Young man and the sea

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        The Young Man and the Sea

      

      It was summer season. I had gone on a tour to Orissa. My five friends had accompanied me. We were of the same age group. We had jobs in the same firm. Our boss was a very generous and intelligent man. He knew the techniques to take out good results for the company. Through lots of incentives and inspirations he kept the officers and workers up and doing. We young officers were in his good book.  This tour, he allowed for us, on company’s cost. He had a good say among the board of directors. It was an easy task for him to get approval of this tour. I was made the team leader. My friends lovingly called me GN. We had checked in a hotel at Bhuneshwar. It is the capital of Orissa. We found the town good and clean. Roads were wide and clear. Traffic was not so heavy. Orissa people were simple and straight forward. The hotel attendants were honest, prompt and active. They as well as the manager took every care. My friends were very jolly and accommodative. They took little time to adjust anywhere. There also they had adjusted well. The manager of the hotel procured vehicles, food packages, railway tickets etc as we required for visiting holy and tourist places. The rates were reasonable. We had visited almost all local sites including the famous Lingraj Temple. The Dolphin Park, Chilka Lake, Konark Sun Temple, Ratnagiri, Udaygiri, Khandgiri, and Nandan Kanan etc we visited on hired vehicles. In a weeklong time we enjoyed the trips very much in and around the capital town.

    Then we planned to shift to Puri. The manager gave me the address of a new hotel there, named Nilgiri Hotel. He had phoned the hotel manager to reserve two front rooms. It was just near the Gourang Mahaprabhu crossing. Rooms were on the first floor. They were facing the sea. We came here by train. By auto we came to this new hotel. The manager was waiting for us. We checked in the reserved rooms after doing the due formalities. Both the rooms were spacious and well furnished. The waiters brought our bags and briefcases from the lobby. They opened the big windows. Sufficient sunlight spread everywhere. The windows were well grilled and curtained. The outer terrace was full of small flowering plants. Pigeons were moving up and down making their usual love sounds. Beyond the window we had full view the Bay of Bengal and its long sandy shore. We were charmed to see the surging sea. Its turbulent waves struck the shore in quick successions. The existence of the rising and falling waves was short-lived. Its emergence and disappearance on blue sea-water gave the message of ephemeral aspect of life. People on this earth come and go in a short time like these waves.

       It was just mid-day time. People were taking baths in the sea. The young ones were frolicking in the high rippling waves. Some of them were on inflated tubes. Men, women, boys and girls were in festive mood. Some stood on the vast stretch of the beach and looked at the waves. All wished to wash away their anxieties in the saline water of the Bay of Bengal. We could not resist our temptation to touch the sea water. After being fresh we called the waiter and ordered for the lunch. He said, “O K Sir, Please come in the dining hall after half an hour.” We then came down in the hotel’s lobby and taking due suggestions from the manager we frisked away. After a short while we became a part of the mammoth crowd. Our joys knew no bounds to get at the shore. Sights were wonderful. Blue sea-water, rising and heaving, thrashed the big heaps of sands. The sea and the sky seemed to meet at the distant horizon. We took a handful of the sea water and sprinkled overhead. It was a queer experience. The vast kingdom of God seemed all the more mysterious, holy and sacrosanct. We bowed in reverence to the sea-god. More than half an hour had passed. Our eyes wished to capture the unending beauty of Nature in the shortest possible time.

     One friend said, “I am hungry, let us go back to the hotel.” The second said, “We have already taken bath at the former hotel in the capital town….” The third interrupted, “Don’t think we are going to jump into the sea just now.” Then we all planned to enjoy sea-bath very next day. It was 2 PM. Thirst and hunger rose to its peak, though eyes were not ready to be diverted from the sea. We were highly amused with wonders of the sea. Our eyes were not ready to move towards the new hotel or towards anything other than the waves and people frolicking on them. But we had to reconcile. Anyhow we plodded towards the lodge. Sand surface was hot. It was hard to move barefoot. With strain and effort we came to the hotel. There was rush in the lobby. We just sat on a vacant sofa and chairs. The waiter was pleased to see us. He requested us to move to the dining hall. We followed him. The hall was full of people and their humming sounds. All were taking mid day meal. A round table with six chairs was cleared for us. We took seats and waited for a short while. Then delicious dishes were served. It contained all we had ordered. I felt a bit of difference in the taste of vegetable preparation. But it was o k. Then we took rest in our rooms. Again watching the turbulent sea from the window was a happy pastime.  

