Radhanagar Beach – Where God left her heart

Radhanagar Beach. Voted best beach in Asia and 7^th best beach in the world by Time magazine in 2004. Naturally, when I heard that I was going to visit the Andamans, this had to be on my itinerary. But “Asia’s best” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Let me try.

“Radhanagar Beach is pretty much like heaven. Only better.”

Nah. That statement is underrated. Forget it.

At the first instant, the beach defies imagination by its sheer size, sanctity, and splendor. The vast crisp blue sea… the gentle waves breaking apart on the shore… the light breeze across the beach… the air which rejuvenises the senses… the Caucasian women in bikinis… Let’s not get carried away here. Coming back, Radhanagar Beach was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The water was simply too clear to be believable. As I took off my sandals to feel the sand in my feet, I realized that this beach has not been much affected by human habitation. The sand felt like how it should have – sandy. Fine little pieces of rock gradually granulized over the course of millennia, calmly waiting for someone to find their beauty. I wonder if they had been this beautiful before humans laid eyes on them. I guess they would have. But then, what was the point of such beauty, if there was no one to see it? But then, is the motive of beauty only to be seen by someone? Can beauty not exist for its own sake? Evidently, it can. I wondered what other sites in our own Solar System would be so beautiful, and have not been discovered by humans till date.

Actually, there wasn’t much of a humdrum to it. It is basically a very simple idea. Pressure variances cause the sea to form waves which break on the surface. Given enough time, these waves convert the rocky crust into sand by constant force. All this happens under a sky inexplicably blue and a blazing Sun. That’s it. No big deal. Yet, it was a sight to mesmerize the human soul. As the waves broke on the shore and the water gently reached my feet, it felt like a long lost lover’s kiss. Sweet. Gentle. Eager. I looked up to the sky and thanked it for preserving this beach till this time to give me this moment in life.

I proceeded to walk along the beach away from the crowd of people because… well, people! I hadn’t decided how far I’d go, I simply decided to go. Anyway my phone wasn’t working on this desolate godforsaken piece of rock in the Indian Ocean. I know that shouldn’t make much difference but as an Investment Banker my phone is the reign to my chain. And for 36 hours now, I had been free. I was agitated at first, checking my phone every 5 minutes for any sign of telecom connectivity. But as time passed, I discovered a newfound sense of freedom. At Radhanagar, the feeling exploded into Euphoria. This was the place where I wanted to have no phone connectivity. A familiar quote from an ancient shrine passed through my mind – “Agar Firdaus Baar Rue Zaminast, haminasto, haminasto, haminast” (if there is heaven on Earth, it is here, it is here, it is here). Of course! If heaven had to be constructed on Earth, it had to be made by God’s own hand.

As I walked along, I found a small set of rocks on the beach. I’d reached a fairly desolate part of the beach with one couple sitting sunbathing at a distance and me trotting along with my musings. I thought I’d sit on the rocks for a while and watch the sunset. But upon reaching them I came by a surprising revelation. These weren’t ordinary rocks. For one thing, they seemed to have holes on the surface. More like hundreds of small craters. Moreover, they were too coarse for sea-side rocks. But the most astonishing feature was that they had little growths on them. As if they were growing into something. On touching, they seemed rather soft for rocks. Now I have never seen corals but have only heard of them. Perhaps these were those. Could corals grow out of water? Maybe these were remnants from a time when the island used to be underwater. Or maybe they weren’t corals at all. Who knows? Well, geologists do. But I’m not one. So pleasing myself with the thought that I’d seen coral reefs for the first time in my life, I moved on.

I had come pretty far by now. There was no chatter of people any more. No faint buzz of humanity. Even birds did not chirp here. The wind blew, but the leaves of trees did not rustle. Or maybe that sound was lost in another. For any sound at Radhanagar did not quite match the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. The waves had traveled for leagues, only to find the peaceful solace of death at the shore. They would rise above in their last moments, fall just before the shore, and their offcuts would wash at my feet. And there was sound. Much like a melancholy. The same sound, sometimes loud enough to turn my head, sometimes soft to soothe the soul, in a non-periodic fashion, the waves kept crashing. For whom? Perhaps for me.

As I went in deeper, I came across the most wonderful observation of a walk which I knew would be worrying my family by now. But then, they worry too much and my phone wasn’t working. Anyway, as I was walking, I saw imprints on the wet sand. They seemed to be drawings of leafless trees someone had made on wet sand beach with a stick. But then, I didn’t think the sunbathing couple made those and neither did I. And they were made for miles. There was only one explanation. But… how would the sea make such carvings on the sand. And more importantly, why? It defied logic. The sea does make some carvings and textures on the sand. I did see them every time the water from a wave receded. That was always in the form of a texture rarely taking shape due to something stuck on the sand. This wasn’t a texture. These were surely carvings but they weren’t made by anything human. And the only thing I knew which they resembled were trees branching out. Little trees, all over the beach. All distinctly apart from one another. Why? How? I do not know. Maybe my mind played games on me. Maybe it was a texture I was simply unable to recognize.

Or maybe, that was how the Earth played. It had a consciousness. The consciousness of the universe. Maybe that was the point of the splendid beauty of this beach. Not for anything else. But for itself. This beach was carving the blue print of organic evolution in sand and challenging my scientific mind to search for an explanation. I couldn’t. I simply succumbed to the wonder that is Radhanagar. The sea continued to reach me at my feet.

Soon, the Sun came low enough on the horizon for me to be able to look it directly in the eye. It didn’t seem to be bothered by it and replied by directing its rays at me. Or maybe those were the rays which affected me so. I saw him coming down. I’ve seen the Sun set on the sea before. Many times. And never has it once failed to leave me spellbound. Even today, the pink sky merged with the blue and slowly turned dark. Till there was no pink. And no blue. There was just, the night, the sound of the waves, Radhanagar Beach, and me.

The Lonely Traveler
February 2016