Chasing Sunsets

Many of us often end up receiving a fair share of sunrises and sunsets by the sea in the tumultuous span of their lives. Whether we utilize these simple yet grand spectacles, whether we remember these magical moments in time, whether we are grateful enough to look back and smile -  are all very important questions. In those swirling colors that find new expressions in an expansive sky reflected on an immersive sea, lie calming, meditative seconds that can prise open an awakening - a sartori -  in almost anyone. There’s something magical indeed - pastel soft tones draping the end of one chapter, and ushering in a new one - a sunrise yin in bright sunny days and a sunset yang in dark brooding nights.

But with age, I have felt preferring sunsets over sunrises. Perhaps, as we grow old, we tend to take refuge in the soothing comfort of the dark when we can choose to be ourselves freely, finding the shimmers of daylight too incandescent or too demanding. A sunset then feels like the closure of that exhaustion, the night as if embracing us in all its sultry sombreness. 

Living today on the eastern coast of a continent, I find myself flooded with sunrises on the brilliant blues of the Pacific. A sunset on the waters is a rarity. (The aboriginals, spiritually far ahead of their times, would mark any such location that reflected the sunset colours on the eastern coast as a place of utmost sacrosanctity, respecting it as a gathering point for blessed occasions). Indeed, it is hard to come by these places around my city today. But there was a time when not long ago - life was all about sunsets. Privileged to wander along the western Konkan coast of India, I had with a few friends, drank to the brim the benevolence of the setting sun, wedged like a slice of deep juicy orange on a goblet sea of Arabian blue. Life was all about chasing sunsets on a new sandy stretch every other weekend. Yes, life was gruelling with long hours of work and that perennial sense of lingering uncertainty, but as I said before, there is value in remembering magic and feeling grateful about it. That made a lot of positive difference. In a few weekends of travel, we had realised that farther north from Mumbai, the beaches were darker and less picturesque. But the quality of the beaches (and the supporting infrastructure) was far more evocative in the proverbial south - the farther, the better. As the saying goes, it is always less crowded on the extra mile. You didn’t have to get that far, mind you - just beyond Navi Mumbai and Uran lied one sandy crescent after another, full of sandy weekend fun that transcended the coarse volcanic sand and often muddy waters. Yes, the beaches were not talcum powder ones with transparent turquoise waters. But sometimes, the purpose of the sea is not to splash you physically without, but to immerse you metaphysically within. And so we would wander, from the nearby more popular ones a la Kihim and Alibaug to the more distant and lesser known ones - Srivardhan, Harnai, Murud and Guhagar. If Harihareshwar and Ganapatipule were sacral pilgrimages, Korlai, Jaigad, Janjira and Sindhudurg were forgotten lessons of history etched in basalt fortresses from the times of the Portuguese, the Marathas and the Abyssinians. And almost every journey would summit with a bedazzling sunset, silencing a tired yet garrulous group, each of whom would, for those few moments, be urged into a mood of self introspection.

One of my best recollections from that era is of our trip to Harihareshwar. It was one of our first experiences on the Konkan in winter. The Monsoons were all spent swooning on the emerald ghats, another first and when the winter sun came out of the redeeming rains, we decided to chase sunsets instead of the clouds. But even before we reached Harihareshwar, we made a pit stop in the nearby village of Diveagar.  Lunch and a visit to its famous Ganesh temple done, we headed back when our curious cab driver Sunil, asked us if we had bothered to check the beach behind the temple. Busy to check the Tripadvisor-ed Harihareshwar, I asked if we should rather rush to our destination. Rest assured, he smiled, he would definitely take us there, but we should at least take a look around. Silently, without words, Sunil reminded us that the journey was more important. As if to reinforce his lessons, and to stoke our curiosity with beginner’s luck, that beach in Diveagar proved to be the best on the Konkan I would have visited in years. Serendipity Beach is what I would call it thereafter. Slate coloured sands stretching away for miles, coconut forests swaying in parallel to the coastline, some unexpectedly transparent waters swarming with sea-life, and just the perfect number of travellers balancing touristy energy with solitude  - it was one of my best memories. We spent almost all our day there, until the sun began to set and we had to rush to our actual destination. When we reached Harihareshwar, it was twilight time - bringing in that urge to just listen to the lulling waves, and watching the last wash of red in the sky turn to blue as specks of yellow light began to light up in the nearby village. It was Christmas Eve. On a Saturday. And confined in the comfort of close friends, the memories couldn’t get better.

‘I wish we could have done this the next week - mesmerising ourselves with such a sunset on New Year’s eve instead!’ I asked.

‘What’s stopping us?’ my friends echoed. And a smile lit up on our faces - the one that comes up when you know a good holiday is over, but there’s another long weekend at the corner. And the next weekend, we were back on the road. Rather on the beach, this time further south on the way to Ganapatipule, closing the year in style, as grandly as the western sky was flamed in crimson.

We returned, many a time thereafter exploring far and near, going further south until we reached the extreme south of Maharashtra in Tarkarli before entering hallowed grounds in Goa. A lot of memories linger on - walking on expansive empty beaches, their wet sands shimmering with twilight, sometimes as close as in Nagaon, at others, faraway near Arambol. Sometimes, these ruddy colours would get framed in medieval ruins, such as in Cabo de Rama or in Jaigarh. Sometimes we would end up stumbling on near-virgin beaches, pristine, desolate, left to yourself as a trophy for pushing your boundaries and seeking to go farther away such as in Ganeshgule. Each of us, no matter how ridiculous in the day, would turn a deep philosopher, in the setting sun, wondering, thinking, brooding, pondering perhaps what’s next, and getting no answers, smiling ever so slightly on the realisation that there was the ‘now’, still full of colours, even if the sun had set.

Perhaps we kept chasing the sunset because deep within, we all wanted that bit of overwhelmia at dusk - to remind ourselves that no matter how hectic and uncertain everyday life could be, they would all be reduced to insignificance in the face of an overwhelming sunset on an endless stretch of sand, normalising life, and more importantly our expectations from its everydays. I cannot say if we all became wiser - but the fact that we drank life to its lees then, and look back with a smile even today is testimony to the fact that those were remarkable times indeed, influencing us perhaps even today through the tendrils of time. Even today, if I happen to catch A glowing sunset by the sea - on a delta, at a busy touristy stop or a remote Pacific Island, I get reminded of those evenings at Harihareshwar, Diveagar and Ganapatipule and I smile to myself as if I am still living those times. 

As I said at the start, many of us often end up receiving a fair share of sunrises and sunsets by the sea. If we do, then let us accept that we are privileged with an intangible largesse of our beautiful world. Let us then keep chasing these sunsets and remember to not ignore these solemn moments. More importantly, let us feel grateful for these dusky colours in our greyed out lives, and remember to drink from their pool of rejuvenation. that remind us that the lights can linger on, even after we think the sun has set…

8th December’ 2021