She was sitting on the shores of the Marina Beach in Chennai, seemingly indifferent to the mellifluous waves. There was a latent bonding between Her and the waters. I hope I had the words to put them down....Her childhood was not picture perfect. In fact, far from it. She wasn't interested in bedtime stories and fairy tales like Her friends. She had a flair for estimations of all kinds. Her innocent smile of relief after Her small predictions came true was enough to light up Her mom's face. She did everything in her capacity to supplant a seamless world into her Daughter's psyche.
After completing Her honors in Statistics, She resisted Her temptations to take up what the industry had to offer. The Massive Waters of this planet had always fascinated Her. Never did She miss an opportunity to visit Kanyakumari in the pretext of seeing Her relatives. Her uncle doesn't remember a single occasion when She didn't ask about the way waves and tides behave when three seas collude. She even spent a fortune to participate in a deep sea diving adventure with Her collegemates. Somehow it seemed that the Waters beckoned her in their own passive way.
She decided to pursue Masters in Ocean Engineering from IIT Madras. With an unmatched academic fervour, She worked on turbulations on the surface of water bodies with specific emphasis on analysing and predicting under sea disturbances. Her paper on cyclones and employing recursion to establish their relationship with southwest monsoons received international recognition.
But there was something that kept telling Her that she was probably moving in the wrong direction. Yes, things which She had tucked beneath the layers of Her intellect for years. Time was ripe for Her insticts to take over and explore the path till it hit bottom. It was about a study of the Bay of Bengal that She had undertaken as a sophomore. She had arrived at results which seemed to indicate heightened activity at an area 50000 km north east of Port Blair. On comparison with the data from the Met Department, She could detect a cycle of activities in the Pacific Belt...... yes..... that was the area Her data converged to....
But if you are a research associate from India, credibility is considered alien to you. There were no takers for Her findings ...neither from the Universities nor from the US Met Office. It was dismissed as "a typical case of megalomania". She did feel disheartened, but She had time; about 200 days was Her guess. She would keep trying, atleast to prove that there are alternate methods to predict natural sea-borne disasters (Yes..She was sure this was going to be unprecedented in scale).
It was with these myriad thoughts that She found Herself lost on the seashore. She had never been out of Her house at Mylapore beyond 10:00 pm... till today. But Her mental wranglings brought Her to this place at midnight and She was musing for about five hours now. She somehow felt that it was a War of Wits between Her and the Ocean. And almost instantly, Her results did not sound logical to Her.
Suddenly, Her heart missed a beat. She had forgotten all about a preliminary sub-division of Her calculations. And it had to be divided by the present distance factor of 10. Yes, by Jove, the distance must then be 5000 km, not 50000. And the time at hand would reduce proportionately too ! She felt a cold tremor run through Her. She just hoped that it wasn't too late.
But late it was ! Fatally late. Almost immediately when this realisation dawned on Her with the first rays of the sun sneaking from the horizon, She saw the waves raise and cover the sunlight. No, it was not an ordinary high crest. The sea was moving in.... She did not remember walking into the beach at all...but She felt surrounded by water. Maybe She was drowning, but She did not care. She saluted the Almighty and her favourite Waters for outsmarting Her by seconds. Yes, Nature is always too smart for mortals. Gracefully accepting the verdict, She disappeared into a fading melancholy..........
She looked to the sea for hope and inspiration.
She looked to the sea to dream.
She looked to the sea for peace and sanctuary.
She looked to the sea to be free.
And there She was, as free as she imagined.....
The above depiction is based on a true story, the life of a person I knew about. Yes. It was the Fateful 26th of December, 2004. The Boxing day Tsunami showed the world what Nature is capable of. Some might think that Vandhana is incredibly unlucky. But I feel that it is people like Her (Yes.. caps for my respect) who still make us nurture the hope that we can bank on our superior intellects to survive and preserve our race.
I heard from a friend at IITM last week that The US Met Department confirmed Vandhana's turbulation predictions last year which pertained to a series of hurricanes hitting the West Coast now. Though Katrina and Rita were not unexpected, her findings are now studied by an expert commitiee.
It was my pleasure knowing Vandhana; though for a brief period. I am still trying to translate my deep sorrow into a celebration of victory.... the victory of the seamless Human Mind over Nature.
I name and dedicate my first blog to Her.
