A seaside chat

The sea was talking to me when it flowed. The whoop and holler of waters and wind rolled and roared like a watery beast. The sea also talked to me when it ebbed, the water receding like a reptile slouching in pain. The sea talked again when the day dipped in the sea. The blazing sun soaked in water like burning coal, and the night filled the sky like a wisp of smoke.

I saw the undertow in the surging tide, tugging like hesitation inside a heart. By day the crests of waves shone like jewels on the crowns. At night, the sea looked sad and ugly, and the waves danced as if swarming serpents were shaking their hoods. All the dins of life drowned in the sea, when birds erased the day with their wings, their silhouettes spewed the night that smeared the sky.

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For three afternoons and three evenings, I remembered Gerard de Nerval, who was a French poet with a bit of eccentricity. He was once found walking a lobster on a leash in the gardens of Royal Palais. When asked he said that he liked lobsters, because although those creatures knew the secrets of the sea, they never barked like dogs. How deep was the sea and how far did it spread? I sat on shore and thought about it.

The Greek mythology says that Poseidon was ruler of the sea. The sailors relied upon him for safe voyage and many men drowned their horses in sacrifice of his honor. Poseidon lived on the ocean floor in a palace made of coral and gems, and drove a chariot pulled by horses. But he was a very moody god, who created new islands and a calm sea, when he was happy. In a bad mood, Poseidon would strike the earth with a strident and cause unruly springs and earthquakes, shipwrecks and drownings.

Poseidon, like his brother Zeus, was a notorious rapist. He had many love affairs and fathered numerous children. One of the affairs involved his sister Demeter, who turned into a mare in order to escape his lust. But Poseidon did not give up. He turned himself into a stallion and captured his sister. But one of the most infamous stories of Poseidon involves the competition between him and the goddess of war Athena for the city of Athens. Poseidon threw a spear at the ground and produced the Spring at the Acropolis to win over the people of Athens.

However, Athena won as the result of giving the people of Athens the olive tree. In his anger, Poseidon flooded the Attic Plain. But eventually he and Athena worked together by combining their powers. Even though Poseidon was the god of horses, Athena built the first chariot. Even though Poseidon ruled the sea, Athena built the first ship to sail on it. I thought of Poseidon when I thought of the sea and I thought of Athena when I saw a ship.

Who could tell me the secret of the deep? I wondered if Poseidon's palace was still submerged in the sea. As I sat on the edge of the water, I could feel that secret was lapping at my feet. I closed my eyes and tried to think why God created the world the way he did. Why a three-quarter of the world was water and one quarter of it was land only?

Joseph Conrad writes in Lord Jim that a man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. Then he urged that with the exertions of one's hands and feet in the water one could make the deep, deep sea keep one up. I could not tell what happened to me, my feet floating on the edge of the sea, my hands propped behind my back like a portion of reclining chair. I think I wanted to fall asleep.

Long before the nightfall, joggers and strollers arrived on the beach. Children screamed and sauntered, vendors and hawkers shouted in the air, a few horse-drawn carriages raced up and down, tarot card readers, fortune tellers, a concourse of life created on the brink of water, its sound clashing with the silence of the sea. I remembered Mathew Arnold in "To Marguerite- Continued" where he lamented "Yes in the sea of life enisled, / With echoing straits between us thrown, / Dotting the shoreless watery wild, / We mortal millions live alone."

Even on the noisy beach, I could hear the sea speak to me. Again and again it said that all that sound signified nothing. Its waves often swelled in anger, roaring loud before lashing out on the beach. Every life was like a wave that had its designated distance to travel, some gathering before others, some breaking out before others, but all destined to vanish. It said that children were ripples that would grow up to be waves, and that old age was when those waves lose their vigor in the momentum of the sea and are propelled towards the shore to meet their ruins.

I have never sensed the futility of life that I sensed near the sea. The cool breeze rising from its bosom ran down my spine like a chill. I felt like I was an absurd wedge caught between the mystery of the night and depth of the sea, between hope and despair, between past and future, between rhapsody and tragedy. Why was it important to live, why was it necessary to die? What was good health if not death stretched on the edge of life? What was sickness if not life stretched on the edge of death?

Every time the sea roared, I thought it asked me to pay attention to it. One afternoon it rained in a single tone, water pouring into water as if to increase the depth of what was already deep. I watched the calm sheet of water that spread over the sea, as the rain came down from the sky like thousand spears going through it. For a while, the unbearable mood of the sea contaminated me, and I felt restless because I did not know what to think of it.

Since I have returned from the sea, I feel I have carried it inside me. I wish I could have a bit more depth and I wish I could have a bit more width. As the sea howls inside my heart, it makes me feel even lonelier, because I feel I am confined in a drama. And that drama is life. Go to the sea and it will tell you how that drama is much bigger than the actor.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.