    In the evening we went eastward to join the religious ceremonies performed at the famous Juggernaut Temple. There was heavy rush all around the prestigious place. Hindus of all walks of life were seen there. Few non-Hindus were seen doing their own business. There was a big macadamized space in front of the temple. People said that this vast space and the wide roads are used for the purpose of Rath Yatra every year. We then entered into the majestic temple premises. Saw with awe the artistically built temple structure. It was constructed some six hundred years back by a Kalinga king. Its sacrosanct interior consists of the holy deities of Lord Juggernaut, Balram and Subhadra. There are few other small temples in the vast premise. Here many poor people take meal freely. Few people paid something to the fake priests for that meal. We took a priest to explain some important things about the temple and meet us at the sea shore hotel. He told us many things that actually we didn’t know at all. Till late in the night spent time inside and outside the temple. We then finally came back. The manager was waiting for us. We took dinner and went to the market on the beach. A big market was held on the wide sea-beach. Many things were sold there but most of the things were made from the shells and corals found in the sea. Late in the night we returned and slept a sound sleep. In the morning the sun’s bright rays awoke us. We talked for a while our yesterday’s experience. Then one by one we got ready. It was 9.30 AM. Every one of us was eager to jump upon the undulating waves. We took tea and rushed towards the sea. There was heavy rush. Men and women, boys and girls, children, foreigners, etc were taking baths or enjoying the superb sights. We took off the dresses and on our inner underwear jumped into the sea water. The waves gushed over heads with immense force. When the waves ebbed we got up the saline water and rejoiced. This bathing, jumping and playing with the turbulent waves continued for two ours. The unusual frolics gave heavenly pleasure. The sun rose overhead. Hunger and thirst started their works. Some of my friends indicated me to be out. I too felt the need to go out. We had enjoyed to the full. But one thought came to my mind just then. It changed the whole thing. It took me to the threshold of death. I saw the death door from close range. Even today I shudder to remember that horrendous incident. Its spectre continued for years to haunt.

      When I was about come out of the sea water I thought to wash away the sea sands spread in my hairs. I bent a bit with my head down to wash. But instantly a furious wave came, threw me down and dragged me along the shore with my face and stomach downward. First of all I was stupefied as to what and how it happened. In the mean time the big mass of ongoing wave water started receding. The down going water pulled me flat towards the sea. I resisted hard by thrusting my fingers into the sandy sea bed. I could hold my body being swept away by the fast receding bulk of the wave water for few moments. For this I remember I struggled hard. I tried as much I could to fight against the powerful flow. But I was defeated. I didn’t hold strong support. Sands turned helpless. My fingers got released. My whole body was at the mercy of the receding wave. I was then being swept away towards the Bay of Bengal. In those highly critical moments only one idea flashed that I couldn’t meet anyone. Then the total scene instantly changed. I was pushed in a very big hall of darkness. Nothing was visible. Only one small door lurked at a great distance. From there was a faint haze. May that door would have been the heaven’s inlet. In the big hall of gloom there was absolute peace. Peace in its all consummation. It was a queer experience. I had never felt such thing in my life. Mentally I was far away from my watery ambience. My body was in absolute rest. I was fully conscious, not of this world, but of that big hall of gloom. There all the basic human-instincts of Love, Anger and Fear had vanished. I was mentally transported to a new world. This seemed to be a small link between the heaven and the world I had left. I neither liked that world nor disliked. I was quite nonchalant. In the mean time an alternate, stronger, wave came upward. It pushed me forcefully, back to the shore. This wave was more powerful than the former. I was thrown up with great force. My body was lobbed at the safer region. The worldly consciousness sprouted forth. I got up. My friends were at a loss to find me vanished. They regained their cool to see me. They began asking me many questions. I was gasping and wheezing. My body was trembling and shivering. I was extremely tired. All the peace, I had felt in the vast hall of darkness, had vanished. I was unable to utter a word. They came near me. I signalled them to let me restore proper breathing. Normalcy returned slowly. After ten minutes I became able to open my mouth. But I was fearful. The waves looked ferocious. I answered in short, few of the questions of my friends. My mind was swirling. It was preoccupied thinking the sudden change of spiritual, mental and physical states. Where had the absolute peace gone and this tumultuous, shocking and alarming state had come, I failed to understand. What I was few minutes before and what I was, after being back to life, remains still an enigmatic riddle of my life. One thing, I can confidently say now, is that I could see from the closest range the mysticism of the peace of death and struggle of life on the earth. Men uselessly fear death because it has a lot of gifts in its treasure for them.

       I was panting hard. My head was still not clear of sands. My friends were weary of my sudden change. I didn’t say them anything about the hall of death from which I had just returned. No one knew of my narrow escape from the clutches of death. It was strange and miraculous. God had granted me a new lease of life. Bizarre and weird was my journey from life to death and back. I was stupefied. All zeal and jest had gone. My friends were then impatient. They held my hand tight and pulled me out. We came to the dry sand heap. I saw back the roaring waves. It was frightening to look at them. I fearfully left the roaring sea. Soon we were in the hotel. I sat on a sofa and bent my head so that the chin touched the chest. Friends were at a fix to see me in such an alarming condition. They requested the manager to intervene. He came to me and very politely asked me several questions. At first I spoke nothing. He insisted me to tell the truth. At last I opened my mouth. I said the whole accounts in breathless tones. The manager held his head by both hands and thanked God. He was amazed at what had happened with me and how I was saved. Later on he disclosed that there were several deaths of the ignorant tourists due to the circular motions of waves. In such conditions the on going and down coming waves causes such circular motions of severe nature. When anybody falls in its trap he looses chances to come out alive. My friends looked at me with their mouths ajar.

