Mission Marina Beach

Most of our Saturday evening’s in Chennai had a set pattern. Chilling out at the Besantnagar Beach with Dev & Kunal. Some days my buddy Rahul would join, other days he would be busy on the phone or with his female friends (just good friends off course). Aki used to join some days as well, unless he was too drunk or planning to go for some drinking party with his college or project buddies. Sometimes Aki would also bring along his roommate Shankar. But Dev & Kunal were the folks I could always count on. They were teetotalers like me, so no question of being drunk or having parties. Dev was too decent and Kunal was too disgusting to have girl friends or even just good female friends. So sitting in the beach, enjoying the cool breeze & looking at the waves was our surest form of entertainment on Saturday evenings. Mostly, almost routinely, Kunal used to remind us that the Marina beach is better and we should go there some day. And every time Dev used to shut him up saying either he has to organize a trip there, or just shut up and enjoy the Besantnagar Beach. One such evening, Aki was present as well, and he rose up to the occasion. He mentioned he has been to the Marina Beach, and knows which bus routes to take. So Aki volunteered to be our guide, I chalked up a date for the expedition. Meanwhile Dev & Kunal got into their fight over whether to play beach volley ball or beach football at the beach. Finally Aki resolved the crisis by reminding us we had neither a volley ball nor a football. He urged them to go to a sports store and sort it out.

Soon, the eventful day came. It was a typical December Morning in Chennai, I gathered at Akash’s place around 6:20 am in the morning. Our plan was to reach there by 6:45 so that Dev could catch a last glimpse of the sunrise and also Kunal would not have to wait too long for the snack stalls which used to open up around 7:30 am. Not to forget Chennai’s weather is hot in december,(though not hotter or hottest) so we didn’t have any intentions of staying beyond 8:30. The key challenge was to ensure our guide Aki woke up and got ready in time. As I entered Aki’s apartment I saw the worst which we had feared – Aki was still asleep in his bed.

“Why the hell is he still sleeping? why didn’t you guys wake him?” I demanded.

Kunal responded “I am already stressed out by waking up so early. Cant take the stress of waking him up again”.

I looked at Dev. “I already woke him up last two lunch days, so clearly its not my turn today” he declared.

We had barely 5 minutes to ensure Aki got up in order to meet our 6:45 am Marina beach target. So I decided to be the brave volunteer. I went to the bedroom, and saw Akash still sleeping under his blanket. I shook Aki vigorously, but the result got myself shaken as well. It was Akash’s roommate Shankar that emerged from the blanket.

He grinned at me “Is it 6 already? We need to get going man…. The Marina Beach awaits us”.

I had to ask “why are you sleeping here, disguised like Aki?”

Shankar clarified “I was working on an issue at office and I came home very late last night. I saw Aki sleeping in my bed. It was a holiday, Aki was out partying somewhere from the afternoon, and must have been too drunk to realize which is his bed”.

I understood somewhat “and so after a long hard day at office, you were not in a mood to face the perils of waking Aki, so you just slept on his bed?” Shankar seemed offended “not that, I didn’t want to disturb his sleep. He is our guide, how can we reach the beach if he is not properly rested?”

It was getting late, we had to wake up Aki. Fortunately for me, I had an excuse not to do it myself. “ It was my turn to do the waking, and I have woken up Shankar” I declared “It is not my fault if they exchanged their beds. Someone else has to wake up Aki now”.

We just realized Kunal missing again and then heard Kunal’s voice coming from behind the closed toilet door. “ I would have loved to wake him up, but I just couldn’t control the early morning pressure….”.

Dev wasn’t amused, “You always manage to escape to the toilet, I will be happy to wait here till you come out”.

Kunal bellowed back “don’t be a fool, you are wasting precious time standing here. It will become too hot there if we go late, and also you will miss the last glimpse of your sunrise”.

Dev was really keen to see the sunrise so he hurried into the bedroom now. After some pushing and prodding he was able to inject some movement to the blanket clad figure sleeping on Shankar’s bed. And behold! From the depths of Shankar’s bedding, instead of Akash, emerged a turban wearing Sikh guy, completely unknown to us. Dev & I looked at Shankar to get any clue of a mutual friendship or acquaintance, but there was none. Even the Sikh guy looked a bit confused seeing so many strangers around him.

But finally he gained his composure, “I am happy” he declared.

Dev was quick to reciprocate. “I am happy as well” he confessed with a broad grin “if it was not you, by now Aki would have cursed my forefathers to endless suffering for waking him up so early on a holiday”.

But Shankar wasn’t amused “Well, it is true we are happy to have your esteemed presence in our apartment, but the word surprised would be a more accurate description than the word happy to describe our moods” he said. “after all, its not a common experience for me to wake up and find a complete stranger sleeping on my bed inside my bedroom”.

