Ode to the Sea and Beach of Pondicherry

How young were you younger when we were
Attracted to your shore and the wavy water!
Enough had you given us to love you daily
To swim and bathe in you merrily;
Brajkishore dived and crawled deep into your body
School children, local boys swam regularly
Flapping their wings Anita, Swapna and Sushan did share
Dolphin’s snouting and seraphin’s song wafting in the air.
On your beach calm and quiet we walked, O Sea!
Collecting varied shells became unforgettable memory
Witness to umpteen maritime stories
The golden beach told us the tale of fisheries.

There was a pier on the bay ancient
Half a mile long with wide space at the end
Sitting on the benches on sides or surrounding the space
Gave them a sense of living in the sea, a wonderful solace;
Peeping out of its watery grave it reminds us
About the great who had been over it, history to focus;
Sri Aurobindo with disciples enjoyed the moonlit sea and beach
Shyam Sundar reminisced that the Mother with Pranab graced each.

Dredging and shifting and littoral drifting
Gradually narrowed the beach, a precious thing
Stormy and raging sea was the result of terrible Tsunami
Destroying many coastal towns it brought in life utter misery.
After the rise of the sea it receded in depth
Baring the animals which soon returned to health.
Saved by Nature’s tricks, legendary French-Wall and Her grace
Pondicherry finally lost the shore, its sandy gold face;
No scope remained for collecting the shells
No more walking or building the sandy castles.

To save the town, beautify it out of fear and greed
To receive the tourist they became the real spendthrift
They built a parallel road alongside the old promenade
A makeshift toy-beach, grandiloquent façade
With broken, pulverized hills lifted and carried
By modern Hanuman, the techno-giant;
Roads are high up, sea has gone deep down
So that the Tsunami can no more touch the town.

Sea is groaning under camouflaged sandy road
‘Do not swim’- warns the board at the first road
‘Unfathomable Sea!’ and ‘Treacherous in calm’
The ‘Ocean of Time’- Shelly found as it had become.
O Pondy Sea, you too have become the killer of men
Who might have been deceived by the Siren.

Pondy is attractive mainly for you, the Sea!
And for you the Beach! - washed by the waves constantly
Few are the things and sites attractive which are man-made
Alas! The slim and golden beach is at last dead.

The only hope remains that the Nature is protean
And the Time to reckon is eternal.