   We lived there for four days more. They regularly took bath in the bay but I didn’t dare. Once on intense insistence of my friends I took bath in the sea but I had to take help from the seaman. He put a flattened tube around my waist and held my hand firmly. We both started going 5 meters up and down in the mysterious sea-waves and enjoyed conversing with the god of sea.  

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I SAW TWO ALIENS

 I Saw Two Aliens
     Stephen Hawkings, the famous astrophysicist of the world, expressed an apprehension of aliens' invasion on this earth. He said that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe. He uses a mathematical basis for this assumptions. He also said, "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." He strongly believes that alien-lives not only exist on unknown planets but perhaps even in other extremely distant places, in between far off stars or even floating in outer space. He also warns that a few of these species might be very intelligent and can threaten the Earth. Contact with such species might be devastating for humanity." He advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, man should try to avoid contact with alien life forms. These are Hawkin's idea but today
scietists are much keen to explore extensively in this field and delve deep in unravelling the tangles of aliens lives.
     Flying Discs are other unidentfied flying objects (UFO) observed time to time at different parts of the world. Perhaps the oldest recording of a saucer-shaped object is from 1290, when a silver disc was reported flying over a village in Yorkshire. Disc-like flying objects were occasionally reported throughout the millennium. For example, in a mass sighting over Nuremberg in 1561, discs and spheres were reported emerging from large cylinders. They also frequently show a narrow beam of light descending from a saucer-like object. However, perhaps the first well-documented instance to specifically compare the objects to saucers, and the first to be widely reported, was the Kenneth Arnold sighting on June 24, 1947, while Arnold was flying near Mount Rainier. He reported seeing 9 brightly-reflecting vehicles.                                           Based on all these concepts James Camerone made a film Avtar, the highest ranking movie at the box-office. Its theme too is based on the aliens'( Na'vi) activities from the outer space. With high technicalities and precision he showed Na'vis and their wars with other giant animals of Pandora.
     In this connection I am going to narrate here a real story of aliens' appearance near my village Pobi,Ps Jamua, Dst Giridih, Jharkhand state of India. At a distance of one and half km from Jamua I had seen two aliens. One can easily locate this place and its road route on wikimapia or google.com.
   It was an evening of mid seventies of last century, most probably in 1974. It was twilight as the sun had already set in the far west. I was cycling back home from Jamua. My house is at a small distance from here. My bicycle was steadily moving on the Giridih-Koderma single pitched road. Nearly one and half KM distance I had traversed from Jamua. There is a depression on ground giving an incline to the road of about 200m length. I had crossed the down and up parts of this wide road. Then I was on plain path. There was no habitation of people on its either side. Barren land lay at vast stretch on the southern side of the road and in the north there were some paddy fields and Baso Ahar (Pond). I was musing and muring in myself with nonchalant air. I kept my legs moving up and down on the peddles with queer synchronic rythms. Bicycle was, then, running smoothly on the plain road. Twilight time and the canopy of silence lay spread over the fast fainting horizon. There stood a very big and old Peepal tree on left side of the road. When I was nearly at 40 ft from that old tree, which has now no existence, I heard a loudly audible air-shufling or rain-pelting sound from south. It just seemed that big rain drops were falling and pelting on on a dry hard land. It was all of a sudden, from the southern side of the barren field. Before I could understand anything I saw a giant alien running with tremendous speed,crossing the road within seconds. As I saw him crossing the road, in my front and while watching him closely,turning my eyes towards right side, I him found converging fast into a tiny shape on the wide stretch of the north horizon. And before I could recompose myself and try to understand the event, there again swooped one similar alien following him fast, with nearly the same speed. Both of them were running about two to three feet above the road and the ground. They looked closely identical. I guessed they were nearly 12 ft tall. Clad in faint brownish grey fur like cover, looked errect and smart. They had three antena like rods over their helmet that looked like woodpecker bird. I can guess it would have been 300 km/hr or even more. They had come from the southern side and crossing the road hustled away in the north. Their direction of flight was calculated. They scuttled away just in the eastern side of my village. They were tall, erect and lanky. Their outer wearing was presumably furry. It was of deep brown colour. Their heads looked similar to the heads of wood-pecker birds. Their faces were not distinctly seen. Three small aerials seemed attached to their heads or helmets. I can’t say this with due precision but it looked so. They were not fat, not winged either. Having no aggressive or inimical intentions towards the terrestrial beings, they flew past without hurting me. The case might be reverse too. They would have been fearful of me. I was a terrestrial being. I was moving on a strange, two wheeled, vehicle. I wonder what would have happened if collided. Their immense momentum would have smashed me into fragments. As far as I guess they might have been running on a tiny but highly sophisticated and well mechanised device. Both of them were quite separate from each other. Possibly they were running on the principle of hovercraft.