The Sikh guy gave a broad smile “Oye yaar, you guys misunderstood me, I am happy. That’s what I am trying to tell you”.

Shankar was starting to lose his temper “I really don’t care whether you are happy or sad, all I care to know is who you are and what brings you here”.

The Sikh guy sounded disappointed “Oye yaaar, I am trying to introduce myself from the beginning. I am Happy, Happy Singh from Chandigarh. Harpinder Singh Dhillon, in short friends call me Happy Singh. Your friend Akash brought me here last night”.  

By this time Kunal was inside the room. He was curious as usual “Are you the lunch guest today? Did Akash change the Marina beach plan?”
Dev cut him short “No, we are going there. This is Akash’s friend, Happy Singh”.

Kunal had to get everything clarified though. “are you a programmer” he asked?

Happy replied “No”.

Dev said “must be a tester?”

Happy replied again “No”.

I asked “production support?”

Happy replied happily “No”.

Shankar couldn’t control himself “So what kind of a software engineer are you?”

“Oye I am not an engineer, I am a farmer. Our family is into farming for generations” explained Happy.
Kunal hurled the next obvious question “how come a farmer from Punjab befriend Akash at Chennai?”

Happy soon explained the details. They met at a pub last night. Happy saw Akash doing a competition of finishing a beer bottle at one gulp (the traditional “bottoms up” challenge). Being a master of the “Bottoms up” himself, he couldn’t restrain himself from challenging Akash. It was not clear who won the challenge, both were pretty drunk that time. But it was clear they won each others respect and friendship.

Kunal wasn’t fully convinced though.

“I am still not clear on what were you doing in a Chennai Pub in the first place. I am sure there are many good pubs in Chandigarh itself if you wanted to party…”.

Happy Singh looked a bit gloomy. “Oye yaar, I wasn’t partying. In fact I am not at all happy …” he started to say. 

Kunal jumped at this. “aha! So you were lying, you are not Happy. Who are you?”

Now Happy Singh also looked frustrated “Oye yaar I have been telling since last half hour I am Happy Singh. My name is Happy, but my mood is very sad for last 2 weeks”.

Then he told us his story. His grandparents were doing a pilgrimage tour of south India, when his grandfather suddenly fell ill. He was rushed to the Apollo hospital. Happy and all other family members also gathered there. Happy was planning to propose marriage to his girl friend, but unfortunately grand father’s health issue caused him to leave town. Finally after about 12 days of treatment his grandfather recovered enough to travel back from Chennai to Chandigarh. Happy was also happy at the thought of going back to his hometown and complete the proposal of marriage. Unfortunately the extended family didn’t get enough tickets in the same train. So Happy’s grand parents, parents & uncles left together on the previous morning. Happy along with his cousin’s family and his sister were supposed to catch another train next afternoon. Thus Happy was feeling less and less happy. His cousin’s wife hailed from a Christian family, so they decided to take a small tour to the historic heritage town of Velankanni which had a famous Roman Catholic Church. Happy was tasked with dropping his grand parents, parents & uncles  at the station, and the Chennai traffic caused him so much delay he missed the bus to Velankanni. Thus, his morale was completely lost. He was alone in an unknown city, with all his luggage gone with his cousins. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to rent another hotel room, and he figured out a cheaper option will be spending the night drinking in a pub than renting a hotel room. He also had heard of the Marina beach, and thus he planned to go there straight from the pub to sober up and witness the famous sunrise at the Marina beach. He had shared his tragic story with Aki and Aki, being the kind hearted and helping guy he is, offered him a shelter for the night and also a guided tour to the Marina Beach. Thus they ended up in Aki’s apartment.

He ended his speech saying “Aki asked me to sleep here. He told me his roommate is some kind of OPS team who works all night and wont be back soon. I didn’t understand what OPS means but I figured he must be some kind of a night guard who works at night. So I slept here”.

 

We could see Shankar turning red in anger. A senior OPS lead at offshore being compared with a night guard! Dev was trying his best to pacify him. Kunal was somewhat convinced by Happy’s statement. He declared that all is well, we have solved the mystery of Happy’s presence. Also now we have a group of 6, the perfect number to fit into 2 autos. Shankar grunted and reminded him that we still had the small matter of identifying the location of Aki, and what state he was in, considering our whole trip was dependent on his navigation.

Dev tried calling him on his mobile. The call went like this…“Hi Aki…”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing much, wanted to understand where you are….”

“I am outside.” And the line was disconnected.

Dev sighed “all is well, he is well, and he is outside”

Shankar flared up “All is not well! we need to know why is he outside and with whom! Is he outside going to the beach or has he already reached there? Did he ditch us all and go there with someone else?”

Dev said “I don’t know”.

“Call him again” barked Shankar.

Dev called again, and then with a shrug mentioned “he switched off the phone”.

Kunal suggested “may be he went with some close buddy?”

