As i continued walking along the shore, I was singing aloud "Adadaa mazhaidaa adai mazhaidaa, Azhagaa sirichaa puyal mazhaidaa" and few more songs related to rain. Is that a turtle!!! I asked myself on sighting a turtle-like structure moving to and fro with the flow of waves in the heavy rain. I remember reading an article about Olive Ridley Sea Turtles who come to the shores of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh during the end of Monsoon season to lay eggs. With the excitement of seeing a turtle laying eggs, I dropped my bag, took off my shoes and started crawling in four legs slowly towards the turtle. As the distance decreased, I was able to notice that it was not swimming but floating on the surface of the sea. The rain stopped and the sun emerged victoriously over the pale and exhausted clouds. As I was standing there and looking at the nylon fishnet which was strangled around the neck of the poor turtle, I heard a sympathetic voice saying "ethana vatti sonnaalum ivanunga ketka ve matranga, ipadiayae panitu iruntha ivangala oru naal police la pidichu kuduthuda vendiyathu than". As I turned and looked around, I saw an old lady carrying a flower basket over her head, wearing an old saree. One could never predict her age by her loud tone and facial wrinkles as it was contradictory to one another.
Out of curiosity, I asked her "Enna acchi intha aamaiku". She unloaded her flower basket, kept it on the shore and walked towards the dead turtle. "Inga vanthu itha pidi, na solran" she told. I removed my backpack, left it near her basket and walked into the ocean. With great difficulty, we managed to drag the dead turtle towards the shore. We washed our hands in the beach water and sat near her flower basket. After sympathetically looking at the dead turtle for a while, she spoke "meen Valai la aamai maatina antha meenavan kudumbathuku ethavathu ayidum nu epovo evano solli vechitu poitan, atha keta aalunga eppo valaila aamai matinaalum, aamaiya kaapathaama valaya aruthu vituduvanunga. Pavom mutta ida karaiku vara aamainga" and a drop of tear rolled down her eye. Vidunga paati, naama enna panna mudiyum, I asked. She stood up furiously, positioned the flower basket in her hip and walked away without speaking a word. I sat there watching the turtle cluelessly and wondering what to do next…
To be continued...
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