It is beyond doubt that they were highly advanced and scientifically well equipped beings of other planet of outer space. They might have come on the earth for some definite purpose. This visit would have not been for the first time. The forerunner would have visited more than once. They might have been a well trained in descending on the earth. The other runner following the former would have been a probationer. One thing was sure that their direction of flight and mission of works were preplanned. When I narrated this episode to most of my friends and seniors very few believed me. The more I tried to impress the truth upon them the more forcefully they negated it by saying simply that it was my phantasm or obsession. Whether anyone believes it or not I don’t care but I want to share this queer and true experience with anyone who is conducting intensive research on this subject (the aliens).            Here I must mention few of the newspaper tips and clippings in its reference.
   Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were born in Cleveland, Ohio. In June 1938 they created “Action Comics”. According to them the superhero of the action comics was a man of steel. He could fly in the sky without wings, run faster than speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and leap to any height in single bound. He was about 1.9 metres tall weighing 102 kilos. Though this was a fiction in 1938 but now I can justify that those aliens had high resemblances with the superhero of the famous Action Comics. Possibly Jerry and Joe might have seen them like me, may be from a closer distance and in more light. Being impressed by them Bradley Rica produced a documentary titled Last Son which included the myth of aliens. In the campus of the University of Wyoming Prof Jeffrey Lockwood and few students are busy to invent ways and means to address the aliens. They are planning how to talk with them.     The scientist Sara Seagate of the Massachusetts Institute of technology, America strongly believes in the existence of the aliens, who are more advanced and techniquely equipped than us. I request top Indian scientists to conduct intensive research in this field so that friendly relations, just unlike the views expressed by Howkins, can be established with aliens of other planets. On 26th July 2008, from 9.00 am to 10.00 am, there was a broad telecast on the Z-news channel. The show was titled, “Yes, I have seen aliens!” It was asserted by an American astronaut. He had seen the debris of a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). He claimed that this certainly belonged to the aliens. It was an important event in the intensive research on the aliens. Michio Kacoo of Japan is very confident of the presence of aliens. He has written a book on these topics. The book became very popular in the whole world. He claims to continue his search in future. Japan government has taken the Herculean task on its head to establish radio links with them. American government had also launched three separate missions in this field. It spent a lot on these missions but all got flopped or possibly they are hiding the findings. Amitabh Pande of India is also not very sure of aliens at present but he does not rule out its presence in the vast universe. He calculates that even the fastest space vehicle on the earth will take 80 years time to reach the nearest star from this planet. Therefore the possibility of communion with the aliens is presently bleak. He however takes otherwise to call them aliens. In stead he wants to call them distant neighbours. Many writers of science-fictions have assumed aliens to be tall, lanky, smart and weighing 102 kilos. But now I can justify that those aliens had high resemblances with the superhero of the famous Action Comics. Possibly Jerry and Joe might have seen them like me, may be from a closer distance and in more light. Being impressed by them Bradley Rica produced a documentary titled Last Son which included the myth of aliens.
        In the campus of the University of Wyoming Prof Jeffrey Lockwood and few students are busy to invent ways and means to address the aliens. They are planning how to talk with them. The scientist Sara Seagate of the Massachusetts Institute of technology, America strongly believes in the existence of the aliens, who are more advanced and techniquely equipped than us. I request top Indian scientists to conduct intensive research in this field so that friendly relations can be established with aliens of other planets.

                         On 2008-07-26 from 9.00 am to 10.00 am there was a broad telecast on the Z-news channel. The show was titled, “Yes, I have seen aliens!” It was asserted by an American astronaut. He had seen the debris of a U F O (Unidentified Flying Object). He claimed that this certainly belonged to the aliens. It was an important event in the intensive research on the aliens. Michio Kacoo of Japan is very confident of the presence of aliens. He has written a book on these topics. The book became very popular in the whole world. He claims to continue his search in future. Japan government has taken the Herculean task on its head to establish radio links with them. American government had also launched three separate missions in this field. It spent a lot on these missions but all got flopped or possibly they are hiding the findings. Amitabh Pande of India is also not very sure of aliens at present but he does not rule out its presence in the vast universe. He calculates that even the fastest space vehicle on the earth will take 80 years time to reach the nearest star from this planet. Therefore the possibility of communion with the aliens is presently bleak.