Shankar growled “I am his college buddy, here Govind is his project buddy, Happy is a drinking buddy, and you two are good-for-nothing buddies… what other kind of buddy does he need?”

I had a suspicion “May be some female buddy?” Shankar gave a sigh and fell back to the bed.

Happy looked more unhappy. “oye yaar, nothing is going right for me. I missed the chance to propose, I missed the chance to spend Christmas evening with her, I missed the bus to Velankanni, and now I missed the sunrise at Marina beach! I wonder if anything good is going to happen in my life…” and with that he also eased himself back to the bed.

Dev was silent. He was the sensitive type guy, and clearly shattered at being called as good for nothing and also missing the sunrise at Marina beach. The sun was pretty high in the sky by now, and we were feeling quite low. Kunal suggested we cook maggie noodles to improve our spirits. As we started the cooking, the balcony door opened and Akash stepped into the apartment from the balcony.

He staggered to the bedroom, asked us “why didn’t you guys wake me?” and pushed shankar from the bed to the floor and took up his spot.

Shankar was furious “we tried to wake you.. we just didn’t know where you were”.

Aki dismissed him “Shut up, I told Dev I was outside still you didn’t come outside to the balcony.”

 

 

The next 10 minutes went very fast. We all were cursing Aki and his drinking habits. Dev & Kunal added how harmful was alcohol for health. I also reminded him it was harmful for career growth incase it caused him to reach office late or miss planned meetings. And then I got a call from Rahul. Rahul had gone to his hometown for Christmas holiday. I wanted to show him that I am not at all bored, sitting alone in Chennai. I had given him a big hype about how much we are going to enjoy in our beach outing. I had told him a big group of guys and girls are gathering for an all day fun event. I was sure Rahul was jealous and called to find out what's going on. I wanted to keep him jealous.

I told him “Dude we are having so much fun here, I cant talk much now. Let me call back later.”

Rahul shouted back “Are you sure you are having fun at the Marina beach, and not sleeping at home and bluffing me?”

“nope, why should I bluff you?” I tried to be as confident as possible.

“that’s because there is some kind of coastal storm or something like that going on I heard. Huge waves and lot of damage. So please tell me its you and not your ghost I am talking with”

I had to sound confident “well it is me. we actually were having a huge party as we are on our way to go the beach. So what is this storm you were talking about? Is it too strong?”

Rahul sounded assured “ok, so it seems you lazybones didn’t step out of the apartment yet. Put the TV or Radio on, listen to the news and stay away from beaches”.

I put the TV on and told the gang about my conversation with Rahul. Happy gave a shout “Oye yaar, everyone from my family were texting me for last 30 minutes and asking if I am ok. I wasn’t sure how they knew I drank all night at a pub. Now I got it, they were concerned about the storm, and not the drinking” he said happily.

 

 

Slowly we all started getting calls from our families and friends across the country. And the news channels were covering the story as well. It was not an ordinary storm we learnt. There was an earthquake (measuring 9.1 on Richter scale) which occurred in the basin of the Indian Ocean causing a ‘Tsunami’. The first wave of Tsunami hit Chennai around 7:30 am. A 12-15 feet high wall of water rose from the Bay of Bengal, smashed its way into the cities through the coastal areas, sweeping whatever lay in its path. Chennai itself had 131 casualties and overall 12,000 casualties in India. Mostly the fishermen in coastal hamlets and early morning sea beach visitors were the worst affected.

As we sat grimly, listening to the news of the tragedy, Aki spoke.

“So Kunal, you guys were saying alcohol is injurious to health, eh? I can see at least 6 lives inside this apartment which are still alive because of alcohol. Without alcohol, we all would have reached the Marina beach around 7:00 or 7:15 in the morning, and would have been hit by that 12 feet wall of water shortly.”

We all were silent. We didn’t know how to counter this logic. Happy was shattered, his cousin’s family and sister were at Velankanni, and that town was one of the worst hit in Chennai. Around 600 visitors and pilgrims were washed away, 200 of the casualties couldn’t even be identified. He feared for the worst.

He started sobbing “all these days I was complaining that nothing good happens to me. By God’s grace my grand father regained his health, I missed the bus which would have carried me to the deadly Tsunami in Velankanni. And Akash saved me from the Tsunami for the 2^nd time by bringing me here, else I would have been at the Marina beach this morning. I will never lose faith in God” he went on sobbing, and hoping that some miracle bring his sister & his cousins back.

 

We all were shaken, we didn’t know how to console him. Not just we, the whole country was shaken, the whole world was shaken by the devastation. The Tsunami impacted 14 different countries where 230,000 lives were lost along with huge damage in property and agricultural lands. The day started as a planned fun day gone wrong for us, by noon the day became an international tragedy.  Thus concluded our planned mission of the Marina beach, and we never had the spirit or will to visit it , even in the future months we spent at Chennai.