seabitch

The sea is warm at sundown
And cool by the day
If you swallow seawater
You have hell to pay



It was to be the small bang before the bigger bang. It ended in a near mortal whimper for me. I am like that I’ve seen. A pussy when sick and here I think that my resistance is pretty high. Well here we was on the beach and all oiled up (twenty buck massage by a mobile masseuse; he was no good, especially since he wanted the entire custom of the group, five in all and so while the others grew restless waiting for me to finish after I’d gone first, he made haste with me and to no relief) and we jumped right in without much ado. I speak for me because I realized I should have weighed the pros and cons of so recklessly hitting the sea. It is salty water and in Digha, a dull brown tepid ditchwater. Jumped in I did and soon was gulping the shite by the mouthfuls. Was half full of that bile by the time we was out I’d say. On the second day I was slightly glitchy in the morning and had a sour stale burp but more of that in the post mortem report. Dinner was murgir jhol and thick bullet rice. I wolfed down great quantities of it and then some more after I got served more than I wanted. Upbringing and the ancient sense of duty not to mention immediate reproach in the cartel made me cram some. But there is no sense of foreboding where folly is riding the crest of a wave. Thereafter liquid diet in hotel room till well past. Good boy said good night and went off to sleep in non aircon. Fucked woe be to. First crap: 5 am. Shit #2: 6:20. #3: 7ish. In my current line of business I’m getting to know about AP/GP and frankly, a man gets to thinking what it all means and he gets to watching hisself and finding a meaning. My loose tummy situation was just insane. And how can I ever forget advice from the coterie — strongly advise lunch, have lunch, you’ll be hungry, ’tis a long way, a light lunch never did no harm. Lunch, Parijat hotel, flower of heaven garden. Strongly recommend shukto, have shukto, roughage. What! Had shukto, made from milk, tssk tssk, have charchari, roughage. Charchari then. I was with a plan too at mention of lunch and had dal and aloo bhaja by my own genius. A sachet of eno had preceded lunch. The clouds had gathered but nothing was rumbling yet. Kolaghat in safar sans suhana. Dry and prostrate, sprawled on the back seats, ready if it was time. Ah, someone mentioned tea, petrol pump. What are friends for! Just before Kolaghat, when the cronies had alighted for a quick bite, between puffs, Pintu, the guy at the wheels, confided that he thought the charchari funny. Them wasn’t good vegetables he said. I coughed up some yellow phlegm and spat, you boys finished, let’s go on now. Petrol pump, God bless Pintu. He rushes first thing to the loo. I opt for a drag to begin with and he has the start on me. He is out before long. A little relief is all I get although I had expected more from the nearly three hours of discipline showed by the tummy. On the second morning my stomach was already a tight drum stretched across my chest by the time we went down to the beach. There was football happening and an old tug got pulled inside being for a sudden second, but verve was in me by then a little rat’s tail sticking out under the cupboard for a brief second after the light came on. I was relying on smoke and went along in the water, it was bloody crowded and all everyone was shouting was beer; one was even shrieking holi hai holi hai, aste bachar abar hobe. I looked in the water. It appeared to me as shimmering. I looked closely, let the sun fill my palms below the surface and brought it up slowly. Fine specks of sand caught the sun and danced in it but that was all a fleeting glimpse; very soon the water was the same brown liquid. The water was dirty all right.


And grapes sour.