaged;
-When?
(I recall
playing on the
water’s line
And being
taken unaware
by a
gigantic wave
-a towering
wall.
With family
around,
one didn’t
slip, didn’t fall,
But it was
a watershed moment
-the sea wasn’t
a breeze
the ocean’s
floor was steep
was the
crux of that summer vacation)
-One had
lived a tale
and would
tell it.
Decades
later,
A road
slashed through
the
precarious cliff-side
hairpin
bend
The crag
morphed
into a park
and wings
of steps
descended
sea-ward
Predictably,
crowds began to manifest
At the base
of that hill
One
eventually did alight
I think it
was 2010,
in the
early-morning light
to do the
Suryanamaskaar
And to
chant the Gayatri Mantra
unhindered
by the
crystal japa mala
-Fortunately
for me,
I had a
family friend to count the beads
-a
philosophical volunteer,
an aunt,
And another
one
with whom
I’d conversed
the previous day
threw
further light on my
theories of breath
and chants
-articulating
“Yah Allah”
was also
a breathing
exercise
At that
post-dawn hour
As one did
God-knows
how many
Suryanamaskaars
and
rendered the mantra
into the
dome of the horizon
In very
considered, practiced, unique ways,
the hymn,
in my book,
acquired
new syllables:
“Yah
Allah!”
-I look
heavenwards
and the
“rosy-tinted dawn”
displays
the
scribbles
of a
jet-plane
flying
north-by-north-west,
I suppose.
Clad in a
flaming orange and yellow
two-piece
swimsuit
from
Greater Kailash, Delhi,
Energized,
one began the ascent
back to the road
Engulfed in
a blue tie-dye
wrap-around
The environ
caught the
surround-sound
In
retrospect
I believe
Baywatchers,
cops, whoever they were
Did keep a
wary eye
Even if
from atop the cliff.
Cell-phone
cameras
had not yet
come into their own
But the
sparks on the shoreline
might well
have been in the line of view
of the
International Space Station’s view!
This marked
my thirty-eighth
trip around
the sun.
A close-up
of the planet’s
aqua-lung.
By V.
Shruti Devi
PAINTING: MAKING WAVES, BY THE POET, V. SHRUTI DEVI
MARINE
DRIVE, VIZAG: The Bheemli Stretch
Before the
advent
of intricate sign-boards
and signages
The
hour-long jaunt
from Vizag
to the town of Bheemli
was thought
of
as Bheemli
beach,
and
pronounced
Bimli
Pulling
beams
of
light-house waves
of rippling illumination
There
once stood in B-town
a beach house, a palace of the
nation
that
once was.
-My
mother’s mother, the heiress.
For years,
one passed by the ruins
while
driving into Vizag
from Kurupam
if we took
the Bimli route
A scene
from a
tragic Hindi movie
had been
shot there:
Ek Duje Ke
Liye (For Each Other)
This
thoroughfare meets a dead-end
in this
town
-A recent
discovery
while
traversing these paths
to survey
lands.
It
re-emerges
in the
avatar
of the East
Coast highway.
But on the
Vizag-Bheemli stretch
Deciduous
ghaats
overlook
the tar,
the
sea-ward terrain,
the narrow
sandy bar
before the
high-tide line
the
low-tide line
…there are
Coastal Regulation Zones
that are in
play.
On flatter
stretches
You’re
treated
to
navy-blue glimpses of the bay
the Eastern
Naval Command holds sway.
Casurinas
were once riddled
Into
clearings after roadside clearings
You’d
sometimes spot a stray vehicle
Around the
Winter Solstice,
heaving
home a maritime catch
-not a
shoal of fish
but a
trunk, a branch
of tropical
greens
-Mistletoes
to be adorned
with
shimmering stars and cottony themes.
Where
resorts and restaurants now capture the horizon
There once
was a diversity,
a natural
mix
of scrubby
herbs and grasses….
The
imagination puts acrylic to canvas
But would
need to surpass
the
artistic genius
of those
who inspired this style
with
palette knives and brushes:
Artists in
the family:
-Glimpsing
Greens by Kusum, and Terraqueous by Preeti
Masterpieces
and exhibitions
of the twentieth century.
The
impressionists were a major factor
A bard’s
eye-view,
-you get
the picture.
By V.
Shruti Devi
PAINTING: OUTSKIRTS OF VIZAG, BY THE POET, V. SHRUTI DEVI
A SET OF FIVE PAINTINGS: MARINE DRIVE, VIZAG, BY THE POET, V. SHRUTI DEVI
