Poetry at the beach...

It is unbelievable that a year has now passed since the trip.
We had submitted the last of our assignments and had a month’s time before we received our degrees at the convocation. I had therefore nothing to do but even then, I was hesitant to agree when Swathi suggested that I should go to Goa with her and Sita and their friends.
I had never been on a holiday without my parents, I had woefully small sum of money in my bank account and I was rather ashamed of asking Ma to send me more money, I did not think too highly of Goa as a holiday destination, crowded and noisy as it would be-I had myriad of reasons for being unwilling to go to Goa. Moreover, there was one reason that I was scared of admitting even myself but which I knew was the main cause of my reluctance-for four long days, I had to be with people and talk to them! I must have bitten my nails for several nights, while wondering if I could tell Swathi and Sita that I did not wish to go with them, because I was unsure if I would want to be with them on all four days…
I eventually did go to Goa last spring. We had stayed at the Baga beach and traveled throughout north Goa in motor bikes; I have vivid memories of the hot mornings when we mostly went sightseeing to forts and churches and of cool, breezy nights when we sat in the beach till mid-night at least. I would invariably be uncomfortable for a while, each night at the beach because I could join my friends neither in drinking nor in their desultory conversations. But soon, I would cease to be self-conscious as with every passing hour, despite the presence of rowdy crowds in the beach, the sea would become increasing beautiful and mysterious. I would watch the silver slivers of the moon on crest of the waves and the distant trees and hillocks, silhouetted against the inky blue curtain of the night sky. In those moments, I intensely yearned that I had the talent for composing verses because I could have captured my impressions of those nights, along with all the ardour, exhilaration and wonder that I felt. Years later, I only had to read them and they would have, as powerful as incantations since they would have been, transported me back to the nights at the Baga beach. Convinced that no photograph could ever be half as effective, I did attempt to create unfading memories for myself at the beach by trying to write poetry but every time, I would give up mid-way, as none of the lines I wrote ever sounded half as beautiful as I felt I and the beach were, then.
A year has passed since then. Except for Sita and Swathi, I have not met or spoken to any of the other people who went on that trip. I have not ridden a bike either-it was in Goa that I last rode pillion behind Sita. I have not been to a flea market again. And, I have never felt so beautiful again.