How can I even begin to describe the atmosphere that of where I am at this very moment? I'm in Kovalam, a small coastal town in the southern Indian state of Kerala. I'm sitting alone on a darkened beach as the Indian Ocean crashes to shore in front of me and palm trees gently sway in the warm night air behind me. The Arabian Sea stretches before me under a dark blanket of night sky full of stars. Waves rhythmically crash to shore like a herd of angelic white horses barely visible in the darkness.
As the light from the lighthouse swoops across the sky it silhouettes palms trees and lights the beach for a moment. It's the night before Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and the town has got an early night ahead of the festivities that will span some five days or more.
I sit in silence listening to the sea talk to me. The sky shimmers as a distant storm rages, the noise of the thunder almost indistinguishable to the sounds of the waves. Along the beach there are few small wooden fishing boats with containers made out of palm trees leaves in them. Perhaps they belong to the fisherman whose chants awoke me at sunrise this morning as they pulled a giant net to shore. I watched them from my balcony for a while then went down to join them, chanting along with them as best I could. It was a tough job for the end of a long night's fishing.
I'm joined in the darkness by a young stray dog who wants to play with me at this late hour. He doesn't care what time it is, of course, so I get up and find a stick to play fetch with. It feels like I am borrowing someones else's life for a few moments as I walk with the dog along the shoreline. He brings it back and runs in circles around me excited to have found a buddy. I throw it ahead of me and he bounds off to retrieve it as crabs run for cover in front of me and a shooting star tears across the night sky.
I want this moment to last longer than it will. It's so tranquil here after my first week in India. This hectic yet enchanting country is somewhere I've always wanted to visit and I won't go home the same which is a cliche I know, but I can't help that it's true.
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Time of death : Not specified
At the end of my first ever visit to India I sat and wrote this on the beach on the last night before we left. I'd been there with a charity that provides help and assistance to poor rural communities. It was an amazing week, I blogged about the trip but never returned to this rough draft.