The beach lets you be you

I came to Chennai from Pondicherry in 1999. One of the things I was excited about when I came to the city was the Marina beach. I’ve heard so much about it and thought I’d get to go there as often as I visited the Rock beach when I was in Pondy. But, I lost access to the beach after coming to Chennai. To get to the beach, we had to take a back-breaking bus ride that lasted two hours in traffic. Until 2015, I would’ve visited the beach maybe four times. And, I didn’t see the Besant Nagar beach until 2009.

But, getting a car changed it all. After getting my car in 2016, I visited the beach almost every weekend. For a brief period in my life, the only weekend plan I had was to visit the beach, stop at a restaurant on the way back and have a hot plate of Pongal-vada for breakfast, come back home and sleep until I was hungry again. Beach visits made my weekends more pleasant.

When I got married, I was drawn towards Rock beach once again as my wife is from Pondy. Every time I visit my in-laws, I wake up early in the morning and go sit at Rock beach, reminiscing my childhood.

One of the things I love about beaches is nobody judges what you do at the beach. You can dig a huge hole in the shore. Build a sandcastle. Chase crabs. Run backward from the incoming waves. Do sirasasana. Join random strangers and laugh your lungs out. Or even walk upside-down!

The beach lets you be you.

For some reason, the society that judges your every move ignores you at the beach. The beach is a judgment-free zone.

I once went to a beach party where a fluorescent board at the open bar said, “Life is a beach”. I thought, ‘Life is like a beach. It is beautiful, calming despite the crashing waves of constant sorrows and challenges, and you get to be yourself without worrying about what the others are thinking.’

But are we being ourselves?